for 1989's "street ready" album, recorded in the bahamas, the band kept on beamish as producer but tapped german expatriate michael wagener for the mix. although the first single/video was the radio friendly semi-power ballad "hideaway", "street ready" saw the band take a step back toward their more metallic roots with songs such as opener "wicked ways", "too much", and especially the all-instrumental tour-de-force, "black knight". leatherwolf finally made their european live debut in the spring of 1989 with an appearance at the aardschokdag in the netherlands and opening slots for japan's vow wow and german metallers zed yago. the overall lack of label support began to take its toll on the band's inner workings and drummer dean roberts was eventually ousted in favor of marco forcone (ex-enticier). roberts joined the rod squad, led by former knightmare ii vocalist dennis "the rod" carlock, with whom he recorded the "body heater" 7" in 1990. even bigger changes lay ahead as leatherwolf dropped their trademark style in favor of a grunger hybrid approach and euro-style visuals. with patrick guyton (ex-enticier, aaronsrod) replacing paul carman on bass, the band had morphed into hail mary by 1992. however, success under the new moniker proved as elusive as ever as grunge rock was quickly becoming the new flavor of the month, causing leatherwolf/hail mary and many of their contemporaries to lose popularity. due to these circumstances, midway through recording their full length release as hail mary, the band would eventually call it quits in late 1993. leatherwolf was one of those few bands that historically many feel never got enough credit and has been ranked as one of the most underrated heavy rock bands of the 80's by fans. grand slamm records re-issued the self-titled leatherwolf debut on cd in 1991.