Rednex
Rednex is a Swedish musical group whose style is a mix of American country music and modern Eurodance, with their appearance and stage names taking inspiration from the American redneck stereotypes. The band originally consisted of the lead singer Mary Joe (Annika Ljungberg), alongside Bobby Sue (Kent Olander), Ken Tacky (Arne Arstrand), Billy Ray (Jonas Nilsson) and Mup (Patrick Edenberg). Pat Reiniz (Patrick Edenberg) also served as the band's producer. The band has gone through multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with none of the members having an uninterrupted tenure.
Rednex
- 1994–present
- Ace Ratclaw (Tor Penten)
- Spades (Jan Blumentrath)
- Pervis The Palergator (Christian Nakanishi)
- Zoe Duskin (Nika Karch)
- Jiggie McClagganahan (Yana Görisch)
- Moe Lester the Limp[1]
- Cash (Uwe Grunert)
- Boneduster Crock (Björn Scheffler)
- Rufus Jones
- Mup
- Misty Mae (Cecilia Karlsson)
- Whippy (Mia Nilö)
- Billy Ray (Jonas Nilsson)
- BB Stiff (Urban Landgren)
- Bobby Sue (Kent Olander)
- Dakotah (Nadja Flood)
- Mary Joe (Annika Ljungberg)
- Ken Tacky (Arne Arstrand)
- Dagger (Anders Sandberg, died 2024)
- Scarlet (Julie-Anne Tulley)
- Jens Sylsjö
- Anders Lundström
- Jay Lee (Jean-Paul Engeln)
- Joe Cagg (Roy van der Haagen)
- Abby Hick (Christine van de Ven)
- Rattler
- The Original Boneduster Crock (Jason Holler)
The group enjoyed success throughout the 1990s with novelty hits such as "Cotton Eye Joe", "Old Pop in an Oak", "The Spirit of the Hawk" and "Wish You Were Here", which often topped the charts in several European countries.
Band history[edit]
1994–1995: Formation and Sex & Violins[edit]
Rednex was initially the brainchild of Swedish producers Janne Ericsson, Örjan "Öban" Öberg, and Patrick Edenberg,[2] who decided to try mixing American country and folk with modern dance and pop music. The name "Rednex" was chosen as a deliberate misspelling of the word "rednecks". The band originally consisted of the lead singer Mary Joe (Annika Ljungberg), alongside Bobby Sue (Kent Olander), Ken Tacky (Arne Arstrand), Billy Ray (Jonas Nilsson) and Mup (Patrick Edenberg).
In 1994, Rednex reworked the traditional folk song "Cotton-Eyed Joe", retitled "Cotton Eye Joe", as a Eurodance track, which became an international hit single. Edenberg was soon replaced by BB Stiff (Urban Landgren) after the "Cotton Eye Joe" release. The group's debut studio album titled Sex & Violins followed, spawning several more hit singles including "Old Pop in an Oak" and the ballad "Wish You Were Here". However, "Cotton Eye Joe" remains the group's only U.S. hit as of 2022 (#25 on the Billboard charts in March 1995). Two more tracks of the album, "Wild 'N Free" and "Rolling Home", have been released and became moderate hits. A promotional one-off single, the Nicole cover version "Ein Bisschen Frieden", has been released and labeled as "Collo Rossi" for the release.
1996–1997: Departure of Ljungberg and Riding Alone[edit]
In 1996, Rednex were featured on the charity single "Children", as part of the supergroup "Hand in Hand for Children". Later female lead singer Ljungberg was fired, partly due to disagreements with the other band members,[3] and went on to pursue a solo career.[4] The rest of the band took a break from live performance and started working on new material.[5] In 1997, the remaining four men released one more single, "Riding Alone", out of Sex & Violins, two years after the previous release "Rolling Home". Arstrand started a side project that same year called Explode, a progressive power metal band, and released the debut studio album Live Forever in Sweden.[6]
1998–2000: Farm Out and controversial lineup changes[edit]
In autumn 1998, Whippy (Mia Löfgren) became the new female vocalist. They released their first single "The Way I Mate" in 1999. Soon after that release, Arstrand left the band, reducing the quintet to a quartet. The second studio album entitled Farm Out followed in 2000 and found some success in Europe, with the most successful single from the album, the second release "The Spirit of the Hawk", peaking #1 in the German Singles Chart. The album spawned a third and final single, the ballad "Hold Me for a While", which became a moderate success. In 2000, in the wake of Napster's rising presence in the music industry, co-founder Edenberg outlined a new strategy for Rednex. The group would become an entertainment group rather than just a band, so not to be solely dependent on record sales. As he presented this idea to the performers during the video shoot for "Hold Me For A While" in Kenya, he was met by great scepticism. Nilsson replied: "We will not become a goddamn circus act!". The aftermath of this conflict resulted in the whole band, all four members, Löfgren, Olander, Nilsson and Landgren, being replaced for the first time.[5]
2001–2004: The Best of the West and more lineup changes[edit]
As of January 2001, the group now consisted of the female lead singer Scarlet (Julie-Anne Tulley, formerly known as Jules Tulley from Dreamhouse) from England, alongside the three male members Dagger (Anders Sandberg) from Sweden, Joe Cagg (Roy van der Haagen) and Jay Lee (Jean-Paul Engeln) from the Netherlands. It was the first time the band were not all Swedish. In 2001, the single "The Chase", the first single out of their 2002 first compilation album The Best of the West, has been released and charted in Germany and Switzerland. In 2002, the second and final single out of the album, a reworked 2002 remix of "Cotton Eye Joe", was released and made the Top 30 in Austria. In 2003, the two Dutchmen van der Haagen and Engeln were replaced by Ace Ratclaw (Tor Penten) from Sweden and Boneduster Crock (Björn Scheffler) from Germany. In October 2004, Tulley resigned from the group due to exhaustion.
Other brand ventures[edit]
Spin-offs and franchises[edit]
In January 2012, Rednex announced that they had dissolved the concept of a permanent band, intending instead to use a larger pool of characters from which one female and three male performers would be chosen for each performance. Rednex claimed that this idea was "totally unproven and unheard of in the music industry".[12] In November 2012, Rednex began a franchise operation in Australia & New Zealand. Four new performers from Auckland and Wellington were recruited to form a second Rednex with a non exclusive license to perform in Australasia. Performers in the NZ/Australian lineup include: Rayanna Randy Payne (Theresa Murphy), Rawtooth Rick (Anthony Sibbald) and Slimboy (Pascal Roggen). A press release accompanying the franchise launch stated: "it's the first time an internationally known pop band has cloned itself".[16][31]