The Sisterhood

The Sisterhood - Giving Ground 7" Single

The band name The Sisterhood was used by two bands.

The first were Wayne Hussey, Craig Adams and their colleagues. They recorded a few demos, played a session on BBC Radio One and a warm-up gig for a tour to the European Mainland as support act with The Cult. Meanwhile, Andrew Eldritch had taken measures.

In order to stop Adams and Hussey getting hold of the name for their band, Andrew Eldritch also put a band together under The Sisterhood name. His version of The Sisterhood released one single, Giving Ground, on 20 January 1986, the very day that Hussey's/Adam's band had their live debut in the UK at one of the regular Alice In Wonderland Monday nights in London (the above mentioned warm-up gig). The final concert of that version of "The Sisterhood" took place on 27 February 1986. From that day on, they gave the name up and went on as The Mission. Anyway, the next scheduled gig at Leeds Warehouse was cancelled.

All this was accompanied and orchestrated by an enormous fuss in the music press. Even nowadays, there are still discussions among the fanbase about events and proceedings around The Sisterhood time and again, for example here @The Heartland Forums, and likewise on the according Mission-Forums.

After the Giving Ground single, The Sisterhood (under Andrew Eldritch) released their one and only album Gift. All releases by The Sisterhood were written and produced by Andrew Eldritch (and co-produced by Lucas Fox. For contractual reasons, though, Andrew Eldritch was not allowed to sing or play on these recordings, as Warner still held him under contract.

It was commonly believed (and announced so in the press) that James Ray sang/spoke all of the lyrics instead, until Ray denied singing on The Sisterhood's version of Colours in an interview with the Heartland fan-site here. Ray confirmed as well in another interview that it was Lucas Fox, who did the vocals for Rain From Heaven.