A lot of people asked why all of a sudden I would be a part of the danish AllStars show, after I have spent so many years out of country away from the spotlight in Denmark. I already decided in 1978 after the Danish song contest that I would never again participate in anything where music is a part of a competition...because music is a matter of opinion. We choose ourselves which pair of pants we put on and which cd we want to hear...that's the way things are.
As soon as you enter a competition you can feel it from the start. Music in competition isn't like sports. It's not about who's the best, but we are now 30 years later. It's a whole new experience for me now because now I'm going to stand on the other side of the stage...I've never tried being anywhere but center stage. And from this new spot you have the chance to judge the other music too.
To be able to put 20 people together and work with them on a project that isn't going to be on cd gives freedom. It will be a challenge. The hard thing is that when you come on tv, there's a bunch of rules and lines that can't be crossed and those kinds of things just don't exist in rock&roll. You give everything up and make your life rock&roll, but that attitude doesn't really exist in Denmark, therefore I chose to leave out into the world.
But now some years have past and the generation has come. The last 10-15 years have been over run by Idols, X-Factor and that kind of stuff. I will have the same feelings even if we get eliminated quickly from the show, but we are going in with the real rock attitude. We will perform the music that I am and live for and won't sell out for a tv show...then I can live with it.
It's not as big as being in the Danish song contest, and as soon as you don't get out of it what you expected that you regret it. There will be nothing I will regret with AllStars. I've also taken the step of being a bigger part of Denmark both in my private life and my music life, so it fits in perfectly.
There are many people that have told me that they don't think that I got the musical respect here in Denmark for the over 14 million cd's sold with White Lion and I do think that there's something with that. I have on the other hand gotten it later on, but it was just not a part of magazines, papers or tv but through the honor of standing among 120 choir members as one of 6 choir leaders because the musicians know the music I stand for.
But the thing I am more thankful for is the respect I got because I never gave up in the hard world and not the "now Mike Tramp is home and driving a big Ferrari through the streets". I've never acted that way. it's always been wrecked jeans, walking through Vesterbro's streets. There is no need for being recognized like some bands like Aqua and D-A-D, it's not what I'm about.
The thing that I think is important is that people know that I have taken the long hard road from the bottom, not that there should be a difference. I can see me sitting at a table have tea or a beer with Jesper Binzer from D-A-D and talking rock&Roll, but there seems to be some kind of barrier between us. I don't know if it may be that I am just a little more honest than most musicians. I come from Vesterbro, I have achieved everything and have lost everything, but there is nothing to be bitter over or have any regrets about.
I had nothing when I left and now I have a fantastic life with an awesome story and a pile of good friends and a love for music. I have grown and I can still se that there is room for more room to grow and that's something you don't find on X-Factor or in any song contest. You only get that from getting up on stage of the small clubs one after one and never give up.
The lyrics in white Lion were very deep and were about "apartheid" and politics. That was not normal in the 80's metal world. They were usually about sex, drugs and rock&roll. The reason for this was that I came from Denmark and grew up with no thank you to "nuclear power", "Bz's" and that stuff. Most kids and adults were very involved and aware of what was happening in the world and not just what was being told on TV.
I love the USA and for me it's still the coolest country that I miss a lot. I do know that I won't ever live there again because for me it's a chapter in my life that is finished. The American dream is very much about "I am me" and not really what problems are going on in the world.
When I got to the states and started writing with Vito Bratta at the end of 1982 where Dio, Iron Maiden and Def Leppard were also on their way up, I was still Mike Tramp from Vesterbro deep inside.
On Fight To Survive there's actually no resemblance to what Poison, Motley Crüe or Ratt sing about. I got some advice once where they said that I should never try to be anyone/anything that I'm really not or I support and could be proud of. Be completely sure that when you talk about stuff, that you can back it up. Later on I gave the same advice to bands I worked with in Denmark. " I said you sing about sunset Boulevard and The Whisky in LA and stuff....You've never been there man! If you're asked questions about it, you can't back it up, so if you want to use the Motley style then find something in your own background and do it. You don't have to use the words like Vesterbro or Frederiksberg in your lyrics but try to use something that you self have experienced and can back up."
I always felt that one day I was going to sit on Letterman's show, I had to be able to back everything up that I was saying because he does his research. Now I've never been there, but that was what I used to say to myself.
One day in Madrid in the Mabel times I met David Lee Roth and found out something funny. I went and thought that I was David Lee Roth, but now I've seen that I'm not David Lee Roth, because there's the real David Lee Roth standing in front of me and I was only half of him... I listened to what he said and he gave me advice. He said that I should go to the USA and play in clubs for 10 years and then see what will happen. And even though he lived "I'm bigger than the world" where for the most of it was true, I listened to him and shortly after moved over there.
When Mabel was going to play in L'amour Rock Club in New York in 1982 with Dreamer, that was Vito's band, we sat in the dressing room I really felt that I had come to the right place. There was a steady audience with about a 1000 people that all looked like they should be on stage. Mabel was there looking all "nice" so in comes Vito with his sunglasses and longer hair and really looked a lot cooler than us. He sat down an pulled out the guitar and started to play. Then I thought ok...we're here. He's there and that's where I need to be. I need to play with him. I knew that the guitar player in Mabel wasn't there, so I already started to take the step forward. The goal was always changing. You sit at home and think you play like Van Halen. Then you play with them and find out that you don't.
Little by little we got better and then came out and played with Kiss, AC/DC and Aerosmith and saw that White Lion got on the hit list and was being played on MTV all the time. The reality was that it was the popularity growing because we were out playing with bands just mentioned that had a long story, so it is irrelevant how many albums you sold yourself. And it was a huge deal to play with bands like them.
About all the talk about that I didn't want to play in Denmark with White Lion it's not true. We were never asked and there was no offers to play at Roskilde Festival or other places in Denmark. I never told my manager that I didn't want to play in Denmark. In 85' when Fight to Survive was released and everything started for us in Europe, Heavy Metal was not big in Denmark. It was first released in Japan and was imported to France, Italy, Germany and England. Our first European tour was arranged by our English agent. Sweden has always been a lot further than Denmark when we talk about heavy metal. On our first tour in Europe we played 2 sold out shows in Sweden. In Denmark there was a little group of people like my friends Ken Anthony and King Diamond that tried to bring it forward, but it was still not big in the middle of the 80's we could of course have played in Saltlageret or Saga, but it never came to be. We were very close in 1986 when we were on tour with Ace Frehley from Kiss. It was offered to play a European tour with Dio and KB Hallen was on the list. We said yes but unfortunately it was dropped and someone else got to tour with Dio.
A lot of people ask if I still feel like a Dane after more than 25 years living out of the country. Of course I do! And where I would have ended up if I was never in Mabel, I don't dare to think about. My problem was that I couldn't get the distance between Vesterbro and Stenl'se to work out. Eventhough I had a lot of free time and now could say that I could take the train home to Vesterbro and hang out with my brothers and play soccer with friends, but it almost never happened and all of a sudden Mabel was taking all my time and that was the way my life went.
Talking about a reunion with White Lion...It's never going to happen. White Lion has the same stories as so many other bands. We can't hold together and the only thing we have in common is the music. When White Lion split up in 1991 after a very successful European tour with The Mane Attraction record where we played some really big places we went back to the States. Vito and I were White Lion. We wrote all the songs and financed the band from the start. We earned more than the other 2 members in the band James Lomenzo and Greg D'Angelo, but it was fair because it was us that wrote hits like Wait, When the Children Cry and Little Fighter. It was us that sat and worked where others just came and played the songs. When Vito closed the door to them it was mostly his attitude. He didn't respect the way they saw the band. They made fun of the things here and there and took it as it came, where me and Vito were dead serious, because it was our baby. At the same time me and Vito weren't able to build a friendship that became stronger and stronger with time, but actually the opposite. he is actually the only one I've had it like that with and it's weird to think about now because I experienced the biggest things in my life with someone I can't even talk with now.
When we came back from Europe James LoMenzo and Greg D'Angelo were out and we got Tommy T-Bone Caradonna from Lita Ford and Jimmy De Grasso from Alice Cooper and went out on a little USA tour where we would see how it went. One day on tour me and Vito stood and were talking after a show and I said when we get to the 2nd of September I didn't want to continue anymore and he said ok.
It wasn't directly related to mine and Vito's relationship, but more about management and the record companies attitude towards things. They faught really hard to get us to do Broken Heart again, that was originally on our first album Fight to Survive. Vito and I could not understand why we should release that song again. We had written a lot of songs that were just as good and 80's hits on Mane Attraction, they just came 5 years too late.
Songs like Love Don't Come Easy and You're All I Need would have been just as big hits as Wait and When the Children Cry, if they had come at the right time. But they came too late. We could already feel it from the record company before the release, and that I didn't understand. How could a record company that at one point did everything for us, treat us so bad. Now it was just "next band". Our management didn't really stand behind us either. That's when I started talking with Oliver Steffensen in Denmark of the possibility of starting something else. I was actually already putting Freak of Nature together in my head. I wanted to get away from what white Lion had become. We weren't a team in the pratice room anymore that stick together. I wanted to go back to the Mabel attitude. Not musically but the brotherhood. We stuck together no matter what. No matter how many eggs and tomatoes you got the night before. We drove away from the gig making a new strategy for the next day. That's how it became with Freak of Nature, that already started a few days after White Lion broke up.
Oliver came over to me and we sat in my house in Santa Monica and wrote songs to what became Freak of Nature's debut album. Then a couple years went by with Freak of Nature and after we broke up I was asked by a record company from USA that had started up with bringing a part of the 80's back that many thought was cool if I'd make an album based on White Lion. It was a success for Whitesnake and Aerosmith, that came back strong, so when they contacted me I was definately turned on to the idea. Especially because with them there was big money in it and the money could be used to make a video with huge production and the real band members. They knew there was no chance of getting Vito again so they suggested that John Sykes and James LoMenzo should be a part of it. I got some demo money and went to Denmark, where I wrote some songs to start up with to see if I could come back and write like I did with White Lion. It ended up that the money was nothing like expected and neither John Sykes or James LoMenzo came in the band.
So I went i the studio in Denmark with Bjarne Holm from Mercyful Fate and had some good times. Now that album has been released 3 times with 3 different titles Remembering White Lion, The last Roar and Ultimate White Lion.
At the same time I was in New York because of the court case where I met with Vito Bratta for the first time since 1991. We had actually not spoken since that time he didn't want to meet with me. But because of the court case we were both there. so we sat and talked a little back and forth, but as soon as music was mentioned the door was closed. He was definately not interested in a reunion. Everything with Vito is unsafe. He simply doesn't dare. I know myself that I come from Vesterbro youthcenter where I sat with an acoustic guitar and entertained with old Kim Larsen songs.
It's very easy for me to go back to and I had also been around the world with Freak of Nature where I had to do all lighting and set the gear up. I know how it feels to stand on stage with 100's of helpers around me, but now can go into the fans and say hi without being torn apart. I've been through a bunch of stuff and have gotten White Lion out of the system, but Vito was not ready to move on. We don't hate each other, but we are not friends either.
Recently a friend asked me how I had it that I was seen as a big rock star in most of the world and won prices for best singer and best band for some years in a row at the New york music awards but in my homeland people know me as just that guy from Mabel and didn't believe that I could be anything when I went to the USA. My answer to him was that I sat and thought of Frank Sinatras song New York, New York, If you can make it here, you can make it everywhere and I tried to not become bitter over it. At the moment White Lion started to get big in the US in 1985 where we released Fight to Survive I began to forget everything else.
This is what's going on in the music business all the time today. You sue everyone, so there's a fight about who has the money to pay all the lawyers who just sit back and enjoy the easy money they can make on it. This has never been said before because you only hear the short version in the American media. We were going on a huge stadium tour with Poison in 2007 and everything was booked and material was printed. So along came Vito through his lawyers and contacted live nation that arranged the tour and said that White Lion couldn't be on the tour because Vito Bratta owned the name white Lion and he isn't with them. Within 24 hours I spoke to Vito and agreed that this lawsuit would be taken up when the tour was over, but it was already too late and we were off the tour. So we made a reserve tour where we played at Rocklahoma that is the biggest festival in the US for 80's metal, but it was a catastrofic tour and yet another let down. But we ended up in New York at L'amour where the whole thing started and where I met up with Vito again. It was over 8 years ago since I've seen him last and we sat at the same table and the conversation was about pretty much the same stuff...our disagreements about White Lion. He says that he can't understand that I'm doing this because he owns the name White Lion and my answer was fuck man, I'm a rock'n'roll musician and I own White Lion. And even when I don't own White Lion it still says White Lion when I play. For me it's not decided by a piece of paper because I'm the only one doing anything. I'm the only one doing interviews with White Lion and I'm the only one keeping it alive. I'm the only one playing the songs at concerts and the only one that record companies believe in when it has to do anything with White Lion. And everytime I asked if he would play a solo on one of my albums he didn't have time. He has no life. Vito is the kind of person that says that this is my side of the road and your not allowed to walk on it even though I'm not even there. It's on that level he's playing on. He's getting nothing out of this other than at some point he could possibly sit with a paper in his hand that says he owns White Lion.
After the release of Remembering White Lion I started some solo albums and released 5 in 6 years. There was some White Lion songs in here and there and when i went on tour in the USA it read White Lion in Concert and then Mike Tramp solo, so I had to explain to people why it was how it was. At the end of 2004 there was and opening to White Lion again and I said ok. At that time I was touring solo in Europe with 2-300 people with a danish band that drank too much and had no talent. It was what it was. It was Rock&Roll and it was the same old story you read time and time again. and then it came to me. Maybe it's time for a change. I put together a more serious band that I went to the USA and toured for 2 months with Enuff Z'Nuff. There we got a taste for how the raw American clubs had gotten, but had also left me with the thought of that it's going to continue like this. It was cool to get out and play some songs some nights and other nights it wasn't but I was inspired by it. So we came home again after some months and I called my bassist from denmark Claus Langeskov and he said he was contacted by one of our old roadies that asked if we would be a surprise guest at Bang your head festival in Germany on saturday and it was Tuesday when I was contacted. So I thought that it would be cool to play for a audience in a way, so we met up in Copenhagen and hopped in a van and drove to Berlin where on the way we talked about what we would play. The day after we flew to Berlin where the festival was and were checked into a sort of container because nobody could see us because we were the surprise band. When we went on stage we started with Hungry. it was cool that nobody knew we were coming so there was nobody that could think that now they were going to see White Lion without Vito. To see peoples reaction was like when you hear a cool song that you haven't heard in a real long time. At the same time we played really good together it got me thinking that if we could play at this level where fans were reacting like they were... it works. so we got a little excited, but at the same time I know when you see the DVD from that concert and I stand and announce that we're going on tour in the fall where we will make a live album the door would be closed to White Lion. It didn't end up that way and that tour never happened, but we did continue touring the next year where we played at Sweden Rock, Gods of Metal and some other shows and then it all started bit by bit to come together where people were asking about us agian. At that time I thought it looked real good and said yes to it all.
The difference between now and then in the 80's White Lion is that today I play 100% for the music and back then I played to make it and we didn't really know what "it" was. Now I've tried to be on top and at the bottom and now know how to get the bassist and drummer to play together and respect the songs a little more. I know that the sales and success for White Lion is what it is but I think if Vito and I went and recorded the songs again today we would change them some naturally. Personally I don't think you can compare sales with success. Especially when huge rock bands only sell 25000 albums, but it's the bands that get a second chance and can successfully tour with 30000 fans to each concert that are a success. I don't know any bands that can say that sales and success were one. Look at Guns N'Roses where they sell a whole lot, but they drive each other crazy because they don't have time to enjoy it. With White Lion we toured for almost 2 years in a row after Pride was released and only 2 weeks after the tour ended me and Vito sat in a hotel in Palm Springs and wrote songs for Big Game in only 2 weeks. The songs that was on Pride we had played for years and had already recorded them once in Germany in 1986 where we threw it out. After that we went to the practice room and re-wrote them. We worked on them for years before they were released. Songs like Little Fighter and Cry for Freedom from Big Game are cool songs that unfortunately never really got the chance to be improved because it had to go so fast. Go back and hear Guns N'Roses First Album Appetite for Destruction. It's the same. The songs had time to be perfected over a long time and that's why they were such a success. So in reality you should have a break where you can write new songs and have time to perfect them before they get released. Maybe in a couple years I'll play 5 shows in Europe where each night I play 1 White Lion album. I'll do it for the fans that want to hear it and have some enjoyable nights. The White Lion that released Return of the Pride last year isn't broken up even though our drummer is playing in Pretty Boy Floyd right now.
But right now I'm working on my solo album that will be released this or next year. the problem is that I want to play the songs a bunch of times before I realease them but it's hard when I'm living so many different places and don't have a steady band. I really want my solo album to sound like a band that plays together and not just studio musicians that record it within a week. Now I'm busy booking a tour in Denmark for the fall. I just want to get out and play as many places as possible. If it's cafés or whatever as long as I'm out playing, I'm a live musician on the inside. That tour will be with Mike Tramp songs and maybe a White Lion song stuck in here and there. There might even be a Guns N'Roses or Aerosmith song in there. I don't really enjoy White Lion songs with my solo because as soon as I play it, I have to play it differently. The guitarists I want with me while I play solo have to have a love for Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Black Crowes. The second you have and 80's guitarist in there, he's just waiting for a White Lion solo and I don't think White Lion belongs in a little club, but rather in a big stadium.
When we played in India for over 40000 people last year it made us realize how much of a diffference there is between small clubs and stadiums. When we played in India we released an album with a magazine shortly before that sold 100000 copies. When we played battle of Little Big Horn in a stadium with 42000 fans that all knew the song we got the feeling that White Lion was home here. The sound was perfect for places like Sweden Rock, Rocklahoma, Gods of Metal and Bang your Head. 80's rock doesn't fit in a little club where there's just a few uncles of the guys playing there... It's gotta be big to be cool. Already in 2003 where I had made the "Austrailian" White Lion, we played 5 huge stadium shows in Indonesia where there was up to 80000 fans in some of the places. The funny thing is that we had no idea that White Lion was so big in Indonesia and it actually didn't happen until 5 years after White Lion broke up. Till Death Do Us Part, When the Children Cry and You're all I need are almost bigger than their National anthem there. But in Indonesia there's no record sales because everything is copied. It's there too where I met my wife, and we've since had 2 kids.
The cool thing would be if we could play the big festivals with lots of fans to entertain. Another thing is, at festivals you don't play new songs but only the classics. Nobody goes to a festiival to hear 5 new songs. That's the "rule" for all bands. We were on tour with AC/DC with their Blow Up Your Video tour in 88' and there they played 1 new song. When you deliver 25 classic AC/DC songs, you can't really do any more. and that's what does that Parken gets sold out so fast. Everyone comes to hear the old hits.
I'm considering releasing a technical White Lion Album that sounds like the old albums. I know that Return of the Pride doesn't sound like the old White Lion because a lot happed in 20 years. Its a good rock album, but not a continuation of Pride. I also have the people ready to go in and make an album exactly like the old White Lion. It's some people that never really left the 80's rock, that I self have somewhat done with my solo albums. The idea is that it will be a project not at tour. There will only be studio musicians and not a real band. The songs will never be played live because the key will be a lot higher up than I sing live. The problem will be when I'm out playing afterwards and people shout out after "Hurricane over Copenhagen" that is one of the songs on the album...it just won't come. It's completely opposite from Freak of Nature where you hear live energy in the songs. We made everything live and wrote everything live, but we weren't going after sound then. We lived together for a year, so were always together. That was what I was looking for with White Lion but never got a friendship like I have with old friends from Vesterbro. When me and Vito were together it was only about White Lion.
We weren't White Lion out of the practice room or off stage even though we sat in a tour bus together we never talked and on our days off we were never together. I was weird that we could create music together. Vito was a loner. He's a guy that has lots of funny stuff to say, but he never really told the inner truth. I believe it's better to tell the truth from the start so after 10 years you don't have to go back and deny what you once had said. After we met in 2007 about the Poison tour that never happened I gave up on him. After i came back home he began to say that we were friends and that we should put all the problems behind us and share the rights to White Lion. The rights that I now have. After I thought about it for a couple days I thought that Vito never would even give a cup of coffee never mind 50% of something he made. So I decided to drop it an continue alone. Now he's busy suing me and I couldn't care less. I have nothing to lose. I'm a drifter with no home. If I lose the rights to call myself White Lion, I'll be the one out playing anyways as Mike Tramp. And if i release an album alone with the White Lion logo with an unknown address and unknown record company it's just to irritate him. The fans will still be there. I've tried everything to try to get him to do something by his own rules. He just had to say and, get it that way but he rejected everything time after time. I suggested that we could record it at his place and said we wouldn't tour with it. Tried everything without luck. The crazy thing with Vito is that he's never lived alone. He's never left his parents house and is still living there as a 48 year old.
My biggest idol, when i played with the original White Lion was Van Halen for the music and their guitar sound and Freddie Mercury who was a mixture of a cool frontman and an awesome voice and the best songwriter. Once when we played at Wembley with Motley Crüe and Skid Row I said in an interview that White Lion was a lot closer to the Beatles than we are to Motley Crüe or Skid Row. It wasn't a smart thing to say, but what I meant was that we used melodies as number 1. and the songs were based on our verses and chorus and that was what made White Lion what we were.
Sleazemetal.dk. 2100 Copenhagen. Denmark. info@sleazemetal.dk
