Mike Tramp is about to release “Songs of White Lion Volume II” and we get the chance again for another in-depth conversation with him. Mike is an honest artist who follows his heart and as you will read below, that is exactly what he is doing once more with this new record which is highly recommended by yours truly!
Interview: Sakis Nikas
Rockpages.gr: Mike, let’s talk a little bit about the second volume of “Songs of White Lion”. First of all, when you recorded Volume I, there wasn’t any plan of coming up with a second part, right?
Mike Tramp: That’s correct.
Rockpages.gr: Did Frontiers come up with this suggestion due to the success of the first record?
Mike Tramp: No. The whole thing came from me. In many ways, when I did the first album, it was also for me…almost a need to hear how these songs would sound today. Even though I tried to keep them as original as possible but of course, now singing them as a man who’s 40 years older and who knows these songs as part of his own DNA. And when we took the songs to the live stage, I really started enjoying the songs for the first time, singing them again. And it was very clear when I looked at the audience that they wanted this to go on. I don’t even think we got very far into the first tour when Marcus and I already started selecting the songs that we would do again and planning them and how the second album would maybe in reality be a little bit more like an album and not a Greatest Hits like the first one, you know? Bringing in “Lights and Thunder”, “El Salvador”, “The Road to Valhalla”…songs that maybe people who only knew the hits have never heard before.
Rockpages.gr: Mike, I gotta tell you that I was cautious in the beginning –even for the first album- because those songs are burned in my DNA, you know…
Mike Tramp: Of course.
Rockpages.gr: I wrote in my review that the listener should not approach the songs as re-recordings but as “new” songs that Mike is revisiting them. Was this the frame of mind when you went into the studio?
Mike Tramp: Exactly. Well, to me, it’s a lot like the difference between the first Indiana Jones and the last one. He’s just been gone for 30 years. So when Indiana Jones comes back, he’s not as flexible anymore (laughs). He’s not able to do as many stunts, dangerous things. It’s going to be a different story.
Rockpages.gr: When I first listened to the album, sometimes I felt like I was listening to a solo album of yours. And “Lights and Thunder” might sound close to the original version but some of the other songs could have easily be on…let’s say “Second Time Around” or “Maybe Tomorrow”. What do you think?
Mike Tramp: Yeah, because it’s the same artist and your footprints really. With songs like “Farewell to You” or “The Road to Valhalla”, I feel that I’m the one in control of the songs. And back in 1984, when we recorded “The Road to Valhalla” or in 1990, when we recorded “Farewell to You”, the songs were in control of me. So now I go in and I mean, I could sing these songs standing on my hands, you know, reading a book. I mean, I know them so well. And I think that maybe many singers would say the same, but sometimes the problem with would going in and recording new songs is that you never get a chance to play them live, which is really the difference between the “Pride” album and the three other White Lion albums. When we recorded the “Pride” album, those songs had been part of White Lion’s live set for two or three years…so we knew those songs really, really well and I had sung them before, so I’m much more secure in those songs. And the total opposite of recording was with “Big Game”. I had just written those songs. I’d never explored those songs. First time I stand there with a microphone and the headphones on is when I sort of hear the song back and maybe I would want to change, but I don’t know. The different versions are options I have at that time that would already start once we would play live. And you start letting go and you start singing the songs a little different. And every night they’re a little different here and there. And you grow with the songs and that still happens today. I don’t go on stage and I mean, of course they’re close to the same, but I don’t sing “Wait” or “Broken Heart” exactly the same every night. I like to have that. And one at one of the people who really inspired me for that freedom was Phil Lynott. The way that he is able to move away from the beat of the band and flow back and front, but always be on the beat at the same time. It’s a very, very unique talent. Same thing with Springsteen. It’s a very unique thing.
Rockpages.gr: Now that you mentioned Phil Lynott, is “Southbound” still your all-time favorite song?
Mike Tramp: Of Thin Lizzy it certainly is. But it’s also because this is another song where Phil Lynott really show his sort of folk and country roots in that song. And that, of course, comes back to how I grew up…you visited my home, so you know (laughs)! I mean, you can’t run away from your DNA and where you come from.
Rockpages.gr: One other thing on the second volume of “Songs of White Lion” is the fact that Marcus (Nand) has done a phenomenal job. It’s almost impossible to recreate Vito Bratta’s work but I gotta tell you that Marcus has delivered the goods.
Mike Tramp: Yeah, I can tell you what. There’s a lot of great guitar players out in the world. They would never take on Vito Bratta and then play him in a different key, like Marcus has. And every night I stand there and I watch him play and he’s really great. And another thing also is that he really loves playing those songs because he has so much respect to Vito. And he’s also become really close friends with Vito and talks about the song. So it’s not like we’re going out there to, you know, to try and pretend” “let’s forget Vito”. We’re doing this totally honoring Vito with those parts and Marcus is trying his absolutely best every single night to perform them the best he could actually do. And that’s in the respect to Vito.
Rockpages.gr: I was watching the video of “Lady of the Valley” that you uploaded from the recent show in Copenhagen and I was absolutely blown away from his performance.
Mike Tramp: Yeah, that’s a big solo on “The Lady of the Valley”!
Rockpages.gr: The other day, I was listening to the first “Songs of White Lion” record and I was checking out the booklet with this fabulous photo of yours surrounded by books written by your favorite artists. In this time and age, with the short attention span, are the lyrics equally important to a song, at least in the way that they used to be?
Mike Tramp: No, I don’t think the young listener pays attention to anything…it’s just been sort of a friend on the way in the train or walk in the street and stuff like that. I mean, we were rock fans. We’re still rock fans. We went down to the record store. We waited for the album, we went home, we put it on the record player, we listen, and we fell in love with the songs. It became part of us. It will always be part of us. And these days, with the physical record buying audience becoming so little, to me, it’s even more important when somebody holds my new album…it has to feel like that they can hear an artist who wanted to do this album as an artistic thing and not because they had a contract with a record company with an obligation to deliver an album because I will never do that.
Rockpages.gr: Speaking of artistic freedom and I know that you always follow your heart when it comes down to writing a new record, I gotta ask you this: now that you have recorded those old White Lion songs, is there any chance of doing a new solo record based on pure hard rock music?
Mike Tramp: It’s a great question. My next solo album is basically almost ready (laughs). But I have said this before because when we’re going out playing these songs, we’re playing the catalog of White Lion and as you know the shows are called Mick Tramp’s White Lion. If I were to do a hard rock record, I couldn’t add the name White Lion in there. The reason why I’m out there playing live is because people want to hear the White Lion songs. So there’s a bit of conflict there. But then at the same time I have said that I do feel that I would want to explore a sort of hard rock progressive album, but being part of a band; it would have to be a collaboration to come up with a completely new song, a new sound. If I start the songs, it’ll become Mike Tramp. You know, if you would put me on “Mob Rules” or “Heaven and Hell” instead of Ronnie James Dio, it would have sound like Mike Tramp just like if Ronnie James Dio had recorded “Capricorn”, it would sound like Dio. It’s just one of those things. We are who we are. I can’t sing any other people’s songs. So if the possibility and the right musicians (were there) and it felt right…all of us wanting to do an album for the love of rock and roll I would definitely be up for that. And I know sort of the direction I would love to go with that, but it would require some very fresh blood and stuff like that and people that I would usually not work with and things like that. I mean, I would not be doing one of those things that some people call an all-star album, which some guy from this band appear as a guest performer…I don’t believe in that. I think it doesn’t feel honest and it just feels like somebody had asked somebody to bake a cake because somebody is going to buy the cake. For me, it would be to go in there and explore. You know, Vito and I, when we when we got to “Mane Attraction”…it wasn’t something we ever said in interviews, but we were slowly on our way, much more towards Journey or Kansas and Styx in the way we wanted to add a big keyboard sound so we could maybe go in there and also revisit what Deep Purple had been to rock and roll…including Rainbow to where that Hammond organ was such a big part of the music. Vito and I were on the way over. We didn’t want to become the next Ratt or the next Motley Crue. We just never got there because obviously the band broke up. So that’s where I would want to go. I mean, I would kind of want to be very progressive, but of course I would be adding my melodies to it and Mike Tramps’ part to the team, but not overtaking the band.
Rockpages.gr: You know what, Mike…that’s why “Mane Attraction” came out so great. It wasn’t only Richie Zito’s approach as a producer…
Mike Tramp: Of course not.
Rockpages.gr: It was this collaboration exactly between you and Vito with this almost progressive approach on the songs. That’s why I see you going down that road if you decide to record another hard rock album…
Mike Tramp: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the thing is, you mentioned before, you know, when the record company asks something, it’s one of the things that has never happened on the four White Lion albums. Vito and I wrote the songs and nobody affected those songs. Nobody had any influence on those songs and stuff like that. We wrote the songs that came naturally to us whenever we sat down and when we got to song number ten, we said, the album is completed! We wrote the songs like a book, chapter after chapter, which is also why there doesn’t exist any bonus tracks of White Lion.
Rockpages.gr: Mike, if I asked you back in 1983 that you would be talking after 40 years about…let’s say “El Salvador”…as a matter of fact, with a Greek journalist, would you believe it?
Mike Tramp: I wouldn’t even think I would be talking about White Lion. When I recorded “Capricorn” and I said “OK, now definitely there won’t be any more White Lion”! But I’ve discovered a lot that that’s just the way how things work and stuff like that. You know, the great thing about “El Salvador” is the first song I wrote in 1980 when I was living in Madrid. So that is my first step into hard rock. And when I met Vito in 1983 and we started writing stuff like that, I brought that song all out. And even though the original version on “Fight to Survive”, we’re a little bit more like Thin Lizzy with a different groove and stuff like that. But actually right now when I listen to how we’re playing “El Salvador” a little bit more tighter, I feel more like I’m hearing “Don’t Believe a Word” by Thin Lizzy.
