Ex-WHITE LION Singer MIKE TRAMP Is Celebrating His 50th Year As A Musician: 'Rock And Roll Does Not Have An Expiration Date'

In a new interview with Mike Hsu of 100 FM The Pike radio station, former WHITE LION singer Mike Tramp spoke about the fact that he has released around sixteen solo albums since the band's split three and a half decades ago. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's just one of those things that it's a long time since [WHITE LION's] 'Wait' and 'When The Children Cry' [singles] hit the airwaves. And the band broke up in '91. And it's a long time since '91, and I'm an active songwriter, artist, et cetera, et cetera. That's what I do. People that build houses build houses. So, yeah, I got a lot of albums out there. Of course, things changed along the way, and radio and MTV ended up changing, so when an artist from the '80s comes out with solo albums in 2000 and ongoing, not a lot of people in the world knows it. And so for many, many years, I ended up traveling from the corners of the world to the other corners of the world with a bag, with a suitcase full of CDs and T-shirts, and an acoustic guitar in my other hand, and just brought my music out there. It's just the way it is. It's sort of the movie with Jeff Bridges, '[Crazy] Heart'. It's just one of those — you don't stop because the platform that you used to depend on, it doesn't invite you in anymore. You gotta go on. I mean, I have [my] 50th anniversary this year [of being a musician], and it's what I've been doing for 50 years — rock and roll."

Asked if he thought, fifty years ago, that he would still be doing this five decades later, the 65-year-old Tramp said: "Well, when I walked into my first band at age 15 and a half, left high school without a diploma and moved out of my mom's little apartment was in '76. WHITE LION released 'Pride' 11 years later on. I traveled from Denmark through Europe, and eventually ended up in New York in 1982 and started WHITE LION at that time. And I think just basically from day to day, you just moved on without ever...

"I was at a concert the other day, and this young guy came up to me," Mike continued. "He was with his dad, and his dad recognized me. So, the kid came over there and asked, 'You got any advice for a young musician?' And I just went for a second and says, 'Oh, boy.' And I says, 'Don't put an expiration date.' Rock and roll does not have an expiration date. If you go in there and tell yourself that you have to make it within the first three and a half years, you're already toast. So when I went into it, I went into it as a one-way ticket that just would keep going forward, regardless of how many times I went in a circle. But no, I had no idea. I had no idea when somebody played [AC/DC's] 'It's A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll' in '76, that in 1988 I would be touring with AC/DC for three months. No, I didn't know anything. I just woke up every day and just started by saying, 'Okay, what's gonna happen today?'"

Tramp added: "When that's said and done, there was definitely a time during the '80s — we always refer to the '80s because it was the big days and it was very colorful, it was very loud, it was everywhere — that we maybe had lost a little bit of the thought that we actually were artists and not just sort of like jet fighter pilots at the speed of light. When the smoke comes down and you wake up and you're sitting in that room and there's silence and you start thinking — now this is, of course, a period over 10, 15 years that I ended up really thinking about it — you get back to the conclusion and the fact that you are an artist and this is what you do. Regardless if you're playing for five people or 50,000 people, you are basically doing the same. You might raise your hands and be on a bigger stage when you're in the bigger things, but you're still the same person. And when you don't have a record deal anymore and you're not selling a lot of T-shirts and so on, you're still an artist that sits with a guitar or a piano. And now these days we sit in our home studios and we just go… Before I started talking to you, I was thinking about, man, I just miss the thing about that at 4:00, I'm meeting the boys at the rehearsal room. We might start with a cold beer, and then we start playing some music and stuff like that. It doesn't exist anymore. I meet my band out there in the airport, and then we go on and we know the songs, and we go playing, and then we go home. And some mow the lawn, and somebody fixes a pipe and somebody don't know how to use a wrench, but all that great stuff that I call the chase was better than the catch is G-O-N-E. It's way gone. And that is the part I miss more. I don't miss not getting the platinum records. Of course, that doesn't mean that a little bit of more cash in the bank wouldn't hurt. But the chase was what it was all about for us, and I'm positive that I would be able to get most of my comrades in rock 'n' roll to say the same thing, because what we got now is not very special. We're just clinging on to something. I hit the stage and I wanna give the audience that came that night the best I can give, of course."

Joining Tramp in the current touring lineup of WHITE LION are guitarist Marcus Nand, bassist Jerry Best and drummer Troy Patrick Farrell.

"Songs Of White Lion - Vol. III", the third album in a series where Tramp reinterprets songs from WHITE LION, arrived last September via Frontiers Music Srl.

Mike released "Songs Of White Lion", in April 2023 via Frontiers Music Srl. "Songs Of White Lion - Vol. II" followed in August 2024.

Back in 2019, Tramp revealed in an interview that he had apologized to his former bandmate, guitarist Vito Bratta, for trying to resurrect his former band without his onetime songwriting partner and bandmate.

The Danish-born singer hasn't played with Bratta since WHITE LION performed its last concert in Boston in September 1991.

In the 35 years since WHITE LION broke up, Bratta's public profile has been virtually nonexistent, while Tramp has remained active, recording and touring as a solo artist and with the bands FREAK OF NATURE, THE ROCK 'N' ROLL CIRCUZ and, more recently, BAND OF BROTHERS. Tramp also attempted to revive WHITE LION with the 2008 album "Return Of The Pride", featuring new members. Two years later, Tramp ceded ownership of the name WHITE LION to Bratta in an out-of-court settlement.

Mainly active in the 1980s and early 1990s, WHITE LION released its debut album, "Fight To Survive", in 1985. The band had its breakthrough with the double-platinum-selling "Pride" album, which produced two Top 10 hits: "Wait" and "When The Children Cry". The band continued its success with the third album, "Big Game", which achieved gold status.

By the time WHITE LION released its final album, 1991's "Mane Attraction", alternative rock was in the ascendancy, leading to a swift decline of the so-called "hair metal" scene in terms of sales, popularity, radio play, and most importantly, relevance.