This is a full in bloom interview with Danger Danger bassist Bruno Ravel.
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DESCRIPTION:
Bruno talks about on his time in Michael Bolton’s Band, White Lion, and Talas.
Bruno Ravel Interview on Patreon
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Mike Tramp Talks Vito Bratta: “There will never be a White Lion reunion”
LISTEN TO THE STORY VIA THE EMBEDDED YOUTUBE CLIP BELOW. You can also access the video directly on our YouTube channel @ this location.
*full in bloom: And then with his (Vito Bratta) hand injury, is that all better to where he plays guitar and totally could play the old White Lion songs?
Mike Tramp:
Well, I can’t really confirm that. In the past, I’ve maybe been a little too quick on the trigger. I can’t speak for Vito, and I don’t have the right to speak for Vito. He has the right to do that. As I said earlier in the interview, there will never be a White Lion reunion. We are all under the assumption that we would not be a greater White Lion than we were, and those memories are much, much better just being left when we were together.
full in bloom: So, there’ll definitely never be a reunion with the two of you?
No, no that’s different. I’ll be there if Vito wants to do something together. It’s just not going to be called White Lion.
INTERVIEW EXCERPT
FULL INTERVIEW
One of my absolute favorite players from the ’80s – Vito Bratta!
I had the honor of touring with Vito in the late 80’s and he always impressed me. Night after night. One of the most consistent players I’ve ever seen. And he was always pleasant, complimentary and an absolute solid guy with a great sense of humor.
His tone was absolutely killer, and he wrote solos that were songs within a song. That’s the style of guitar “shredding” that I appreciate. It’s not about how many notes you play, it’s about what notes you choose to play.
Eddie knew that, Randy knew that, George knew that and Vito knew that.
Although you don’t hear about Vito much these days (and you may not even know who he is), go listen to his masterful playing/style on YouTube🙏
Whatever you’re doing in life Vito, know you left your mark on the music world. And that’s forever……..
This is a full in bloom interview with White Lion vocalist Mike Tramp.
YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW VIA THE EMBEDDED YOUTUBE CLIP BELOW. You can also access the video directly on YouTube.
PRE-ORDER MIKE TRAMP’S ‘SONGS OF WHITE LION’ ON AMAZON
Mike Tramp:
Forty years ago. Vito Bratta, came to the place I was living in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. On our first writing session, we stayed up all night and wrote Broken Heart and The Road To Valhalla and right there made our plans and started our journey. It was the day White Lion was born, forty years ago. Tramp!
Michael Sweet: Which 3 guitarists (who emerged in the ’80s) impressed me the most?
Based on tone, feel, technique and pure raw energy:
Randy Rhoads
George Lynch
Vito Bratta
Although there were many great guitarists throughout the ’80s, these 3 stood out and were on a whole different level IMO👊💪
One of my favorite players to come out of the ’80s (and overall) was and is Vito Bratta. I’ve always wanted to work with Vito and I’m still hoping and praying that it works out. We had a conversation a few years back and he was gracious and very complimentary. If he ever makes his way back to music again it would be an honor to work to do something together and I know we would create something absolutely amazing. Love & Respect to you Vito🙏💛
Guitar World: Vito Bratta reflects on the ‘80s, when White Lion were kings of the hard-rock jungle, and the guitar rulebook was being rewritten by Eddie Van Halen. You can read the entire Guitar World interview with Vito Bratta @ this location.
In the summer of 2018, Bratta went up into his attic, and for the first time since recording White Lion’s 1987 breakthrough sophomore album, Pride, brought down the case containing the remnants of the guitar he used to record that album: a sunburst 1979 Fender Strat modified Van Halen-style with one humbucker (Seymour Duncan JB), one volume knob and a Floyd Rose tremolo system.
The strings he used to record Pride were still on there. Alas, the guitar had seen better days. Foam inside the case had liquified from being up in a hot attic for decades. The Strat was his talisman since White Lion was coming up in rock clubs, including legendary Brooklyn hotspot L’Amour. “It’s ridiculous how I wore it out,” Bratta says of the Strat. “It was almost fretless. But I couldn’t afford a fret job, so I did the album with that guitar.”
On Pride, Bratta played the Strat through a Tube Screamer overdrive pedal and into an old 100-watt Marshall Super Lead, which he still has somewhere. After he finished his last guitar track for the album, he put the Strat back into its case.
“And I hear it pop,” Bratta recalls. “The wood shattered inside where the Floyd Rose connected. So, the guitar recorded Pride – and then it died in front of me. It just snapped. It was terrible.”
On Eddie Van Halen:
“After the first Van Halen record, he changed the way people play. He rewrote the book. I’m 16. Guess who was buying the book?”
On Leaving the Music Industry:
“I knew what decades mean to people. I know that the Sixties ended, and the Seventies came in, then the whole Eighties thing came in. So, I knew that was coming down the pipe.”
His father has passed and he’s now caring for his mother at home, as well as looking after another family member:
“And, of course, everybody out there is like, ‘Come on, you could do tours,’” Bratta says. “Put my mom in a home just so I could go on tour? I’m not gonna do that.”
You can read the entire Guitar World interview with Vito Bratta @ this location.
“For Første Gang” will be released on digital, LP (black and crystal vinyl, each limited to 500 units) via Target Records on September 2, 2022. All pre-ordered CDs and LPs via the Target Shop will be signed by Mike Tramp.
On the Album, Mike Tramp said:
There was no plan to do it, not on paper or a wish list. When someone would ask, “Will you ever do an album in Danish?” I would answer, “Yeah, maybe one day,” not giving it more thought, until that day unexpectedly came around. One of my best friends, who I’ve known all my life and also happens to be the author of my biography “Vagabond,” Lars Daneskov, one day sent me the lyrics to a song. In my entire career, I had never sung other people’s lyrics or written music to lyrics. As I read the lyrics, which were as close to something I would have written myself if I had been fluent and comfortable in my mother tongue, it opened a door to another room or another world. I was drawn to explore this journey which would always be ‘For the First Time,’ now also the title of the album. It was completely different and separate from anything I had ever done.
I started composing the music and melodies exclusively on piano and it allowed me to go to musical places I had not been before, as lyrics to song by song were sent to me. This album and journey had to stand on its own and not be compared, not even in the slightest form, to what I had done before. I wasn’t thinking about an audience, I wasn’t thinking about how it would end up. I just followed something natural, almost a reservoir of things I had kept for this day – melodies and styles that would’ve never fit my rock career, my rock’n’roll life. But this is as much Mike Tramp as White Lion, Freak of Nature ever were and might just be the one and only time I climb this mountain.
The songs are about the place I come from, how I grew up and how the world was back then. It is my story, but unfortunately for my international fans, it can’t be translated to English and have the same meaning as when I sing the words of my mother or the sound of the streets I grew up on. With all that being said, I would still imagine some fans might find this album interesting, I personally considered it to be some of my finest songwriting.
Lineup:
Mike Tramp: vocals, guitar
Søren Skov: piano, Hammond B-3, synths
Claus Langeskov: bass
Søren Bigum: pedal steel, mandolin, cello
Morten Hellborn: drums
Søren Andersen: guitar, synths, choirs