White Lion

Someone sent me a couple White Lion discs in the mail. Haven't checked them out yet. What's everyone's take on them?

I have a greatest hits cd that I spin from time to time, but I've never felt complelled to dig much deeper.


I liked their cover of 'Radar Love', which got me interested in them. I bought a cassette single of that song and it had a great b-side on it called 'If My Mind Is Evil' which I liked.

And they had the only Vito in rock/metal. And I have a guitar pick that an ex-girlfriend got when she saw the band live.

I love White Lion. Everything they did was gold. But I think my favorite is Mane Attraction. Vito Bratta is such an underrated guitar player.

I am a huge White Lion fan, fantastic band!
One of the few bands from that genre I still listen to.
But why not post this in the metal/Hard Rock room?
They are as much metal as any hair band from back in the day.

I am not huge fan I have 'Pride' and one cassette 'Big Game' and the first one which I cannot remember the name of, good band and Vitto was definitley an excellent guitarist, who seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

I love the first album (FIGHT TO SURVIVE) ... that's probably their most "metal" disc. PRIDE is a good one too, but I'm totally sick of hearing "Wait" and/or "When The Children Cry." On the other hand, PRIDE contains my all time fave W.L. song, "Lady of the Valley."

They kinda blew their wads on those two albums, if you catch my drift. Third album BIG GAME only had two decent tracks (one being the way-cool cover of "Radar Love") and MANE ATTRACTION... had it on cassette years ago, lost it, never upgraded it to CD, and dont' really miss it, so make of that what you will.

Olafsto wrote:

I am a huge White Lion fan, fantastic band!
One of the few bands from that genre I still listen to.
But why not post this in the metal/Hard Rock room?
They are as much metal as any hair band from back in the day.

I don't know. To be honest, I am completely unfamiliar with them. I just assumed they weren't a metal band.

ultmetal wrote:

I just assumed they weren't a metal band.

Which White Lion albums did you get? As I said, FIGHT TO SURVIVE and some bits of PRIDE are pretty dang metal, at least to me. I mean, they're slightly poofy but still good stuff.

Vito Bratta is an under-recognized shredder! Too bad he's gone all Howard Hughes on us.

ultmetal wrote:

Olafsto wrote:

I am a huge White Lion fan, fantastic band!
One of the few bands from that genre I still listen to.
But why not post this in the metal/Hard Rock room?
They are as much metal as any hair band from back in the day.

I don't know. To be honest, I am completely unfamiliar with them. I just assumed they weren't a metal band.

I'd agree with Olaf. While they might fall into the hard rock side of things in 2010, they were just as much hair metal back in the day as your Wingers and Warrants. They started off more metal, they kinda drifted into that melodic hard rock as they got bigger. And Vito was quite the shredder.

Fat Freddy wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

I just assumed they weren't a metal band.

Which White Lion albums did you get? As

'Pride' and 'Big Game', so far. I've been getting a steady flow or hair metal CDs for the last four weeks from Amazon. I still don't know who is sending it all.

I'll move this to the Metal room.

If they'd stayed more in the Fight vein it would've worked better for me. They had a great guitar player but the vocals came off too wimpy at times.

White Lion where definitley a pop/hair metal band, ULT I don't know how you missed them back in the day, they even had hit singles on Top 40 radio.

ultmetal wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Which White Lion albums did you get?

'Pride' and 'Big Game', so far. I've been getting a steady flow or hair metal CDs for the last four weeks from Amazon. I still don't know who is sending it all.

I'll move this to the Metal room.

PRIDE is a good'un. I think you'll dig it, especially "Lady of the Valley." Faaaaaaaan-tastic song.

Nice band. I believe they broke up, no?

Fight To Survive and Pride are great albums, IMO. After that they can be hit or miss.

Gilbert wrote:

Nice band. I believe they broke up, no?

I believe Mike Tramp owns the name and tours as Mike Tramp's White Lion with a bunch of new guys. The "classic" line-up as we know it is no more. Vito is out of the music business altogether, James Lomenzo plays in Megadeth and the drummer, Greg something, has been MIA as far as I know.

Vito Bratta is amazing. Classy, sophisticated, and tasteful. But a bit of an EVH clone.

manny wrote:

White Lion where definitley a pop/hair metal band, ULT I don't know how you missed them back in the day, they even had hit singles on Top 40 radio.

I was thinking the same, they were huge over here and they were close to filling stadiums after their second album.
There was talk of a reunion with the original line up a couple of yers ago, but nothing came out of it, other than Vito and Mike fighting about the right to the name.
Vito lives a very quiet life, but spoke in public on a Eddie Trunk show in 2007.
Mike Tramp now owns the name and they gave out an album, Retun of the pride in 2008.

Wait...random people just send you albums? I really need to get my music site off the ground. Haha.

Anyway, White Lion is great. I really dig Mike Tramp's solo stuff, too.

Eyesore wrote:

Wait...random people just send you albums? I really need to get my music site off the ground. Haha.

Anyway, White Lion is great. I really dig Mike Tramp's solo stuff, too.

I was thinking the same thing when I saw that random folks are just sending him CD"s.

BTW on my White Lion DVD, Mike Tramp had some short lived band in the early 90's I don't remember their name but they sounded very good, just did not fit in with Nirvana etc

I've always liked them. I used to have Pride and Big Game on cassette as new releases (sold them at a yard sale) but now the only cd I have is the same one Metalguy71 has and that's really all I need.

Quote :

Vito lives a very quiet life, but spoke in public on a Eddie Trunk show in 2007.

Whenever the topic of "Whatever happened to..." comes up on Eddie's radio show, Vito's name always, ALWAYS comes up. People just cannot fathom the fact that such a talented/famous guy could just walk away from the music scene so easily. But he did.

Quote :

BTW on my White Lion DVD, Mike Tramp had some short lived band in the early 90's I don't remember their name but they sounded very good, just did not fit in with Nirvana etc

Are you talking about Freak of Nature?

I always liked them. Still one of my favorite solos is "When The Children Cry". Was a radio hit back in high school, but the solo tugged at your soul!! I had that album but traded it to a hot rocker chick for a Poison tape. I think she knew exactly what was happening....

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Quote :

Vito lives a very quiet life, but spoke in public on a Eddie Trunk show in 2007.

Whenever the topic of "Whatever happened to..." comes up on Eddie's radio show, Vito's name always, ALWAYS comes up. People just cannot fathom the fact that such a talented/famous guy could just walk away from the music scene so easily. But he did.

Quote :

BTW on my White Lion DVD, Mike Tramp had some short lived band in the early 90's I don't remember their name but they sounded very good, just did not fit in with Nirvana etc

Are you talking about Freak of Nature?

Yes that's who I am talking about thank you MG!

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I have a greatest hits cd that I spin from time to time, but I've never felt complelled to dig much deeper.

Same here.