Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / MIKE TRAMP's WHITE LION: A Roaring Return to Australia With New Renditions And Classic Hits
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, folks, did I Australia. It's Mike Tram here from
- 0:05Speaker 1: Wide Lion, looking forward to bringing you a lot of
- 0:08Speaker 1: news you don't know.
- 0:10Speaker 2: So excited you'll be coming back to Australia.
- 0:13Speaker 3: I believe the last time you toured here was in
- 0:15Speaker 3: two thousand and eight. But you actually moved here in
- 0:17Speaker 3: the late nineties.
- 0:18Speaker 2: Didn't you.
- 0:20Speaker 1: I came to Tasmania at the end of a nineteen
- 0:24Speaker 1: ninety nine I thought I just started my life right
- 0:27Speaker 1: over at the end of the world.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, a pretty interesting choice to go to Tasmania.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Was there a specific reason you choice Tasmania?
- 0:37Speaker 1: Well, well, at that time I was married to an
- 0:41Speaker 1: Australian Sheila, Yes, very nice, and she'd been in America
- 0:48Speaker 1: for three decades and we'd had a son together, and
- 0:53Speaker 1: you know, the music business was changing and stuff like that,
- 0:57Speaker 1: and suddenly this idea came and back I came, came,
- 1:01Speaker 1: came to us about you know, her sister saying why
- 1:03Speaker 1: don't you come live at my ranch uh in Tasmania,
- 1:07Speaker 1: and just it just start all over. Yeah, And suddenly
- 1:13Speaker 1: it was. And then I woke up one day saying, hey,
- 1:17Speaker 1: there's no music here.
- 1:19Speaker 2: Yes, that's the only slight downside, I think.
- 1:23Speaker 1: But one thing led to another and a couple of
- 1:25Speaker 1: years later I would be in Melbourne.
- 1:27Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, lovely, can you tell us a little bit
- 1:30Speaker 3: about the upcoming tour here and you're reimagining of White
- 1:33Speaker 3: Lions hits.
- 1:35Speaker 1: Yeah. So obviously during the the years I was living
- 1:38Speaker 1: in in in Australia, you know, I I I was
- 1:41Speaker 1: a producing and and and recording new solo albums and
- 1:45Speaker 1: uh and and also performing you know, some Wide Lions
- 1:51Speaker 1: songs with with with the Australian band that I had,
- 1:55Speaker 1: But it always just felt like I was just you know,
- 1:58Speaker 1: kind of just marking around with it wasn't really anything.
- 2:01Speaker 1: And you know, for the next sixteen years I would
- 2:05Speaker 1: be I would be recording solo albums one after another,
- 2:09Speaker 1: now coming up to fourteen soulo albums, and especially as
- 2:14Speaker 1: I was two in European and America, they simply couldn't
- 2:18Speaker 1: help adding the White Lion logo to the posters and
- 2:22Speaker 1: things like that, the voice of White Line, you remember
- 2:25Speaker 1: that great looking guy from White Line while He's coming,
- 2:27Speaker 1: you know, all that kind of jazz. And I just
- 2:31Speaker 1: think that it was just really a matter of me,
- 2:34Speaker 1: you know, waiting it out till I was clear in
- 2:37Speaker 1: my head of how I was going to do it.
- 2:40Speaker 1: Because I couldn't revisit Mike Tram twenty you know, twenty
- 2:45Speaker 1: six years old. I had to be realistic of who
- 2:48Speaker 1: I was at that time. So once I started working
- 2:52Speaker 1: with with my good friend Marcus nand guitar player in
- 2:55Speaker 1: the new version of White Lion, we wanted the song,
- 3:00Speaker 1: we want to reproduce the song's note for notes, but
- 3:02Speaker 1: we also wanted that this was a new, improved Coca
- 3:05Speaker 1: Cola you know it, you know, And then you got,
- 3:09Speaker 1: of course, standing, lord, what's new and improved about that? Well,
- 3:12Speaker 1: in reality, thirty years thirty years of knowledge, thirty years
- 3:19Speaker 1: of of of you know, really being very familiar with
- 3:23Speaker 1: the songs, and and and and decades of music have
- 3:26Speaker 1: come and gone and what's left and how how you're
- 3:29Speaker 1: going to reproduce it? So now it's so now it's
- 3:33Speaker 1: really a matter of going out there and and performing
- 3:37Speaker 1: the songs. I was saying this in another interview. Now
- 3:40Speaker 1: it's one hundred percent about the music and the songs.
- 3:46Speaker 1: Where in the eighties the music was almost competing with
- 3:51Speaker 1: the show and and the look of the band. Now
- 3:56Speaker 1: now we're we're mature people that you know, play the
- 4:00Speaker 1: songs before we do the move.
- 4:02Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
- 4:03Speaker 3: And I've really noticed how have you managed to refine
- 4:07Speaker 3: and retain your voice after all these years. I can
- 4:09Speaker 3: really notice a difference across your work from White Line
- 4:13Speaker 3: to Freak of Nature and to now. Yeah, I think
- 4:16Speaker 3: what you said before about really it's really about the music.
- 4:20Speaker 3: I guess how have you managed to retain your voice?
- 4:24Speaker 1: Well, I've actually also maintained to keep my waistline the same. Yes, impressive,
- 4:32Speaker 1: you know what, obviously I don't. You might you will
- 4:36Speaker 1: recognize that it's the same singer. But it was very
- 4:40Speaker 1: important for me that the growth of my tramp through
- 4:46Speaker 1: all the albums that I've done and the touring and
- 4:49Speaker 1: the traveling became Let's say, in reality, the band had
- 4:55Speaker 1: not broken up, there would have been a natural for
- 4:59Speaker 1: great uh Vita Broad and myself, which of course were
- 5:03Speaker 1: the foundation of Wideline. The songwriters already knew that when
- 5:07Speaker 1: we're recording a main attraction, our fourth album, our last
- 5:11Speaker 1: album we were if you go back, you will already
- 5:15Speaker 1: see that that we're making the first step towatsch prog rock,
- 5:21Speaker 1: where we wanted the band to go. We were going
- 5:24Speaker 1: much more towards bands like Journey, Uh Kansas or Sticks
- 5:30Speaker 1: and whatever bands would have come. We wanted the band
- 5:34Speaker 1: to be a band of music, and little by little
- 5:38Speaker 1: the hair would become less important. So with my albums
- 5:46Speaker 1: that have gone on, my voice have naturally just changed
- 5:51Speaker 1: bit by bit a year. So when I reintroduced the
- 5:54Speaker 1: White Lion songs, I definitely cannot sing them in the
- 5:58Speaker 1: same key. So once we refurbished them, and once we
- 6:02Speaker 1: found the new key to the songs, I also went
- 6:07Speaker 1: out there now with the knowledge of known that I've
- 6:09Speaker 1: wrote those songs forty years ago, I wanted to sort
- 6:13Speaker 1: of say, you know, I'm going to sing them a
- 6:16Speaker 1: little different.
- 6:18Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very impressive. And what are some of your
- 6:22Speaker 3: favorite envisaged White Line songs to play live?
- 6:27Speaker 1: Well, they're definitely not the five famous ones because all
- 6:32Speaker 1: the kind of like they're tamed within the four minutes
- 6:36Speaker 1: version because of radio song. But songs like Lady of
- 6:40Speaker 1: the Valley and Cry for Freedom and now we're brought
- 6:44Speaker 1: out on the tour l Salvador, which is a song
- 6:46Speaker 1: I wrote in nineteen eighty before I even came to America,
- 6:50Speaker 1: going back and doing stuff like that brings a lot
- 6:53Speaker 1: of history to the songs. But I have fallen in
- 6:56Speaker 1: love with both songs, like you know, tell Me in
- 6:59Speaker 1: Little and Wait and getting to sing them without having
- 7:03Speaker 1: to be Rudolph no reggiv on stage. It's another way.
- 7:08Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's awesome.
- 7:10Speaker 3: And you'll be playing alongside Marcus, Jerry and Brent.
- 7:12Speaker 2: How did you guys all come together and decide to
- 7:14Speaker 2: pay homage if you will Twilin?
- 7:17Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean Jerry Best on bass
- 7:19Speaker 1: and I you know, had a band together in from
- 7:23Speaker 1: ninety two to ninety five called Freak of Nature, and
- 7:26Speaker 1: at the end of that band, Marcus Nand came into
- 7:29Speaker 1: the band. So you have you basically have three guys
- 7:32Speaker 1: on stage who've known each other for thirty years. Okay,
- 7:36Speaker 1: Jerry Best played on my first solo album, Capricorn. There
- 7:40Speaker 1: is a brotherhood then when and then you know, it
- 7:42Speaker 1: didn't take very long for Brent the drummer to instantly
- 7:47Speaker 1: fit in because we are a band of brothers and
- 7:50Speaker 1: and and everybody knows we're out there behind the songs
- 7:57Speaker 1: that the songs are what.
- 7:59Speaker 2: Matters definitely, you know.
- 8:02Speaker 3: Yeah, and you've spent some time with some huge musicians
- 8:08Speaker 3: in your time, like a CDC, Aerosmith, Kiss, just to
- 8:10Speaker 3: name a few. Is there one of those bands that
- 8:13Speaker 3: you admire and got along with really well?
- 8:15Speaker 1: Well, the two first bands you mentioned, I mean a
- 8:20Speaker 1: c DC and Aerosmith were of course heroes, you know,
- 8:27Speaker 1: two completely different bands in personality. Ac DC we almost
- 8:31Speaker 1: never saw. Aerosmith I became very very close with and
- 8:35Speaker 1: it it's almost like what we're talking about. Aerosmith was
- 8:40Speaker 1: almost doing what I'm doing right now, coming back and
- 8:44Speaker 1: getting a second chance because they had they had ended
- 8:47Speaker 1: up in some really dark holes of their life with
- 8:50Speaker 1: with with with with drug abuse and stuff like that.
- 8:53Speaker 1: Now coming back completely clean, playing the songs like a
- 8:57Speaker 1: badass rock and roll band. That that's where there are.
- 9:00Speaker 1: And I learned a lot from that, and you know,
- 9:03Speaker 1: there and then you know, then you look at a CDC.
- 9:07Speaker 1: I saw every ACDC show from the side of the
- 9:10Speaker 1: stage every single night, and and the admit rate, you know,
- 9:15Speaker 1: admiring how stolid and they going out and saying, this
- 9:21Speaker 1: is what we do. We're not reinventing the wheel, We're
- 9:24Speaker 1: playing our songs. I mean, it's just when if ever
- 9:28Speaker 1: you doubt anything. You just remember that.
- 9:31Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 9:32Speaker 3: And on that topic, I suppose, of you know, the
- 9:34Speaker 3: rock star sort of life, you're really down to earth
- 9:37Speaker 3: and really very humble. How have you managed to not
- 9:40Speaker 3: let that sort of fame get to your head all
- 9:43Speaker 3: these ease?
- 9:44Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate that. And you know, I
- 9:46Speaker 1: mean that might there might be been a few moments
- 9:49Speaker 1: during the eighties where we were gotten caught up and
- 9:51Speaker 1: stuff like that. But when I look back at myself,
- 9:55Speaker 1: I also know that there was a lot of time
- 9:57Speaker 1: straight from the flock a, straight from from you know,
- 10:01Speaker 1: you know, the migration to the hotel bar, and I
- 10:05Speaker 1: ended up in my hotel room, resting my voice, putting
- 10:08Speaker 1: condition my hair night cream.
- 10:10Speaker 3: Uh wow, I hardly believe it, but I do believe
- 10:13Speaker 3: it because it's you.
- 10:14Speaker 2: But I'm just like yeah.
- 10:17Speaker 1: And then and then, of course, when I did my
- 10:18Speaker 1: first soul album, and I was maybe I asked myself
- 10:22Speaker 1: the question, or maybe I didn't, because the second I
- 10:25Speaker 1: wrote the first song, I just realized, that's who you are,
- 10:28Speaker 1: because it's it's basically also how I started writing the
- 10:32Speaker 1: first White Lions songs, I wrote them as a soul artist.
- 10:36Speaker 1: And when Vido then came and sat in front of
- 10:38Speaker 1: me and took over with the electric guitar. That's where
- 10:41Speaker 1: the songs would would go. But the songs always came
- 10:45Speaker 1: from the singer songwriter campfire raised on Dylan and Johnny Cash,
- 10:51Speaker 1: Neil Young. So it's really a matter of always just
- 10:55Speaker 1: returning to yourself.
- 10:57Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely, and thank.
- 10:58Speaker 1: God I did that. And that's of course also the
- 11:00Speaker 1: approach I did in Australia. I felt so much, very
- 11:04Speaker 1: much at home, both with the Australian approach, the humor
- 11:07Speaker 1: and everything like that. I says, I don't have to
- 11:10Speaker 1: be anybody here but myself.
- 11:12Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
- 11:13Speaker 3: You've definitely adopted la back sort of.
- 11:16Speaker 1: Yeah, yah, yeah, yeah exactly. I'm not a high behind
- 11:20Speaker 1: sunglasses kind of persons, which is one of the reasons
- 11:23Speaker 1: why I always lose sunglasses because I take them off
- 11:26Speaker 1: when I talk to people and then if I get
- 11:28Speaker 1: where I left.
- 11:28Speaker 2: Them, yep.
- 11:31Speaker 3: Aside from music, what are some of your hobbies these days?
- 11:35Speaker 1: Well, regular life is mabi. I mean, you know, I
- 11:39Speaker 1: have a farm in Denmark and even though right now
- 11:43Speaker 1: I'm in New York and we're preparing for the tour
- 11:46Speaker 1: and things like that. I do. I do, like you know,
- 11:52Speaker 1: I grew up on a farm too, even though I'm
- 11:53Speaker 1: a city boy from Copenhagen. My grandparents farm was where
- 11:56Speaker 1: I grew up when my mom couldn't handle us at home.
- 11:59Speaker 1: So it's a place I always return to, the great outdoors.
- 12:03Speaker 1: And it's really just a matter I need to have
- 12:06Speaker 1: a break from the rock and roll world, even if
- 12:09Speaker 1: it's just for half the day out in the field
- 12:13Speaker 1: and right and around on the tractor of fixing the roof.
- 12:16Speaker 1: When I returned to the rock and roll I'm recharged.
- 12:21Speaker 1: I don't I don't you know, I'm you know. Of
- 12:23Speaker 1: course I have a massive album collection stuff like that,
- 12:26Speaker 1: but I can't listen to Queen and Thin Lizzie every day.
- 12:29Speaker 1: I need a break from I can't listen to Bruce
- 12:32Speaker 1: Springsteen every day because I want to return to them.
- 12:36Speaker 2: And so, yeah, that's beautiful.
- 12:39Speaker 1: I read a lot. I read a lot because I'm really,
- 12:42Speaker 1: I'm really, I'm really not a big fan of of
- 12:44Speaker 1: of of of streaming, you know, million TV shows and
- 12:49Speaker 1: things like that. I sometimes need to make sure that
- 12:51Speaker 1: I don't move too fast into the future because I'm
- 12:54Speaker 1: completely a nostalgic freak. I want to remain in the past. Yeah, yeah,
- 12:59Speaker 1: I my iPhone is still the first.
- 13:06Speaker 2: No, that's cool.
- 13:08Speaker 3: Speaking of different countries as well, you have lived and
- 13:12Speaker 3: worked in many countries, and I think in the past
- 13:14Speaker 3: you did mention that you felt almost like a bit
- 13:17Speaker 3: of a nomad. Do you still feel that way today
- 13:20Speaker 3: or do you definitely feel more settled where you are.
- 13:24Speaker 1: I'm getting very very close to wanting to really settle
- 13:28Speaker 1: down and saying okay, I'm slowly sort of in a
- 13:34Speaker 1: preparation of moving back to the US and then saying
- 13:39Speaker 1: that's it.
- 13:40Speaker 2: This is it. Yeah, yeah, understandable.
- 13:44Speaker 1: You know, you know as much of course, I'm looking
- 13:46Speaker 1: very you know, it's very emotional for me to coming
- 13:49Speaker 1: back to Australia, you know. You know, I play Melbourne
- 13:52Speaker 1: on January thirty first, it's the birthday in It's my
- 13:57Speaker 1: son's birthday. He turns thirty one that day. No, it's
- 14:01Speaker 1: like there there's a lot of lots of stuff, you know.
- 14:05Speaker 2: Big attachment to Australia, definitely. Yeah.
- 14:09Speaker 3: What musical artists have really captured your attention or that
- 14:12Speaker 3: you think are special within the last ten years.
- 14:16Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, of course I'm a classic freak. So
- 14:20Speaker 1: you know, I always return to the gods. It's just
- 14:24Speaker 1: it's like the greatest books have been written and the
- 14:28Speaker 1: greatest rock records have been recorded, they won't come again.
- 14:32Speaker 1: So for me to be excited also about going out
- 14:36Speaker 1: playing White Lion and and that's that that form of
- 14:39Speaker 1: hard rock I have to take a break from that.
- 14:45Speaker 1: There hasn't been. There hasn't come, in all honesty, any
- 14:49Speaker 1: new hard rock bands that I can lean on. Yeah,
- 14:56Speaker 1: So I listen much more to Uh, to sing a songwriters.
- 15:02Speaker 1: I even go into jazz and things like that, stuff
- 15:05Speaker 1: that I've courted, you know, just like when I was
- 15:07Speaker 1: a kid, I didn't like red Wine. That would change
- 15:09Speaker 1: with time. And when I played you know, it wasn't Wideline,
- 15:13Speaker 1: of course, I would never listen to Now now it's
- 15:16Speaker 1: it's more too, when I return to what I do
- 15:20Speaker 1: as a profession, I have. I can't just have listened
- 15:24Speaker 1: to her, you know, Poison.
- 15:26Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you.
- 15:28Speaker 1: Know, in all fairness, nothing gets it, But you know
- 15:31Speaker 1: it's it's I have, you know, I have to break
- 15:34Speaker 1: I have to break free from him, you know.
- 15:36Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
- 15:38Speaker 3: Is there anything in particular you miss about Australia and
- 15:40Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to once you're here.
- 15:43Speaker 1: Yeah, I miss I miss and I'm sad that I
- 15:47Speaker 1: wasn't able to break through when I was there into
- 15:50Speaker 1: having a career there, because I would have remained there.
- 15:52Speaker 1: You know, I loved Australia. I loved living I think
- 15:55Speaker 1: I think when I lived there, Melbourne were one of
- 15:59Speaker 1: the greatest cities I've ever been to, and I felt
- 16:03Speaker 1: so at home. I loved the Australian audience. I loved
- 16:07Speaker 1: the Australian way, the humor, everything about it was so
- 16:12Speaker 1: close to similarities of the good parts of Denmark. So
- 16:18Speaker 1: I was right at home. So there are all those
- 16:23Speaker 1: things that I missed from that time. But it was
- 16:27Speaker 1: just in a time of when music was the classics remained,
- 16:31Speaker 1: but it almost wasn't. There wasn't a space or any
- 16:35Speaker 1: tools that weren't the new MTV where a band like
- 16:38Speaker 1: I could go on and things like that. It was
- 16:42Speaker 1: I don't even know how to describe it. That just
- 16:44Speaker 1: weren't the places for me to break through.
- 16:47Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I still think Australia has a long way to
- 16:50Speaker 3: go with the music industry and our own artists and
- 16:53Speaker 3: things like that. It's yeah, it's still not the best,
- 16:56Speaker 3: but hopefully it's Yeah, hopefully it can change soon.
- 17:00Speaker 1: That's why we bring an old band from the eighties back.
- 17:04Speaker 2: Yeah, why not?
- 17:06Speaker 3: Last question, there's a lot of fans that are so
- 17:08Speaker 3: grateful you've celebrated these White Line songs. Why was it
- 17:11Speaker 3: important for you to recreate these songs and how did
- 17:14Speaker 3: it feel to recreate them?
- 17:16Speaker 1: Yeah, without any disrespect to myself and the band that
- 17:20Speaker 1: that that I started, and the sounded like that, I
- 17:22Speaker 1: personally cannot stand listening to the versions from that time.
- 17:26Speaker 1: I'm I'm not you know, I was in a completely
- 17:29Speaker 1: different place. So, like I said earlier, for me to
- 17:32Speaker 1: play these songs again, I had to find something that felt,
- 17:37Speaker 1: you know, new and fresh, even though it was the
- 17:40Speaker 1: same thing. So by finding, you know, by by by
- 17:46Speaker 1: singing these songs again and changing the keys of the songs,
- 17:51Speaker 1: and it's almost like that they became fatter and and
- 17:55Speaker 1: you know, fuller and not so so gung ho. We
- 17:59Speaker 1: were so fair and singing so high and flying in
- 18:02Speaker 1: the air. Now it was almost I'm going up to
- 18:05Speaker 1: the mic stay and I'm just going you and I'm
- 18:08Speaker 1: fully in control. Yeah, you know, I sometimes say in states,
- 18:12Speaker 1: I used to run out on States and Wideline. I
- 18:14Speaker 1: started screaming at the audience and the band would look
- 18:17Speaker 1: at me. He's gonna collapse in ten seconds. Yeah, yeah,
- 18:20Speaker 1: it's going out fully confident and saying we're gonna play
- 18:24Speaker 1: these songs now for the sake of music.
- 18:27Speaker 3: Yeah, beautiful, And I've got a lot more depth to
- 18:30Speaker 3: them now, I think as well. I mean, there's nothing
- 18:32Speaker 3: wrong with Grade eighty songs.
- 18:33Speaker 1: No, no, no, I understand. And we're and and and
- 18:35Speaker 1: to answer your last question, we're just basically finished recording
- 18:39Speaker 1: Volume three to end the trilogy, so it is going
- 18:43Speaker 1: to be a completion. So almost every Wideline song has
- 18:46Speaker 1: a new, updated version.
- 18:48Speaker 3: Fantastic. And what can we expect from your tour here
- 18:51Speaker 3: in Australia? I suppose obviously a lot of the older renditions.
- 18:56Speaker 2: Is there anything new maybe that we have?
- 18:57Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, well yes, no, I think, I think.
- 19:05Speaker 1: I think that what maybe a lot of people don't
- 19:07Speaker 1: also mention is that the audience has also gotten older.
- 19:15Speaker 1: So we're not going to go out and do the
- 19:17Speaker 1: same dog and pony trick. We're going out there, I mean,
- 19:20Speaker 1: you know, we're actually going to take the stage much
- 19:23Speaker 1: more like AC d see where we're playing the songs
- 19:26Speaker 1: and the rest to whoever still want to try to
- 19:30Speaker 1: do that kind of song. I'm looking very much forward
- 19:33Speaker 1: to play the music, not perform the music. Yeah, definitely
- 19:37Speaker 1: give me the opportunity to say that.
- 19:40Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 19:40Speaker 3: No, well said, well said Mike. Thank you so much
- 19:43Speaker 3: for joining us today, You're coming back and we can't.
- 19:46Speaker 2: Wait for the tool.
- 19:48Speaker 1: Thanks a lot for the support.
- 19:49Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
- 19:50Speaker 1: Thank you,