In a new interview with Dawn Osborne of TotalRock, respected Danish vocalist and guitarist Mike Tramp spoke about his decision to release “Songs Of White Lion – Vol. III”, the third album in a series where he reinterprets songs from his former band WHITE LION. As was the case with “Songs Of White Lion – Vol. I” and “Songs Of White Lion – Vol. II” once again sees Tramp accompanied by his current solo band.
Asked if “Songs Of White Lion – Vol. III” is the final album in the series, Tramp responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I think when the first one came out, I was still very unsure about really what it was I was doing. To be honest, I think that I somehow both pushed myself into it and felt somehow obligated that since I couldn’t go anywhere, regardless of if I showed up on stage with an acoustic guitar or two monkeys, they still will put WHITE LION on the poster. And so I had to find a way to deal with that. And I was speaking with Marcus [Nand], which now does the fine guitar work, and I had asked him if this was possible to sort of [put together] a refurbished version of the classic WHITE LION songs that sounds like how I sound today but at the same time is as close to the original as possible. So when we had done the first one, the first thing any interviewer did was, [they asked] will there be a number two? And, obviously, I started thinking about that. And as we got into number two, I knew there was gonna be a number three.”
Asked if he has now re-recorded all the WHITE LION songs or if there are still some that he left out, Mike said: “No. No. And I really had hoped that I wouldn’t get confronted with this, because somebody actually spoke to me the other day. He says, ‘You know what? I know you you’re talking about the completion of the trilogy.’ He says, ‘I think you [should] just record all the songs so that all the songs have been re-recorded and then that’s that.’ And I started thinking, ‘Wow, okay.'”
Tramp continued: “It’s sort of an easy thing to take on because most of the work is already there. Now jumping aside, doing the number three, we went in to do that album completely different than we did the first one. And had I known that we were going to do all three, I wouldn’t have made the first one being like a ‘greatest hits’. I would’ve balanced it. I wouldn’t have put ‘Tell Me’, ‘Wait’ and ‘Little Fighter’, the big WHITE LION songs, on one album; I would’ve spread them out. Now as we’re doing volume three, a lot of people have already said, when they hear this, this feels like a fresh new album. It’s very heavy, it’s the dark songs, et cetera, et cetera, and it doesn’t just feel like you’ve just gone in there… Because there’s a lot of songs that might not have been the familiar songs with the sort of average rock fan, the WHITE LION fan that knows the three songs. But for those who know the darker tracks from ‘Fight To Survive’ and ‘Big Game’ and things like that, this is an album that I really, really actually enjoy myself listening to.”
“Songs Of White Lion – Vol. III” will arrive on September 19 via Frontiers Music Srl.
The official music video for the LP’s lead single, “Cherokee”, can be seen below.
In July, Tramp spoke about how this series of recordings came together, stating in a press release: “For me, the point of re-recording the old classic WHITE LION songs was all about letting the audience know how the band would sound if they come to see us live. Bringing the sound up today and away from a world no more.
“When I started with ‘Vol. I’, I must admit, I never thought I’d do ‘Vol. II’ and now ‘Vol. III’,” he continues. “But having done it all now, makes all the more sense to me. If I have to be active playing WHITE LION in 2025 and onward, there’s got to be a natural progression in every way. That is exactly what this trilogy is all about.”
In this final installment, Tramp revisits and reimagines ten more essential songs from the WHITE LION catalog, bringing them back to life with the passion, perspective, and authenticity that only decades of experience can deliver.
Once again backed by his trusted bandmates — Marcus Nand (guitar),Claus Langeskov (bass) and Morten Hellborn (drums) — Tramp offers fresh but respectful renditions of these classic tracks, capturing their spirit while elevating them with a more refined, seasoned sound.
From the raw defiance of “Fight To Survive” to the cinematic power of “Warsong” and the infectious rhythm of “Radar Love”, this album is both a celebration and a reawakening.
Standing as more than a simple re-recording project, “Songs Of White Lion – Vol. III” is the emotional conclusion of a trilogy — a journey through time, memory, and music that connects the past to the present with integrity and fire.
“Songs Of White Lion – Vol. III” track listing:
01. Dirty Woman
02. Warsong
03. Fight To Survive
04. She’s Got Everything
05. In The City
06. If My Mind Is Evil
07. Cherokee
08. All Burn In Hell
09. Don’t Say It’s Over
10. Radar Love
In a January 2025 interview with Australia’s Heavy, Tramp was asked how he has managed to keep his voice in shape after all these years. Tramp, who turned 64 earlier that month, said: ”You know what? Obviously, you will recognize that it’s the same singer, but it was very important for me that the growth of Mike Tramp through all the albums that I’ve done and the touring and the traveling became… Let’s say, in reality, [WHITE LION] had not broken up. There would have been a natural progression. Vito Bratta and myself, which, of course, were the foundation of WHTIE LION, the songwriters, already knew that when we recording ‘Mane Attraction’, our fourth album, our last album. If you go back, you will already see that we were making the first step towards prog rock, where we wanted the band to go. We were going much more towards bands like JOURNEY, KANSAS or STYX and whatever bands would have come. We wanted the band to be a band of music and little by little, the hair would become less important. So, with my albums that have gone on, my voice has naturally just changed bit by bit a year. So when I reintroduced the WHITE LION songs, I definitely cannot sing them in the same key. So once we refurbished them and once we found the new key to the songs, I also went out there now with the knowledge of knowing that I wrote those songs 40 years ago. I wanted to sort of say, ‘I’m gonna sing them a little different.'”
Asked why it was important for him to recreate those songs, Mike said: “Yeah, without any disrespect to myself and the band that I started, I personally cannot stand listening to the versions from that time. I was in a completely different place. So, for me to play these songs again, I had to find something that felt new and fresh, even though it was the same thing. So by singing these songs again and changing the keys of the songs, it’s almost like they became fatter and fuller and not so gung-ho. We were so fast and singing so high and flying in the air. Now I’m going up to the mic stand and I’m fully in control. I used to run out on stage with WHITE LION and started screaming at the audience, and the band would look at me, ‘He’s gonna collapse in 10 seconds.’ [Now I’m] going out fully confident and saying, ‘We’re gonna play these songs now for the sake of music.'”
When “Songs Of White Lion – Vol. II” was first announced last year, Tramp said in a statement: “Would Leonardo Da Vinci have re-painted ‘Mona Lisa’, if he had gotten a second chance? That we will never know, but I can say for sure, that I am beyond thrilled to have gotten a second chance to re-record and sing the songs I wrote between 1983 – 1990. Today I have such a better understanding of how I want to express the songs in my voice than I had when I was in my 20s, it’s just a fact, and I’ve grabbed the chance. ‘Songs Of White Lion’ is a whole new chapter. [As a] matter of fact, it is current.”
Tramp spent most of 2024 and the first half of 2025 touring the U.S. and Europe with his band MIKE TRAMP’S WHITE LION, which doesn’t included any other members of the original WHITE LION group.
In 2023, Tramp was asked in an interview about the possibility of WHITE LION reforming for a tour. He said: “When we broke up in ’91, we always knew we would never go back together. And a lot of people always talk about reunions. WHITE LION reuniting would not be a better WHITE LION than WHITE LION was, so I’m out there performing the songs, not trying to recreate WHITE LION.”
Asked if he has ever thought of calling his solo band WHITE LION and touring with new members, Mike replied: “I can’t call it WHITE LION.” Pressed about whether he would call his band WHITE LION if he could, Mike said: “I tried, and it cost me money. [Laughs] I think that the audience now is understanding that I’m just keeping the songs alive, and I’m able to perform it in a different way. I’m able to show the image that I’m not coming out there and doing a show but I’m gonna take them through like a greatest hits. I like to tell stories about what the songs are. You can’t always do that on a festival when you have one hour, but that is my goal, that I will keep the songs alive. And I think that all the fans and the music fans know who Mike Tramp is and it doesn’t need to be called WHITE LION. But it’s called ‘Songs Of White Lion’.”
Back in 2019, Tramp revealed in an interview that he had apologized to 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 34 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.
Speaking to SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation”, Tramp said that he and Vito are once again on speaking terms following his ill-fated attempt to bring back WHITE LION a decade and a half ago.
“I have, over the past couple of years, been the one out there basically both admitting and apologizing that the only thing that I never planned to do in my career and wanted to do was go back and rehash a version of WHITE LION that had nothing to do with WHITE LION, nothing to do with the guys that played in the band,” Mike said. “Mike Tramp‘s heart was not in it. It was just a moment of weakness, not believing enough in my solo albums. [You listen to] some guys saying, ‘Hey, if you put a new WHITE LION together, you can play festivals and get much more money.’ And then you fall for that and you engage in it and you go out there, and then you realize it’s not what you wanna do. And then, of course, Vito did not want the name WHITE LION to be used without him being in the band. And it actually took a couple of years for me to really understand how much it meant to Vito. And when Vito one day told me in one of these conversations… First of all, he told me, ‘Mike, I’m not against you. I just don’t wanna turn YouTube on and see the title ‘WHITE LION live in so and so,’ and somebody doing ‘When The Children Cry’ solo and it’s not me. WHITE LION was you and me, it was our band, we wrote the songs. That is the memories I want for the rest of my life.’ And when he told me that, I had tears in my eyes and I totally understood it, because I had also gotten to that point that when we closed WHITE LION, we felt that this is where we wanted to stop it. There was something, going into the ’90s, that didn’t agree with the things we were looking at, and we wanted to somehow end it on a higher level than something that would not represent us in the future. But it just took many years to really understand it.”
Asked if he understands why Vito doesn’t want to play music professionally anymore, Mike said: “Yes, I do, because there are actually times when I also don’t feel like doing it anymore. When all the magic around us, the stuff that made us fall in love with rock and roll — first of all, our heroes, then the industry, then the touring stuff — when all of that was really exposed that it was a two-faced kind of thing, that the people we thought loved us — and I’m not talking about the fans; I’m talking about the people that made money from us, and stuff like that — turned their back on us and stabbed us in the back, it really ripped us apart. And maybe it’s just that I came from a different background than Vito, that I maybe was a little bit stronger or just of a different nature that I just fought back, but Vito just said, ‘I just don’t wanna deal with this.’ And I understand now — I understand it from every conversation that I have with him.”
Tramp also once again closed the door on a possible WHITE LION reunion, saying: “I can’t be Mike Tramp 1988. I can’t sing like that, and I’m not going up on stage and doing a half-assed job, which most of the bands out there are doing.”
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.
Mike released “Songs Of White Lion”, in April 2023 via Frontiers Music Srl. “Songs Of White Lion – Vol. II” followed in August 2024.
