Mike Tramp of White Lion says his former bandmate, guitarist Vito Bratta, will not stop him from continuing to celebrate the band’s music, though in what ways Bratta is holding him back remain unclear.
Following the breakup of White Lion in 1991, Bratta retreated from the public eye. Since then, he has rarely been seen in public and has only participated in a handful of interviews. The most recent interview we’ve been able to locate took place with Guitar World in 2023. He lives in the same home in Staten Island, New York City, that he grew up in.
In a recent interview with Anthony Bryant of The Hair Metal Guru, Tramp was asked whether he thinks Bratta will ever work in music again.
“No. Did you see how quick [of a response] that was?” he replied (via Blabbermouth). “And I am probably about the most frustrated person because I feel that I constantly have to be on the defense. Because he has chosen to go into his cave. There’s no pictures existing. There’s none of anything. He doesn’t even wanna come out and just make a quote or something like that. So he’s chosen that it’s better to keep the mystery and stay silent, but that mystery and staying silent can only last for so long because as days go by, I am pushed to having to reveal more than I really wanted to, because the truth of the matter is I do know the facts, I do know the truth about everything about Vito Bratta. I just wish that he’d just come out and just say something. He can put me down, he can do whatever [he wants]. But he’s not gonna silence me. He’s not gonna stop me from playing music.”
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Tramp went on to claim that he has approached Bratta about reuniting White Lion.
“I’ve invited him many ways,” he said. “I’ve even asked him, I says, ‘If you wanted to do a project that wasn’t called White Lion’, sort of like — not comparing ourselves, but when [Jimmy] Page and [Robert] Plant got together the first time [after Led Zeppelin‘s split]. They didn’t call it Led Zeppelin. They did the Walking Into Clarksdale project, just to see where their songwriting would go.”
But according to Tramp: “[Bratta says] ‘Oh, I don’t wanna talk about it.’ That’s how quickly that’s getting shut down.”
What Has Vito Bratta Said?
When Bratta spoke with Guitar World in 2019, published in 2022, he did note that there had been discrepancies between himself and Tramp over the use of the White Lion band name.
“We’ve been in court against each other,” he said. “We’ve had arguments, but it’s not like we hate each other. We just don’t talk.”
In that same interview, Bratta admitted that he hadn’t entirely ruled out a return to the stage, even for one show.
“I couldn’t ever, ever say no to that,” he said, “because it hurts not doing it. But a lot of things would have to change around here for me to be able to walk out of the house. I’m just happy that I left it all out on the field. Sometimes I really feel like I exceeded my ability.”
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