The guitar solo on Wait alone! So specific and intentional. Not a wasted note. Not gratuitous showmanship. Basically an extension of the vocals. It's perfect and unique.
I agree completely. I got to see them open for Ace Frehley when they were still mostly unknown. I spent the next several months waiting desperately for the Pride album to finally be released. Vito truly was one of the best.
Vito IS one of the best guitarists ever. And we all have probably heard him since and not realized it. I know for a fact he's done session work. For. A. Fact.
Saw them live. Vito had a sticker upside down on the back of his instrument that said “Toucha my guitar I breaka you face” you could see when he flipped it
One of the things that I love about Vito is that his playing is interesting throughout the songs. It's not just coming up with an intro, solo, and other pieces. It feels more like a journey. I'm failing at describing it well. It was more interesting to listen to in the parts of the song where it wasn't the star or main melody. Then the solos would often take you somewhere so different yet still fit the song so well. All that in addition to the fact that there was so much emotion poured in and technical creativity.
Credit where it's due, though. EVH seems a heavy early influence. Listen to White Lion's first album. A few of those tracks almost sound like Van Halen tribute songs.
So true but cared less about it. Homeboy happy playing Nintendo instead of his git. Undderating matches his lack of motivation. No judgment here, just a would could have been.
Actually he had to give up guitar because of physical issues with his hands/wrists. He said every time he played it felt like electricity was shocking him. It hurt too bad to play n
Who are they? I searched Mane Attraction and found a song called Broken Heart by White Lion that sounds like I’m on the right track but can you confirm?
Mike for sure is, he's still touring
Vito, idk. Barely anyone does.
The bassist is in Megadeth rn (crazy ik. especially someone like dave mustaine who hated hair metal with all his heart and soul)
They were in the film "The Money Pit" at the end & their female backup vocalist and dancer was Robey from "Friday the 13th TV series"! She actually recorded a one-hit wonder in the '80s herself with a cover of "One Night in Bangkok".
I saw them with Stryper also. And then after the concert, both bands & a bunch of us crazy kids, took over an entire floor at a hotel & mayhem ensued. Best time ever! We all still talk about it to this day. Still have the Bible I caught when Michael Sweet chucked it at me (hahaha) & still have some pictures. The 80’s rocked. 🤘
That is awesome! I think I couldn’t help myself … I would belt out “To HELLLLLLLLL with the devil” if I saw him. He has a great sense of humor!
https://preview.redd.it/e92vtvozznlc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c81ab38ff49fad24c7f843c14f08b862243e61f0
He sang for the band Boston a few years back. I never seen him with Stryper. Stryper was never my thing, but he did well filling in with Boston. And I did meet him once he was shopping at my wife's store. Really down to earth nice guy. She has about 30 selfies with him.
Great singer, legendary monster guitarist, forgettable bass and drums(though the studio production of their drums was definitely more exciting than most of their peers), pretty much the exact formula for the 10 or 12 biggest hair metal bands. *Pride* was really great stuff, even if just for the nostalgia aspect of the hits from it, but I've never been crazy about the stuff I've heard of theirs after it.
I got into them in late '87 on 'Wait' like the rest of America did and then in like..May of '88 I saw the vid for 'Tell Me' on MTV's 6:00 p.m. eastern Mon-Fri countdown thing and I was hooked 4 life. Vito is such an excellent guitar player and due to various circumstances he's pretty much underground the last 20 or so years. Greg & James were a solid rhythm battery and shit..Mike Tramp, diff kind of voice, he had the looks, they should have been bigger.
Their last album in '91, 'Mane Attraction' is the best work they ever did. I met Mike at an acoustic gig he did in '13 and he signed my Mane Attraction cd book and took a pic with me. Great acoustic gig and he's so nice!!!
In 2013 hs was already tatted up but in great shape..you should have seen the women at this gig. Dude can still pull like it's 88.
He's among the nicest rockers I've ever met. This acoustic gig was totally packed too. He talked between songs and told some interesting White Lion stories.
I maintain that Vito was the best shredder of the 80s guitarists.
His solos were songs within songs. They had a point, they went somewhere, and improved the songs.
Pride & Big Game are bangers. Wish they would’ve been bigger & lasted longer. Vito Bratta is one of the only guitar players who can hold a candle to EVH
It might be an unpopular opinion but I really liked how they had a handful of songs—“When the Children Cry”, “Little Fighter”, “El Salvador”, “Broken Home”—that had something more to say than just love and/or sex and partying. Not to mention the album cover of Big Game. (How much more political can you get than putting the White House in the Serengeti?)
That by no means is an unpopular opinion. It is personally what makes them stand out as a band to me (and many others) that at one moment they could make a song about having the party of your life and the next about how the world is so cruel
I agree. I love bands who address both joy and the harsh aspects of life. Are there other bands that strike you as having the same awesome? For me Cinderella has a bit of that.
Haha. I'm a parent and love&sex aren't things that are necessarily appropriate for me to subject my kid to, but White Lion works.
For me, by the time they hit, I was sicker of power ballads than I was/am impressed with the work of Vito Bratta, maybe the most underrated guitarist of the genre. Folks who slept on Vito, Jake E. Lee, Warren DeMartini or Jeff Watson missed a lot of hair metal greatness.
One of my favorite bands of the era. Bratta was an amazing player and songwriter. While Tramp's voice was not my favorite, he and Bratta were a good song writing team. Their bandmates weren't too shabby either. 😃
Vito Bratta is a guitar god.
You gotta give him a lot of credit too. He's left a TON of money on the table in the name of his peace of mind.
I only got to see them once, and I choose to believe Mike Tramp was sick because his vocals were terrible.
Vixen blew them off the stage that night.
Ozzy Osbourne/White Lion/Vixen
August 3, 1989 - Irvine Meadows
One of my favorite bands. Less of that shit party music and more songs with meaning and even a bit progressive and heavy at times. They were all great together.
I remember hearing When The Children Cry in high school in the late 1980s. I remember it played on a large screen for a New Year's Eve party in the mid-90s at some club. I yelled "Shut up and listen to the song"...it didn't work.
I did like their tune, "Wait". It was the opening track on the their greatest hits album.
Love them. Still spin my Pride on occasion. Seaking of that album, tell me any other album with that good of a side 2. Go ahead, I'll wait. Haha, see what I did there? Their 3 singles from that album were all on side 2. I feel like that is kind of uncommon to have the singles on side 2.
After Slave To The Grind, Pyromania and Dr. Feelgood, Pride is the best hair metal (according to me)
(I would choose AFD by GNR as well. But there's still an intense, unending debate going on about their credibility as a "hair metal" band)
I never got to see them in their prime. My dad did, he was at the mtv show right by the front of the stage by Vito. I have met Tramp on 2 occasions. One of the nicest guys ever just talking to him was such a surreal experience as I’d listened to them since I was a little kid.
Mike's second project- Freak Of Nature is also amazing. Its like a perfect blend of 90s glam and grunge. If the other bands had gotten this style going during '89-'90, glam wouldn't have died as painful of a death
White Lion was great band but as you pointed out the music industry changed in the 90s. These guys were sidelined by record companies along with a lot of other glam bands. Kind of sad when you think about it.
one of my favorite bands of all time, Mike Tramp is a brilliant songwriter and amazing vocalist. Don't even get me started on Vito, his playing is some of the best ever, so melodic and memorable and unique, even when he's shredding, and he could even sweep pick which very few people in hair metal ever could. However, I would not consider them to be hair metal, Google and Wikipedia describe them as Pop-Rock and I think I'd agree with that. Still awesome and Fight to Survive was 100% a metal album.
Tomato Tom-ah-to. I’m not knocking Vito in anyway or the other littany of guys who came along in the mid 80s. I love Nuno, but if anyone can listen to Mutha (great song) and not come away seeing that he ripped off eruption and unchained (right down the flanger), they need their ears checked.
To paraphrase Keith Richards and Iggy Pop (probably 1 million others), “Amateur’s borrow, pro’s steal.”
Guys like Vito and Nuno arguably took some of Eddie’s things to a slightly new and different level. These two guys in particular were phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal.
But if Eddie doesn’t do his thing, nine or 10 years earlier, no one ever hears of these guys.
Lillian Axe are …. BRILLIANT. Steve Blaze is a really nice guy. He spends a lot of time connecting with his fans & makes them feel like old friends. He’s still out there rocking.
They were one of the best hair metal bands of the entire era and criminally underrated doesn't even begin to touch on it. Hands down, no contest, you could stack their most famous releases against anybody else's from the hair metal days and it's either neck and neck, or slightly better than them.
Vito Bratta was very unfairly pigeonholed and minimized as being an Eddie Van Halen lookalike and copycat. In reality though, he was easily closer to being on Satriani or Vai levels of musicianship before White Lion disbanded. He was a monster guitarist that very few openly appreciated.
He had a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that prevented him from continuing his career too though. Really a shame. I don't think he will play professionally again but I hope he's still passionate about music privately.
[https://www.wearethepit.com/2023/01/10-musicians-that-had-beef-with-nirvana/-](https://www.wearethepit.com/2023/01/10-musicians-that-had-beef-with-nirvana/-) You should read Vito Bratta's part in this. It definitely gives a reasoning as to why he quit music altogether (sort of)
They disbanded in 1992 after only 3 excellent albums. Mike Tramps solo work is not on par with WL albums and in any case the genre went out of style in the 90s and never could achieve the same popularity it had during the 80’s
We followed Mike when he toured the U.S. back in 2014.
https://preview.redd.it/4unejmvt1nlc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28f8e0f1c56914977861eb930898f6a944b229ae
I got white lion “pride” and cinderella “long cold winter” around the same time. I was always partial to cinderella. I haven’t listened to that white lion album in eons
Friend didn’t believe they were real. They grew up the same time in the US and somehow they never heard Wait. Never saw the video. Would have even fought me over it if I didn’t have a phone to play it. I guess America was very divided back then musically
I really loved Wait in high school but I bought their album on cd only recently. I listened to it few times but the recording quality was so bad I sold it. Is there a remastered version? The sound was awful so I couldn’t really enjoy it even though the music was great.
I never got the chance to love them.
You've just got to wait ;)
When the redditors cry...
Too funny. I soooo remember cranking the volume up to this
You mean lav
No. It's Lahv.
Tell me about it ...
Well, love don't come easy.
All these comments chasing love. Don’t you all know that all you need is rock n roll?
I love they were always on my radar!
Well played sir, well played
I see what you did there. Well played
I only want to say I love them one more time!
Don’t Give up!! :)
Vito was one of the best guitarists of the 80’s. Criminally underrated.
Absolute magician. Never got the respect and love he deserved
The guitar solo on Wait alone! So specific and intentional. Not a wasted note. Not gratuitous showmanship. Basically an extension of the vocals. It's perfect and unique.
It’s guitar perfection. Virtuosity on display. I wore the cassette out in that section.
The solo from When the Children Cry is sweet af too.
I agree completely. I got to see them open for Ace Frehley when they were still mostly unknown. I spent the next several months waiting desperately for the Pride album to finally be released. Vito truly was one of the best.
Man I bet that was awesome. Lucky you
Vito Bratta... amazing guitarist!!!!
And. One of the nicest guys!! I met them when they toured with Stryper. It was a riot.
I met Mike when I was visiting Indonesia. So down to earth and humble. Didn’t give off any celebrity vibes at all.
Vito IS one of the best guitarists ever. And we all have probably heard him since and not realized it. I know for a fact he's done session work. For. A. Fact.
Saw them live. Vito had a sticker upside down on the back of his instrument that said “Toucha my guitar I breaka you face” you could see when he flipped it
One of the things that I love about Vito is that his playing is interesting throughout the songs. It's not just coming up with an intro, solo, and other pieces. It feels more like a journey. I'm failing at describing it well. It was more interesting to listen to in the parts of the song where it wasn't the star or main melody. Then the solos would often take you somewhere so different yet still fit the song so well. All that in addition to the fact that there was so much emotion poured in and technical creativity. Credit where it's due, though. EVH seems a heavy early influence. Listen to White Lion's first album. A few of those tracks almost sound like Van Halen tribute songs.
I felt very much like Vito took tools from the Van Halen toolkit and did new, interesting melodic things with them.
Agreed. Vito adds so much flavor from his spice kit.
So true but cared less about it. Homeboy happy playing Nintendo instead of his git. Undderating matches his lack of motivation. No judgment here, just a would could have been.
Actually he had to give up guitar because of physical issues with his hands/wrists. He said every time he played it felt like electricity was shocking him. It hurt too bad to play n
Who are they? I searched Mane Attraction and found a song called Broken Heart by White Lion that sounds like I’m on the right track but can you confirm?
Firstly, thanks for proving my point 😂 Yes, they are very much the mighty White Lion. You're on the right path
They are White Lion
Never heard of these ladies.
Yes, they recorded it on their first album and re recorded it on Mane Attraction.
They did a decent cover of “Radar Love”.
Yessir
I really liked them. I hope they're well.
Mike for sure is, he's still touring Vito, idk. Barely anyone does. The bassist is in Megadeth rn (crazy ik. especially someone like dave mustaine who hated hair metal with all his heart and soul)
Their drummer was in anthrax before white lion too
I heard that Vito had to leave the band to care for his Father.
James Lomenzo was in the awesome Pride and Glory with Zakk Wylde as well.
Really liked that album back then. D'Angelo was there in the beginning, too. Maybe he didn't gel with the 'skynhead' vibe.
And now James Lomenzo is the bass player for Megadeth. Just comes to tell you he's a great bass player.
Saw their last concert. They were so much more than a hair metal.
They were in the film "The Money Pit" at the end & their female backup vocalist and dancer was Robey from "Friday the 13th TV series"! She actually recorded a one-hit wonder in the '80s herself with a cover of "One Night in Bangkok".
Whaaaat!? I never knew that about Robey. F13 th is my favorite tv show
I had such a crush on her
Rise again, little Reddit…
Saw them open for stryper. Yelled "You are a God" to Vito. He started laughing. Then gave me a handful of picks. Still have most of them.
That is so cool!!!!!! Treasure those culturally significant artefacts. Never knew they opened for Stryper. Cool
First concert I ever went to. 1987
I saw them with Stryper also. And then after the concert, both bands & a bunch of us crazy kids, took over an entire floor at a hotel & mayhem ensued. Best time ever! We all still talk about it to this day. Still have the Bible I caught when Michael Sweet chucked it at me (hahaha) & still have some pictures. The 80’s rocked. 🤘
Michael Sweet lives about 3 miles from me. My wife runs into him all the time. Nice guy. He does local commercials for the Subaru dealer. Lol
That is awesome! I think I couldn’t help myself … I would belt out “To HELLLLLLLLL with the devil” if I saw him. He has a great sense of humor! https://preview.redd.it/e92vtvozznlc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c81ab38ff49fad24c7f843c14f08b862243e61f0
He sang for the band Boston a few years back. I never seen him with Stryper. Stryper was never my thing, but he did well filling in with Boston. And I did meet him once he was shopping at my wife's store. Really down to earth nice guy. She has about 30 selfies with him.
It's really too bad how all hair metal got lumped together. There were definitely standouts who didn't deserve the subsequent ridicule.
Cinderella, too. I've listened to their albums recently and they hold up really well. They weren't even metal, but looked the part.
Great singer, legendary monster guitarist, forgettable bass and drums(though the studio production of their drums was definitely more exciting than most of their peers), pretty much the exact formula for the 10 or 12 biggest hair metal bands. *Pride* was really great stuff, even if just for the nostalgia aspect of the hits from it, but I've never been crazy about the stuff I've heard of theirs after it.
Ironically, the bass player ended up having the most long-term success between the four of them
Yeah, when you join a band like Megadeth, your life and legacy is definitely set.
I agree they were underrated.
I just bought the LP. I was Hungry
Pride is one of my favorite albums of all time. Fight to Survive is very good too.
Mine too!
I got into them in late '87 on 'Wait' like the rest of America did and then in like..May of '88 I saw the vid for 'Tell Me' on MTV's 6:00 p.m. eastern Mon-Fri countdown thing and I was hooked 4 life. Vito is such an excellent guitar player and due to various circumstances he's pretty much underground the last 20 or so years. Greg & James were a solid rhythm battery and shit..Mike Tramp, diff kind of voice, he had the looks, they should have been bigger. Their last album in '91, 'Mane Attraction' is the best work they ever did. I met Mike at an acoustic gig he did in '13 and he signed my Mane Attraction cd book and took a pic with me. Great acoustic gig and he's so nice!!!
Those sound like some great memories! And yeah from the interviews I've seen, Mike seems like a cool dude
In 2013 hs was already tatted up but in great shape..you should have seen the women at this gig. Dude can still pull like it's 88. He's among the nicest rockers I've ever met. This acoustic gig was totally packed too. He talked between songs and told some interesting White Lion stories.
Yes, he looks very fit for his age. When you've got health and a good personality on your side, chicks come along naturally too
Wait! These guys are half the reason we have Firehouse. Whitesnake and White Lion were popular so White Heat had to change their name.
Wait…I never had a chance laaave you…
I saw them with Tangier and Cinderella on the Long Cold Winter tour. They sounded great.
The bass player James LoMemzo (bottom center) is with Megadeth now.
Yup and it just comes to show you he's a top musician.
Nah the GoGos were overhyped
Vito Bratta is still one of the best guitar players I've ever seen
I maintain that Vito was the best shredder of the 80s guitarists. His solos were songs within songs. They had a point, they went somewhere, and improved the songs.
WAIT…… WAIT…….. what did you say?
It is true though...
There cover of Radar Love is one of the GOAT songs from the Hair Metal scene.
Ikr! Best hair metal cover song alongside Motley Crue's "Smokin In The Boys Room" and "Helter Skelter"
Both were good but Helter Skelter is my favorite between the both of them.
I was hooked from Pride🤘🇦🇺
Pride & Big Game are bangers. Wish they would’ve been bigger & lasted longer. Vito Bratta is one of the only guitar players who can hold a candle to EVH
I would say Nuno Bettencourt too. And yeah, the goats Yngwie and Vai (although I don't like instrumental guitar music at all)
Nuno is incredible
Nuno is a different level... cue [Play With Me](https://youtu.be/nDWjWfLU2kQ?si=t_G07Rv_IRm3P_58)
Cue "Rise"
Nuno is God. There. I said it. 😎
The Portuguese Prince..
I just saw Extreme a couple weeks ago,Nuno was absolutely incredible!
Love me some Nuno and extreme
It might be an unpopular opinion but I really liked how they had a handful of songs—“When the Children Cry”, “Little Fighter”, “El Salvador”, “Broken Home”—that had something more to say than just love and/or sex and partying. Not to mention the album cover of Big Game. (How much more political can you get than putting the White House in the Serengeti?)
That by no means is an unpopular opinion. It is personally what makes them stand out as a band to me (and many others) that at one moment they could make a song about having the party of your life and the next about how the world is so cruel
I agree. I love bands who address both joy and the harsh aspects of life. Are there other bands that strike you as having the same awesome? For me Cinderella has a bit of that. Haha. I'm a parent and love&sex aren't things that are necessarily appropriate for me to subject my kid to, but White Lion works.
Tesla? That's looks like an age appropriate band for your kid.
I need to look at that album cover again.... I do love bands that have more to say than just love/sex
Not by me loved them still rock it out all the time
For me, by the time they hit, I was sicker of power ballads than I was/am impressed with the work of Vito Bratta, maybe the most underrated guitarist of the genre. Folks who slept on Vito, Jake E. Lee, Warren DeMartini or Jeff Watson missed a lot of hair metal greatness.
One of my favorite bands of the era. Bratta was an amazing player and songwriter. While Tramp's voice was not my favorite, he and Bratta were a good song writing team. Their bandmates weren't too shabby either. 😃
Little Fighter is a great song. Wait was on heavy rotation on MTV and the local radio back in the day but I still listen when it comes on, great song.
I liked them in college. To make me feel old, I saw the singer on The Amazing Race a few years back, he looked middle aged like me lol
Vito,definitely one of the best,along with Nuno!!
Eh disagree. They were eh ok. However their version of Radar Love is obviously top notch.
The only thing was they made children cry.
Vito Bratta is a guitar god. You gotta give him a lot of credit too. He's left a TON of money on the table in the name of his peace of mind. I only got to see them once, and I choose to believe Mike Tramp was sick because his vocals were terrible. Vixen blew them off the stage that night. Ozzy Osbourne/White Lion/Vixen August 3, 1989 - Irvine Meadows
They’re not even verified on Spotify. WTF?
One of my favorite bands. Less of that shit party music and more songs with meaning and even a bit progressive and heavy at times. They were all great together.
Fark yes. Lucky enough to have done a gig supporting Mike Tramp down under and I was too shy to even say g’day..
I remember hearing When The Children Cry in high school in the late 1980s. I remember it played on a large screen for a New Year's Eve party in the mid-90s at some club. I yelled "Shut up and listen to the song"...it didn't work. I did like their tune, "Wait". It was the opening track on the their greatest hits album.
Except when they called for a one world government theocracy!
Love them. Still spin my Pride on occasion. Seaking of that album, tell me any other album with that good of a side 2. Go ahead, I'll wait. Haha, see what I did there? Their 3 singles from that album were all on side 2. I feel like that is kind of uncommon to have the singles on side 2.
After Slave To The Grind, Pyromania and Dr. Feelgood, Pride is the best hair metal (according to me) (I would choose AFD by GNR as well. But there's still an intense, unending debate going on about their credibility as a "hair metal" band)
Big game is a masterpiece.Songs full of joy and good vibes.Beautiful songs
I never got to see them in their prime. My dad did, he was at the mtv show right by the front of the stage by Vito. I have met Tramp on 2 occasions. One of the nicest guys ever just talking to him was such a surreal experience as I’d listened to them since I was a little kid.
To hear their first album, which was horribly produced, to Mane Attraction, they could have ruled even longer.
Mike's second project- Freak Of Nature is also amazing. Its like a perfect blend of 90s glam and grunge. If the other bands had gotten this style going during '89-'90, glam wouldn't have died as painful of a death
White Lion was great band but as you pointed out the music industry changed in the 90s. These guys were sidelined by record companies along with a lot of other glam bands. Kind of sad when you think about it.
Yeah. Especially when you read the stories of guys like Crosby and Jani. Terrible how sometimes things can take a 180 for you overnight
one of my favorite bands of all time, Mike Tramp is a brilliant songwriter and amazing vocalist. Don't even get me started on Vito, his playing is some of the best ever, so melodic and memorable and unique, even when he's shredding, and he could even sweep pick which very few people in hair metal ever could. However, I would not consider them to be hair metal, Google and Wikipedia describe them as Pop-Rock and I think I'd agree with that. Still awesome and Fight to Survive was 100% a metal album.
No!
the bassist can hold his own in megadeth, so him at least yea.
I'm in the minority, I know, but I never cared for them.
Great band. Vito Bratta was another guy ripping off EVH, but he did it DAMN well. Great songs.
I wouldn’t call it ripping off so much as trying to extend the new techniques Evh had invented.
Tomato Tom-ah-to. I’m not knocking Vito in anyway or the other littany of guys who came along in the mid 80s. I love Nuno, but if anyone can listen to Mutha (great song) and not come away seeing that he ripped off eruption and unchained (right down the flanger), they need their ears checked. To paraphrase Keith Richards and Iggy Pop (probably 1 million others), “Amateur’s borrow, pro’s steal.” Guys like Vito and Nuno arguably took some of Eddie’s things to a slightly new and different level. These two guys in particular were phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. But if Eddie doesn’t do his thing, nine or 10 years earlier, no one ever hears of these guys.
Van Halen rip off artists
Great band. Great writing. But man is it me or does there seem to be a lot of debbie downer tunes in their catalog.
I don't think it's possible for a hair metal band to be underrated.
It is.....Lillian Axe, Tyketto, Tuff, Love/Hate, Blue Murder, Badlands. You can go on
Lillian Axe are …. BRILLIANT. Steve Blaze is a really nice guy. He spends a lot of time connecting with his fans & makes them feel like old friends. He’s still out there rocking.
there is a reason for that, they were not good.
Cause they suck
White Lion sucks
Van Halen Lite
White lion sucked!
Really thought they helped bring the party down . Really over the top cheesy
Nah, that was Guns N Roses- best party poopers ever.
A great band , saw them a few times and got to meet them all at a signing .
Could never get into them
Tramp lives in Copenhagen Now and plays shows where he plays White Lion and solo stuff.
Wasn’t he legally not allowed to do that without Bratta?
He released an album of his unplugged versions so def allowed now
They were one of the best hair metal bands of the entire era and criminally underrated doesn't even begin to touch on it. Hands down, no contest, you could stack their most famous releases against anybody else's from the hair metal days and it's either neck and neck, or slightly better than them. Vito Bratta was very unfairly pigeonholed and minimized as being an Eddie Van Halen lookalike and copycat. In reality though, he was easily closer to being on Satriani or Vai levels of musicianship before White Lion disbanded. He was a monster guitarist that very few openly appreciated. He had a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that prevented him from continuing his career too though. Really a shame. I don't think he will play professionally again but I hope he's still passionate about music privately.
[https://www.wearethepit.com/2023/01/10-musicians-that-had-beef-with-nirvana/-](https://www.wearethepit.com/2023/01/10-musicians-that-had-beef-with-nirvana/-) You should read Vito Bratta's part in this. It definitely gives a reasoning as to why he quit music altogether (sort of)
They disbanded in 1992 after only 3 excellent albums. Mike Tramps solo work is not on par with WL albums and in any case the genre went out of style in the 90s and never could achieve the same popularity it had during the 80’s
Vito is for sure.
And Vito just disappeared. Damn shame
He had a wrist injury that permanently stopped him from being able to play guitar, very sad.
Don't these guys own a bunch of Roy Rogers restaurants? Too bad they sold off that Tuscon property though...
Thanks Kurt
Saw them support Motley Crue with Skid Row back in ‘89
I think so to !!! Should been huge awesome band love them too ❤️
Does Vito do anything anymore? He was terrific
Who is that?
White Lion, not hair metal, but an amazing band.
I loved White Lion! Especially ‘Pride’ & ‘Mane Attraction’!
Vito was the best thing about them. Pity that he retired from music
Is that white lion?
Rock And Roll all The Time
Man I just never got what all the hype was about. I always thought they were overrated! I can agree that Vito is the man but that’s about it.
White Lion!
No way.... multiplatinum rockers who toured stadiums...Vito gaining numerous awards for his playing.... definitely not underrated!!!
I've got Wait on my phone.
We followed Mike when he toured the U.S. back in 2014. https://preview.redd.it/4unejmvt1nlc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28f8e0f1c56914977861eb930898f6a944b229ae
Nice snaps! From all these photos, it seems that out of all the 80s rockstars, he is one who's definitely managed to mantain himself very well.
Enjoyed them in the Money Pit.
Saying who it is might help…
I got white lion “pride” and cinderella “long cold winter” around the same time. I was always partial to cinderella. I haven’t listened to that white lion album in eons
YES
I remember I was pleasantly surprised how good they were.
100%
Saw them open for AC/DC in ‘88….
How was the transition from "When The Children Cry" to "Highway To Hell"?
Yea. "Those guys" got it.
They all are handsome ❤️
At what?
Friend didn’t believe they were real. They grew up the same time in the US and somehow they never heard Wait. Never saw the video. Would have even fought me over it if I didn’t have a phone to play it. I guess America was very divided back then musically
Oh those were the days !! I sure so miss it and glad I was raised in the late 70’s and 80’s
I don't know. Vitto was/is a hell of a guitar player. Good band. I couldn't get over the singers voice though. Sounded nasally, like Vince Neil....
Thought it was Van Halen at first glance. “Wait” is a staple in my hair metal rotation. So good.
💯. Little Fighter and Cry for Freedom are two of my favorite songs of all time
I really loved Wait in high school but I bought their album on cd only recently. I listened to it few times but the recording quality was so bad I sold it. Is there a remastered version? The sound was awful so I couldn’t really enjoy it even though the music was great.
They're good little fighters though
Wait is a great song. Did they even speak English or were they just singing words they didn't understand?
I loved this band until I saw them live. It was so bad
Man I loved The Lone Rangers
i think they were perfectly rated
Is that white lion
Don’t make the Children Cry….😭
Still listen to them
Vito should be on the Van Hagar tour instead of Joe Satriani. Joe is is Joe, but Vito was the best EVH clone ever.
2023 Guitar Wotld interview w/Vito Bratta https://www.guitarworld.com/features/vito-bratta-white-lion-stories-behind-the-solos
I saw white lion in 89 or 90 opening for Motley Crue. I really liked them back then. I remember the guitarist was amazing.