Mike Tramp, 'The Road' -- New Video

Mike Tramp has released a video for his song "The Road" from the album Second Time Around. That album comes out in May. He will tour America this spring and summer in support of the new album. I'm looking forward to hearing more tracks from Second Time Around. Could be promising.

Comments

[Bkallday]

Lemme guess, it’s a slow song? Is it about the environment or politics or both?

[Kixchix]

That was really very good. Better than Keifer stuff. Saw Mike solo about 3 years ago. His son sold his “merch” and that was it. Thought it was cool traveling the USA with just your kid playing gigs. Best of luck to Mike!

[Basileus]

Recently been revisiting White Lion. Man, how good was Vito Bratta?! One of the best of the era.

[Gary]

@Basileus. I’ve been playing 45 years, and IMHO,Vito was hands down the most melodic, technically proficient player that came out of the era. Dude just oozed catchy riffs. Shame he gave it up due to various reasons and basically went off the grid. Man was a beast 🤟

[Him]

After slaggin on Jovi a few posts ago, I read a comment on another site that made me stop and think. The post? It suggested that Tramp should open for Jovi because they are now doing similar stuff. I mean, I get the thinking there. It does sorta' make sense.

Here's the thing. I would still pick Tramp over Jovi. His voice, even with the age and the acoustic thing, still hints at and occasionally nails those things that made him such a great singer (and acquired taste) in White Lion back in the day. To be fair, some of his acoustic forays into White Lion classics in recent years have not worked. Others have. But I would certainly pay to see him.

Imagine carrying that 'almost was/sorta' was' burden on your back, trying to restart your career several times, and still finding the time to get out there and tour to small audiences? He clearly loves what he does now, even if some of us would love to hear the old stuff with the old band. Glad to see he is doing one more tip of the hat to those classic songs, even if it is sad that Bratta is no longer out there doing his thing. It is also nice to hear that he and Bratta have seemingly mended some of the fences in recent years. They were certainly a creative duo that flamed out too soon.

Tramp will always be remembered as that lion-maned singer of yesteryear. Glad he is still making music in spite of that shadow (and, yeah, rock songs about Greenpeace do rub some readers the wrong way . . . but so what? Rock that offends you? That's rock!!!).

[Bkallday]

Rock/Metal and politics dont mix and shouldnt mix.

[Him]

Bkallday, you know that isn't true! If it was, then you would have to scrap songs by Metallica, Megadeth, Extreme, Slayer, Def Lep, etc., etc. Some are more subtle; some are more direct; some lean right; some left. But there are a lot of metal songs with political leanings.

I didn't even mention Rage Against the Machine. Oh wait. I did. And I give Crue and Megadeth a sorta-pass on their covers of "Anarchy" because they were likely trying to add cred to their shred. Or maybe not. "Is this the PMRC?"

I will give you this though: I do like a lot of metal songs (some by the bands mentioned above) that take me away from thinking about politics. As you know, I don't like discussing my politics on here. Too political. But that is perhaps a political stance.

Rock transcends politics, even if it often traffics in the same. I mean, think about it: "Smooth Up In 'Ya" is certainly about gender relations and sexual norms. Right? Maybe?