VITO BRATTA We finally came up with enough material to make another White Lion record—pretty much all of the songs on Pride—and we said, “Let’s go back to Germany and do this new album.” That was in the summer of ’86. We did it the same way we did Fight to Survive. Same producer. Same studio. Same everything. But when we came home, I said, “This is terrible. I hate this record.” Fight to Survive was good for 1983, but by 1986 there were enough albums coming out like Slippery When Wet and Night Songs by Cinderella that it just didn’t cut it. I think everybody agreed. But it was used to help us get signed to Atlantic.
JASON FLOM (executive, Atlantic Records) I went to Baltimore to see them the first time. It was ’86 and it was the year before I went to rehab and I was just a fuckin’ mess. So I made time to go see them in Baltimore and I was going to see this other band called Mannequin. And I was getting … I was trying to do the right amount of drugs to get myself out of the apartment and to an airport. I missed the flight and then I missed the next flight, and I missed the next flight. I ended up catching the last flight, which stopped in Pittsburgh, and I had to take a puddle jumper from Pittsburgh to Baltimore. I got there really late, as you can imagine. I’d been supposed to see the Mannequin guys first, and the managers were waiting at the airport for hours. But I didn’t have time now because I had to go to the White Lion show. It was really an awkward situation because these guys were waiting for me at the airport and I was like, “Can you take me to White Lion?”
VITO BRATTA Jason Flom is twenty minutes away from us in New York City and he’s gonna come to see us in Baltimore? Where we played like twice and there’s twenty people in the place? I think he just liked to travel.
JAMES LOMENZO We came out, we jumped all over the place like idiots like we did in our superhero costumes, and I remember Jason actually right in front. It was obvious, because he so didn’t belong there, and he had a girl or two under each arm, and he was basically using them for support. And the next day we were being signed to Atlantic Records.
JASON FLOM Those guys weren’t really partiers but I ended up staying up late with them. And that was the night that I made the decision to sign them.
MIKE TRAMP We went to L.A. to record Pride with Michael Wagener. He’s always been a band guy, and he just made us feel at home right away. This is the moment of White Lion that would never come again. The magic of the real first album. The one we love by every band.
MICHAEL WAGENER Vito and I hit it off. We were talking about the same things even in terms of cars and stuff like that, and we were shooting for the same thing. He played the solo to “Wait” in one take while we did the drums. I was sitting there and I was like, “Well, you’re done with that solo!”
JASON FLOM Pride was dead on arrival and then one radio station in Minneapolis broke “Wait.” It’s a little miracle.
MIKE TRAMP When the video for “Wait” had come out, I think June or July, they would play it at like four in the morning. But one time they had played it at the right time and it got a serious response. Atlantic hadn’t gotten a word of it, but they had heard that MTV was not going to put it on Dial MTV. I was up at Atlantic Records, this Danish boy with no real clue about how things work, but also fearless. And I picked up the phone and I called MTV, and I just kept getting turned on to another person, until finally I got some person that felt like they were in charge. And the following week, they added the video and it rose to the top.
VITO BRATTA I mean, when you show up at shows and people are just like, “God, that solo to ‘Wait,’ that solo to ‘Wait…’” I’m like, “God almighty. I’ve written other songs!” And then you go onstage, and when it comes time to do that solo to “Wait,” you freeze. I did that one time on CNN. We were playing some outdoor stadium in Texas and the cameraman from CNN goes, “I’m here to see your band but I love that solo to ‘Wait.’ So I’m telling you we’re gonna go live right when you hit that solo.” And I froze. First time ever, I didn’t play the solo. I just stood there. And the guy’s just shaking his head.
JAMES LOMENZO Mike’s lyrics definitely did portray people being overrun somewhere else in the world and how we should be concerned about it. I’d tell the guys, “He’s been living in Denmark. He’s been looking at the world through a different lens.” I actually appreciated that. I think it made me feel really comfortable to have somebody who’s kind of thinking a little bigger than the size of somebody’s jeans. It definitely wasn’t, “I’m gonna slide it in, right to the top.”
MIKE TRAMP “When the Children Cry” has followed me ever since. Look at the lyrics. The lyrics are even more current today than they were back then.
JAMES LOMENZO That song put us in a place where even more people came out. And we could tour on our own merit and do theaters on our own. And that was a big deal.
VITO BRATTA The Pride tour consisted of three parts. The first part was Aerosmith, the Permanent Vacation tour. At one point, we had a higher-charting album than them. Then there was AC/DC, I think their Blow Up Your Video tour. And then it ended with Stryper in tertiary markets.
MIKE TRAMP We started in June, and we finished in November a year and a half later. We’d been to Japan, Europe … We’d played so many shows. We never even knew we had money in our bank accounts.
GREG D’ANGELO There were no drugs, no booze, no nothing. We were clean as the driven snow back then. At least, most of us were.
JAMES LOMENZO We were pretty much out there on the road just hitting it hard, and it could be exhausting. Especially when you’re a little younger and you kind of play both sides against the middle. You know, you do your shows, and then you celebrate those shows.
VITO BRATTA The other guys could have a fun day off if they wanted to. They’d be knocking on my door, “Hey, you coming down to the pool?” No. I spent the entire time in my hotel room working on the next record. So at the end of the Pride tour, I had a cassette with the entire Big Game record demoed. But Mike Tramp never heard it.