During a recent appearance on The Paltrocast, Mike Tramp of White Lion recalled a one-on-one meeting with David Lee Roth that would eventually take him to New York in pursuit of rock stardom.
The meeting occurred in 1981 when Van Halen was in Madrid, Spain. Tramp was fronting the band Studs, who had just released their debut album.
“I’m probably one of the only ones in the world who have ever met Van Halen and been the only one there when they came to Spain,” said Tramp. “We were on the same record company and I got the chance to present my band’s album to Dave Roth in his hotel room. Only Dave and I sitting there. First of all, I asked him, ‘What it would take [to make it]?’ And he goes, ‘You’re gonna have to go to America and you got to play the clubs for at least 10 years’. Two years later, or a year and a half later, I went to America and started playing the clubs in New York.”
It was while in New York that Tramp met guitarist Vito Bratta and formed White Lion in 1983 and the rest is, as they say, rock and roll history.
Tramp talks more about Van Halen with host Darren Paltrowitz in the interview below including the first time he heard Van Halen and why he feels he and Roth are alike regarding their true musical roots.