In response to the recent rumors surrounding
WHITE LION and the
POISON/
RATT summer tour,
WHITE LION frontman
Mike Tramp has issued the following statement:
"On behalf of myself and
WHITE LION, I would like to clear up the many misperceptions and rumors that have been created by
Live Nation's decision to withdraw
WHITE LION as the opening act of the summer 2007
POISON tour. While we are limited in what we can say about the issue because of pending litigation, we can inform everyone that
Live Nation's decision was not based on any controversy over whether
Mike Tramp has the legal right to perform as
WHITE LION. Our information is that
Live Nation's decision was based upon a threatened lawsuit by former
WHITE LION guitarist
Vito Bratta. Even though
Live Nation believed
Vito's lawsuit to be frivolous and had confirmed that
Mike Tramp has the legal right to perform as
WHITE LION, they did not want to spend 'one dollar' on litigation. Faced with the cancellation of a tour that was to begin within weeks, our attorneys went the extra mile to work out a deal with
Vito Bratta to drop his threatened lawsuit but even with the threat of litigation eliminated,
Live Nation continued on their ill-informed course of dropping
WHITE LION from the
POISON tour. Like myself, I know that there are many fans across the United States who are extremely disappointed by
Live Nation's decision and we intend to use all options to fight this arbitrary and misinformed decision. Hopefully, there will be a day when decisions about staging a rock n' roll tour will be more about pleasing the fans and less about conservative and baseless corporate decisions. Unfortunately, as has been the case far too many times, instead of playing rock n' roll as planned, we are going to end up in court."
Despite the band's removal from the
POISON/
RATT tour,
WHITE LION will continue touring and fulfill their many headline shows in the U.S. that were scheduled between the
POISON shows, including the
Rocklahoma festival.
Tramp has also confirmed to
MelodicRock.com that the band has just finished recording its new studio album, to be released later this year. The CD will be mixed by
Dennis Ward and will be titled
"Return of the Pride".
Said
Mike: "
WHITE LION just finished a killer show at
Gods of Metal festival in Milan/Italy, and will appear on
Sweden Rock June 8....It's only just begun."
VAINS OF JENNA will take over
WHITE LION's spot on the
POISON/
RATT summer tour.
(Thanks:
MelodicRock.com)