In the beggining of last decade, actually 1982, Mike moved from Spain where he lived for three years (originally Danish, moved to Spain at the age of 18) ,to Santa Monica. There he met guitarist Vito Bratta, and decided that the time has come for them. They joined forces with bassist Felix Robinson and drummer Nicky Capozzi and started the story. The story's name was WHITE LION! They had the killer songs, all they needed yet was the contract with the record company. They managed to sign with Elektra Records, and overjoyed went to Frankfurt (Germany) to record their debut FIGHT TO SURVIVE. Everything went great, they had great stuff, the producer was contented, had the great team, the people from record company called every day to say how satisfied they were with their works and how they were ready to give them support of any kind...But that was to ideal to be true. Back then the boys were full of begginer's enthusiasm, and there was no time for any kind of pessimism. Few months before the record was supposed to see the light, they found that they were forgotten. Fired. Kicked out. They had no idea what's going on. Everyone at the company acted like there was no contract. They gave no attention to what will happen with the band or the album. There was the story that the singer of one hi-rated band, which was also under Elektra, was frightened that WL would make success, after which his band will lose (!?!) some because of that. He thought that there was no room for both bands, so he made same moves... WL managed to release the album in Japan, and very soon went gold. One small house brought it to Europe also. The album brought attraction to a lot of American record houses, and very soon the band was in Atlantic Records. Only this time they assured from any kind of breaking the contract, or any kind of bad work.
In the meantime the band had one line-up change. Bass guitarist James Lomenzo replaced Dave Spitz (brother of Anthrax's guitarist Dan Spitz) who was in the band some time, and Greg "Kickin' Ass" D'Angelo, former Anthrax drummer came to WL. Now this formation gave the band new injection to reach out for new horisonts. The result was PRIDE,... the story of the youth..., the album which presented some fresh, untamable, wide kind of sound, with great lines, power drumming and nervous guitar stuff (with the exeption of When The Children Cry, the song closing the album, which was in some softer feeling). The World Tour was on, while as soon as the album came out it was annouced as album of the month in numerous magazines. The tour ended in november '88 when the band soon went back to studio to record brand new album, which came in the beginning of '89.The album was called BIG GAME, and very soon was on the top of the charts. There were great rocking numers like Living On The Edge, Goin' Home Tonight or a killer version of Golden Earring's Radar Love. But like WTCCry on PRIDE, they touched some touchy themes like Cry For Freedom, Broken Home or Little Fighter (In Memory Of The Rainbow Warrior).
They toured a lot, and when they finished they took a lot more time to create the material for another record. During 1991 they finally released MANE ATTRACTION, the album that brought them back on position #ONE. This time they had Richie Zito producing this album. Ten perfect songs, including Lights And Thunder, the opening tune, which has its specifical intensity, Love Don't Come Easy, which was actually the first single off the album in America (for Europe it was Lights And Thunder), rawer Leave Me Alone, very strong War Song (What Are We Fighting For) with some great tempo change in the middle of it, and two brilliant solos (which Vito's guitar part is bad, by the way? Never heard actually!), one outofcontrolfastandloose in the first part, and after the slowing down one deep blue sensitive solo with great support by the rest of the band.On CD release you can find two bonus songs, contagious She's Got Everything, and Blue Monday, instrumental, in memory of S.R.Vaughan. They re-released the song Broken Heart, which also appeared on their FIGHT TO SURVIVE works, here in different shape and that was their second single off the album.
So bad that this was actually their last tour together. The band broke apart in the middle of it. After that they continued in different line-up, with Tommy T-Bone Caradonna on bass, and Jimmy De Grasso on drums, but not for long.
