Former WHITE LION Guitarist VITO BRATTA Reflects On Fight To Survive Debut Album - "What A F**king Disaster That Record Was..."
July 16, 2023, a year ago
Guitar World recently caught up with former White Lion guitarist Vito Bratta, and during the interview he discussed the band's debut album, Fight To Survive, releasd in 1985. Bratta calls it a "fucking disaster" specifically because of the guitar parts that made it onto the record.
He reveals that the entire album consist of scratch tracks. For those who don't know, scratch tracks are demo tracks recorded as a temporary filler to help hold down the rest of the song. These are meant to be replaced with final takes, which Bratta never got to do.
Bratta: "None of it is what it was supposed to be. I laid the scratch guitars down, and then the producer, Peter (Hauke) told me, 'OK, Vito, that’s good for now. We’ll have you come back in and finish the guitars when the rest of the album is done. So, I’m thinking, 'Okay, I guess I’ll redo these and put the polish on after.' See, I was a dumb kid. I knew nothing. I’d never been in a recording studio. And now, I’m in Germany with this bald guy yelling at me. I won’t say I was scared, but I wasn’t going to question him.
Long story short, Mike (Tramp) finishes his vocals, and Peter tells me, 'We’re done. You can go home now.' And I’m like, 'What about the guitars?' Peter just looked at me and said, 'Sorry. We ran out of money and time. We’re going with what we’ve got.' I was devastated. I couldn’t believe a bunch of shitty scratch tracks would be my first record."
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