Former WHITE LION frontman MIKE TRAMP recently spoke with SleazeRoxx.com about hiw time with the band and his solo career. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Sleaze Roxx: Where do you think you've travelled from your first solo work, or even since 2011's Stand Your Ground'?

Mike Tramp: "The thing is, once I broke away from White Lion and formed Freak Of Nature, one thing led to another. I was done with White Lion and I needed to start something new -- I needed a new sound. It's kind of like, in better words, I grew out of that. There are people today, you understand the point, still trying to play the same music -- but when you hear the calling inside you to move on you can't resist that. In the '90s, with grunge coming along and the scene changing, I had also changed and so FREAK OF NATURE became the band -- it was just something completely different. When that band ended I knew I couldn't give anymore to a band. It's taken so much of my life."

"So then I basically just went back to who Mike Tramp is. Mike Tramp is just one of the bricks that builds the house and that brick is just one certain type. Once you take that brick away, you just have that one element. And obviously, those who know those two bands only know the final sound -- they don't know how the ingredients were put together. But the sound of Mike Tramp is much different than the bands I was in. And it's also why those bands sound like that, because if they had had any other singer, or frontman or songwriter... so it's the combination of things. So I returned to myself. But of course I'm starting with the '80s and '90s behind me and starting a solo career. So there's going to be lots of searching and experimenting and all that kind of stuff and it went on for years and years and years. And then, a slight return to try and recreate White Lion with the new line-up... a complete mistake."

Sleaze Roxx: You think recreating White Lion was a mistake? Why do you say that?

Mike Tramp: "Oh yeah, of course it was a mistake. The reason I broke up with the band was because I was done with it. The reason you file for divorce is because the love is gone -- you get tired of it. But I needed to do it to find out I'd made the mistake. I made the decision when I was on tour for my second solo album, and when you're playing to like 25 people and when people are goading you and saying 'Oh, if you put White Lion back together you'd play festivals and make big bucks...'"

Sleaze Roxx: But it's not all about that...

Mike Tramp: "No, and you find that out when you put it together and it becomes heartaches, lawsuits, and everything else. So I came away twice as bitter. But those are the mistakes you learn from. So I've been going in and out and stuff. My previous two albums were called The Rock 'n' Roll Circuz because the guys who recorded that album were just too much of a band. Even though these were my songs, it was not a solo album! They had too much influence in the performance of the album. So that's why I called it the Circuz.

When I went to do this album, number one, I didn't plan to do an album -- I just walked into my friend's studio and said, 'I need to hear some music, I'm feeling it.' He said, 'Every time we've worked together, we always talk about our heroes and how simple rock is. Why don't you, for the first time in your life, follow your love of acoustic guitar.' So I went in the studio and recorded the first song and he said, 'You know, I heard a piano part, let me play it.' So he did and we sat back and then we went, 'this song is finished'. At the end of the first day, the first four songs were finished -- recorded and everything. In four days, the album was finished. I had no record deal and I had nobody to introduce it to. Nobody knew about it, which is why I've gotten the greatest reviews around the world that I've ever gotten for an album."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

On May 7th, Deadline Music (a subsidiary of Cleopatra Records) released the new Mike Tramp album, Cobblestone Street, in North America with an exclusive bonus track. The album was released in Europe in April via Target Records in the following formats: CD, limited digipack CD, LP and digitally.

Cobblestone Street tracklisting:

'Cobblestone Street'

'Caught In The Storm'

'New Day'

'Ain't The Life I Asked For'

'Revolution'

'We'll Be Alright'

'Angel Or Devil'

'Find It In Your Heart'

'What Are You Gonna Do'

'Once'

European bonus tracks: 'More To Life Than This' and '’92'

North American bonus track: 'When The Children Cry' (2013 Acoustic Version)

Cobblestone Street is a departure from the sound that most people would expect from a singer, that has been around since WHITE LION crashed on to the hard rock scene in the 80s. Heavily influenced by fellow Danish artists with acoustic guitars and international stars like BOB DYLAN, NEIL YOUNG and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, Tramp says that all of his songs through 35 years on the music stage, have always come from sitting with the old faithful acoustic guitar playing and singing. That White Lion songs like 'When The Children Cry', 'Broken Heart' and 'Wait', and FREAK OF NATURE’s 'Rescue Me' later have ended up as epic rock classics is just a question of arranging them in that way with the band in the rehearsal room, but all songs have always been fit to play around the campfire or in the back of a shady bar.

The album was recorded at Medley Studio in Copenhagen, Denmark with co-producer/engineer and multi-instrumentalist Soren Andersen. “It was a wonderful feeling, sitting there on the couch listening to the songs that were rough and naked, but at the same time so complete,” recalls Mike.

This new artistic direction can be heard on the first single, 'New Day', which is out now digitally in all of Europe and can be heard streaming here.

See Tramp presenting the title track and the new album below: