White Lion’s Mike Tramp recently recalled a deal that saved the band financially.
During one of his latest shows, the singer told the story of how White Lion got to appear in a movie. Before telling the story, the rocker mentioned that their feature recently resurfaced and said he received a lot of messages on social media about it, as fans wondered whether it was really them.
Tramp recalled how they received the deal to appear in ‘The Money Pit’ during their early days and admitted what they found ridiculous about the movie. Before starting to play his next song, the rocker told the audience:
“Around 1985, we have a summer with absolutely no shows. We get a phone call from one of the big movie studios in Hollywood and they’re doing a movie in New York, and they are looking for a rock band just to be part of it. So we show up at audition and stuff, like then, and then we get the parts, and we’re all excited thinking this is gonna be our break. We didn’t get the record deal, but we get to be part of the movie starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long.”
Apparently, the studio wanted the band to dress up as flies during the shoot of the performance and even had the costumes ready, costing 50 thousand dollars each. Additionally, the stage was also designed according to their costumes. The rocker continued:
“The stage is a gigantic Venus flytrap. Like, one meter of foam, gigantic tongue, and stuff like that. The drum kit just kept falling over and over and over each other, and for hours, we had to re-shoot, and finally, the director comes up and says, ‘This is not really working, is it?’ We just say, ‘Well, we don’t really think so,’ and he goes, ‘You have your own stage closed with you?’ And we’re just, ‘We don’t go anywhere without that.'”
The frontman concluded by sharing how the movie saved them financially:
“So, over the next two hours, they ripped the stage apart. The costume designers sit there crying because the flies are leaving. And suddenly, we’re just out there dancing around. […] That’s the story behind that thing, and that saved us financially during that summer. So next time you want some money pit, we’re gonna come in and out very quickly, but it is White Lion in that song.”
Six years after the band took place in the 1986 movie, White Lion split up, and more recently, he clarified that in his eyes, the band came to an end and would never reunite.
See the video from the show below.
