Track Listing

1. Broken Heart
2. Cherokee
3. Fight to Survive
4. Where Do We Run
5. In the City
6. All the Fallen Men
7. All Burn in Hell
8. Kid of 1000 Faces
9. Salvador
10. Road to Valhalla

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #387355 in Music
• Released on: 2005-07-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Import, Original recording remastered

Album Description
Debut from glam/pop metal band from New York, originally released in 1984. One of the more talented acts to crawl out of the hair salons in the mid to late eighties. Digitally Remastered. Unavailable domestically. 1991.

Customer Reviews

A must for White Lion and guitar rock fans
I grew up in Staten Island,NY (where some of these guys are from) and first purchased this on vinyl at one of their local shows. White Lion was managed by the owners of the infamous rock club, L'Amours, and would play there every month. With so many glam and hair acts playing at the time, these guys stood out. They could sell out any New York rock club quicker than most national and signed bands. Although Pride was a bigger success and more polished, you need to pick up this cd to realize what an insane prodigy Vito Bratta was and how hard and raw the band really was. Check out the original version of Broken Heart and All the Fallen Men. White Lion's latter success overshadowed their true musical genius but Fight to Survive will always be a testament to one of the greatest rock bands to climb out of the New York jungle in the 80's.
A little F.Y.I.-- White Lion's famous rhythm section of Lomenzo and D'Angelo do not play on this cd. Staten Island local Nicky Capozzi plays drums and Felix Robinson, from the band Angel, plays bass.
Electra records signed the band, but refused to put out the album because it was too hard and heavy for the softer image they wanted them to have.

Super album, but hard to find!
White Lion may be known for "Wait" and "When the Children Cry", but this is *the* album to find. For a debut albumm, the songs are raw and heavy with crazy riffs and hooks and good lyrics to boot. This album is out of print, but with a little digging, you'll find it and love it a lot! I love all the songs, but the ones that are on repeat are Broken Heart, Fight To Survive, and All Burn In Hell.

A terribly underrated debut from the early 80's
Formed in November 1982 by ex-Dreamer guitarist Vito Bratta and Mabel and Studs vocalist Mike Tramp, White Lion released their debut album Fight To Survive in 1984 in Germany. The band went through several line-up changes until they were fully established. First, bassist Felix Robinson was replaced by Dave Spitz (Americade) and drummer Nicky Capozzi by former Anthrax drummer Greg D'Angelo. It is bassist Dave Spitz that appeared in the band's first video "Broken Heart" before he went to join Heavy Metal legends Black Sabbath. Enter James Lomenzo (ex-Rondinelli) to fill in his shoes and the final line-up of White Lion was completed. The album got released in Japan through Victor Records and was highly successful. Shortly after the band landed a part in the Tom Hanks movie "The Money Pit" but this didn't really bring them in the spotlight like they had hoped. In addition to this their American label Elektra dropped them out of the blue and all of a sudden here was a band that had no contract and support Stateside. Unfortunately it would take over 3 years till they could break in the USA with their multi-platinum record Pride in 1987.

Fight To Survive was produced by German producer Peter Hauke who was originally also supposed to produce Pride and Big Game but somehow producer Michael Wagener handled the duties on the band's later releases. Because of the difference of producers and the mix, FTS sounds rather raw and heavy. Very heavy and in your face kind of 80's metal with crushing riffs from Vito Bratta and thoughtful lyrics from Mike Tramp. With the exception of perhaps only two songs ("Where Do We Run" and "Kid of 1,000 Faces") this is a typical heavy metal album . To this day I still run into people that loved White Lion on their debut effort and gradually lost interest after their follow-up Pride. I think I can see where they are coming from. Fight To Survive is melodic, heavy, dark... simply an album of protest. The duo's first ever song "Broken Heart" opens the album and it progresses with the heavy rockers "All The Fallen Men", "El Salvador", "In The City" and closes with the killer ballad "The Road To Valhalla". Vito's naive yet emotional guitar playing shines on this one. Both Vito and Mike were only 22 when they recorded their debut in White Lion.

It is a shame that even after White Lion got gold, their fans had great difficulty locating this album for years. It wasn't until 1992 when Music For Nations finally made it available and released it worldwide. If you like melodic heavy metal from the 80's, it should be in your best interest to check Fight To Survive out. It is definitely much better than the majority of the other debut albums of any band out there.