Winger would rise to popularity in the late 80’s and early 90’s thanks to their first two
albums. But two incidents in the band’s career resulted in the public turning against them.
Winger was different from the other bands of the hair metal
era by being more progressive in their sound and featuring classically trained musicians.
In fact frontman and bassist kip winger referred to Winger and i quote as “the hair metal version
of Dream Theater” At the same time Kip Winger had a background in ballet leading
some to believe that he wasn’t macho. He would tell the LA TImes when asked if he was macho.
“Some people don’t think so,” “I’m sure some people have thought I was a sissy. They think of
some guy in a tutu. Is that macho? Not to them.” “.... I’m just a guy. I don’t think of myself
as macho. I don’t like guys who think of themselves as macho. Those kind of labels
are dumb. They can be misleading" he'd say. By the time Winger was touring their second
record in 1990, things started to change. While their sophomore effort in the heart
of the young sold over a million copies, the band started to notice dwindling crowds at their shows
as did their peers. Keyboardist Paul Taylor would recall in the book Nothin but a good time “By then
we were into what 1990. So we were starting to all notice, like wow, where’s everybody at the shows.
And where’s our chart numbers.” I remember it finally hit home in Cincinnati. We had a
night off and i went to see Extreme & Cinderella with David Lee Roth and it was half full.... I
was like “whoa something’s up, because two years prior it would have been sold out.”
By 1991, heavy metal band Metallica released their juggernaut album the Black Album.
One of the hugely successful singles off that record was 'nothing else matters,'
whose video featured Metallica drummer lars ulrich throwing darts at a poster of Kip Winger. Kip
Winger would reveal in an interview 'metallica threw darts at our poster, and told their fans
to put a curse on us and hate us. I don’t really understand what that was about.He would go on to
say that he never personally met Lars but did see him at a gig and wanted to speak to him
but lars bodyguard kept him away. He would add in the same interview I ’ve got nothing against those
guys, but [the video] didn’t help me. I thought it was cheap. And unfounded to a large degree. I
don’t think those guys can play a lot of our shit. I think they got some cool albums. Obviously,
they’re huge. It was kind of like, “Hey everybody, we think these guys suck, so you should, too.”
It wasn’t just Metallica who took aim at the band as did MTV.
Winger had a complicated relationship with the network. On one hand Winger
owed a lot of its success to the network. Their self titled debut record in 1988
barely sold any copies in it’s first month of release. Not helping was that their label
Atlantic Records wanted to cut their losses and given the astronomical costs of doing videos the
label initially said no to making any music videos for their debut record. But after playing many
gigs and pushing their label they were allowed to audition for some executives at Atlantic
to see whether they band qualified for making a video. Given Kip Winger’s background in ballet,
they passed the audition with flying colors and secured $90,000 to make a video for their single
Madelaine. The video would premiere on MTV in the early hours of the morning on headbangers ball
and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Winger’s crossover appeal
saw their videos played outside of headbangers ball on the network's other programs and their
debut album soon went platinum..2 albums later and by 1993. rock music had undergone a massive shift,
with the type of music Winger playing become less popular as alternative rock was the flavour of the
week. The members of Winger by their own admission were betting on their third album to be a huge
hit. Guitarist Reb Beach would admit that the band was getting big publishing advances ahead of their
third album Pull coming out. Jumping the gun Beach bought a new expensive house and relocated his
whole family to Florida. Their third record Pull wouldn’t even sell half a million copies meaning
it didn’t even go gold. And within eight months of buying that house Beach had to sell the property.
While the band’s record sales dried up, they were still a draw on the touring circuit
with Reb Beach remembering the moment that changed on tour revealing in the book 'Nothing' but a
good time' “We were on tour for pull, selling a thousand tickets a night in theatres. It was going
really well. And this guy came on the bus and said “i gotta show you guys something...He put beavis
and butt-head video and when they hung that kid by his underwear on the tree in his winger t-shirt,
we all just looked at each other, i remember going oh no, this could all be over...The
day after it aired, nobody bought winger tickets anymore. We had to cancel the tour. And in a
separate interview Beach would claim that radio DJ’s stopped playing the band's music altogether..
The character that beach was referring to was named. Stewart who was one of the uncool kids on
the show who wore a Winger shirt. Compared to the main characters of beavis and butthead who wore
AC/DC and Metallica t-shirts, the shows message was simple that Winger was safe and uncool.
The band would split the following year, before reforming briefly in 2001
then more permanently in 2006. They’ve since released three additional albums since Pull,
the most recent being 2014’s Better Days Comin’. Kip Winger for his part also found
time to work on classical musical compositions with the san francisco ballet orchestra.
But in 2011 kip winger gave an interview to the weeklings where he revealed he apparently buried
the hatchet with beavis and butthead writer and creator mike judge. He would state 'when
they did the beavis and butthead remake i found mike and i told him i wanted to clear the air.
I never tried to sue mtv or Mike. Never had a problem with the cartoon.
I mean it was David and Goliath really. There was nothing you could do but take it like a man
It certainly didn't help us i'll tell you that. It was certainly a funny show and mike's a funny guy.
Winger was a band that was popular for some of the wrong reasons, man. So we ended up on the show.
I don’t believe there was any malicious intent. We exchanged some emails; Mike is a very nice guy,
no hard feelings. I was hoping maybe he’d give me a voice-over role in the new cartoon though.That
does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like button
and subscribe and we'll see you next time on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.