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A Last Farewell With KIP WINGER From WINGER · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is Kip Winger here, we are.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Here, we are radiative. How I am. I thank you
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: to join us tonight.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: My absolute pleasures.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: So we we're here to speak about the fact that,
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: for the first and last time ever the original lineup
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: of Winger, he's coming to Australia for a run up
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: dates starting in Melbourne on April fourth and hitting Sydney,
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Adelaide and Brisbane.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Before finishing in Perth on April the tenth.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: So I guess the most obvious question is why who
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: ignored us for so long?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Made what's going on?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: That's funny. Well, we were going to come there, and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: scheduling circumstances had had me, you know, needing to attend
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: some performances in Berlin that were very very important to me.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: But I promised we were coming back, and so here
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: we are and five shows that I'm happy to do,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and we're very excited about coming. And we've got all
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: original members, including John Roth, so it's it's actually going
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to be better than it would have been before because
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think John Roth was able to come. So
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: this is the best lineup of the band that anybody
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: who's ever interested in seeing us will have a chance
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Right good now, just to clarify, might like their advertisement
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: is your first and last tour ORBSTRAA. But is it
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: your last or just because the band is calling it
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: an ice you or is it just you lost jo
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: because you know you might be back here again.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: A little bit of both. I mean, I'm I'm I'm
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: moving on to my classical career for the most part,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and I haven't picked an actual day to play our
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: last show, but we've been kind of going around the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: world saying, hey, this is the last time we're going
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to be in this part of the world, So if
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: you want to come see us, do it now.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And of course you've been here before performing solo.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: But what extra does it mean to you personally to
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: be able to come out with the band and sort
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: of started a little for you pretty much?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you know, the band's got a huge legacy,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and we had the fact that it's very rare that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a band like us would be all original members, right,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a few there's a few bands out
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: there that are still close to all original members, like
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Tesla or you know, night Rangers, close you two maybe
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: you know the only I mean, I don't. It's it's rare,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and we all really enjoy playing with each other on
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: stage and and so you know that from that point
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of view, it's great. And when we played Australia, we
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: did a tour with rat I think it was twenty fourteen,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and that was just spectacular. I mean, the fans are
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: awesome and I've always wanted to come back with the bands.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Wingers played all over the world, mate, But do you
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: have pretty much the same basic sett list everywhere you
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: go or do you drastically change it for different countries
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: sort of based on what song?
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not no, we listen, we had a lot
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of hits, so we have to play the hits and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: you only get a certain amount of time, you know,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: play for an hour and a half or whatever. So
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I'll pick different cuts to play different nights. So the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: set list is a little different every night. But for
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the most part, I mean, we have to play like
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: ten of our hits, you know, and then you know,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: fill it in with different songs from you know, I
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: like to play some of the newer stuff and I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like to read some comments and see what people are
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: hoping that we're going to play. And see if we
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: can work it in.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Running through a typical wing a life time might like
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: you sort of go as it, just sort of stand
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: and deliver the traditional way to play or do you
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: have all the fancy gimmicks on people go these days?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Oh god, no, we're just we're a total traditional meat
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and potatoes, no backing tracks, no nothing. We're like completely
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: organic and d's rock band.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Nice good to hear. Brother.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Have you got any special surprising store for Australian audiences
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: to make out for degllecting it for forty years?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Well we were there in twenty fourteen, but no, no, yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: right no, man, we're you know, we're just coming down
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: because you know, we want to be there. Like I said,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I really dug the fans from twenty fourteen and my
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: acoustic tour wasn't a huge tour, but we really had
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a good time doing it. And you know the music
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: people that the fans really get what they're listening to.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It's really a I you know, some places you play
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and they're just going yeah for no reason. You know,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: like the Australian audience really understood what we were doing.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: So I've wanted to come back for a long time,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm happy to be able to do it with
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: with this lineup, you know.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I got back to the start of it,
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: rod right, since this is the last time we're going
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: to see. Is you formed Wing Out New York City
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: back in nineteen ninety seven. So what was the musical
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: climate like that gave birth to the band back then?
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Where did you fit in? Initially?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Well, it was right when Quiet Riot first hit with
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the when the kind of ushering back in the quote
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: metal thing. So it was like, you know, Quiet Riot,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: then Rat and then bon Jovi and def well deaf
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Leppard was kind of going along all along, but so
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know, it was it was really like the tidal
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: wave of the eighties bands. You know, MTV was in
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: its height and playing rock music. That's when MTV was
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a rock station, you know.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I feel really lucky to be in on that whole
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: era because it was pre internet, all analog. You know,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you couldn't fix your vocals, there was no auto tune,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: none of that stuff was going on. So it was
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a great time to cut your teeth. And it was
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: kind of I mean, I hate to say it, but
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: there was there was kind of a certain Golden Age
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: about that period of time when that type of music
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was really becoming huge. And I got to ride that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: wave twice. I did it with Alice Cooper coming back
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and then with my band, So you know, I had
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a really lucky career.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he tave me yourself.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Thought the album was a huge success off the back
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: of the singles seven eight Headed for Heartbreak in Metal.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And so when you were writing and.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Recording those songs, was there a sensor or feeling that
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: there could be something special because of that music or
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: were you just taken by surprise when it came.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look, I've been writing songs since I
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: was twelve years old, so I was I was on
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a mission, you know. So when reb and I got together,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: there was no doubt that there was a special chemistry
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: there and that and it was very clear to me
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: like if I had a shot, it was going to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: be with Red, you know. And so I think Madeline
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: was the first song, was one of the first songs
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: we wrote. And when we wrote that song, I was like,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you know, okay, this is cool sound. You know, this
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: could this could actually go somewhere. And then when when
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I wrote Headed for a Heartbreak, and he played that
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: solo on it. I don't know, Wow, we really got
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: something here, you know, And I was hopeful, but I mean,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you never know. I remember when our record first came
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: out and we sold fifteen thousand albums, and the producer
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Bo Hilly told me. He called me. He was like, well,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: we've sold fifteen thousand albums, and he was thinking it
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't very good, and I was like, holy shit, he
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: sold fifteen thousand albums. You know what's ironic is nowadays,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: if you sold fifteen thousand, you know, that would be amazing.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: But you know, it took a while. And then when
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: MTV picked it up, we were selling thirty thousand albums
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a week. So, like I say, it was a really
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: cool time to ride The wave.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Man released the follow up, in the Heart of the
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Young liston two years later. So was that to capitalize
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: on this strong response to you, Da'd be well, you're
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: creating Jesus just following.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Because you were young and you wanted to get new
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: stuff out there.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you know you're on a roll. I
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: mean that's what that's what you did. That was the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: you do it. You do an album and if it's
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: a hit, you have a chance to do another one.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: If if it hadn't sold, we would have been dropped
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and you would have never heard us again. So you know, yeah,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: we were on a roll, and we were very inspired
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and we wanted to go out and make it happen
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and again. So ironically, that's the one album that I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: there's some things I would do differently, definitely remix that album,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: and I might still do that someday. But when by
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the time the third album came around, is when we
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: really defined our identity and and that's and even by
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: today's standard, it sold well, it's it went gold, but
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: that was considered a flop.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: The band disbanded in ninety four, and then the general
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: consensus that was because of the grunge movement sort of
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: taken over the rock scene. Light was it that bad
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: back then? I was grunge really killing rock and roll?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was over like that.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: It was over overnight. When Team when Smells Like Teens
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Spirit came out, MTV dropped all the eighties bands, and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: MTV was really the big promotion tour tool, you know,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and then you had Beavis and butt Head and all
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that stuff, which didn't help at all, and they were
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: lifting all the grunge bands up and and and and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: talking and talking trash about all the all the bands
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: like us. So it was over in a in a second.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: It was like you're playing an arena, you're playing a club,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: like within a six month period, you know. For me,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: it was like listen, before my band ever started, I
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: played thou not thousands, but hundreds of clubs. I was
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: very comfortable in a club, you know. So for me,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it was just like, okay, well it was a bummer,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: but I mean it wasn't. It wasn't like anything I
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: was unfamiliar with. And I never was like, hey, I'm
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a rock star, we need to you know what happened.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was just like, okay, well, I was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: all about the music. So I just kept my head down,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: kept writing music. When the band disbanded, I did three
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: solo records, redefined my music, started studying classical, learned how
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to do that. Then we got an opportunity to go
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: out with Poison in two thousand and two, went back
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: out on the road to do that while we all
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: kept doing our own thing, you know, and it kind
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: of grew back very organically from there. You know, we
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: did a tour of Europe in two thousand and six,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and then you know, we came Japan and Australia in
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and it was just kind of rolling back
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: up to where now. I mean, I have to tell
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: my agent to stop sending me offers because I mean,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the you know, the gig, the gig offers now it's
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: just very abundant and it's all come back, you know,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: which is kind of ironic that I'm like, I'm pushing
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: it away because i want to go in a different
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: direction artistically. You know, that's just my own person little
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: journey that's way more exciting to me because I've i
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: feel like I've written every single kind of rock song possible,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and I want to challenge myself to do something better.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: You talk about a different direction musically, can you hear
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: live right on that?
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you've ever heard any of
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: my classical music. There's an album online now called Conversations
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: with Najinski. There's three of my pieces on there. I'm
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: making an album with Nashville Symphony right now with my
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: first symphony in a violin concerto.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: And.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I've gone, I've leaned in hard on orchestral music and
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you know, focusing on that, and I wrote a musical
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen that really was released in twenty eighteen,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: two hours of muse full on Broadway singers, you know.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm just more interested in doing these bigger works
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: with other singers and you know, orchestral players, where it's
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a much bigger genre of music.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Before we let you go to Kip Up started a
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: new segment called photo Bombs. So basically, before I talk
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: to you, I troll for your social media and I
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: come up with photos I want to know a little
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: bit more about so for you.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, we'll start with this one. It's coming on here.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of yelling at one photo.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that's that's when we're cutting
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the vocals to Blind Revolution Mad on pull album. I
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: think literally we're singing the word mad right there.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: It looks pretty intense.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: That's one more bla rather lousion mad. That's where he is.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: That's the one.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: If there's a lot of anger in that last fight
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I made, there's a lot of potential for trouble in
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: this one.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Oh that's hysterical. So that was that was recently in England.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: We did opening up for Steel Panther in England and
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, that was that was a fun tour.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Those guys are funny as ship.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I had everything I like were they were they like
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: because they had a sort of the newer age bad
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: boys and that you've been around for a long time.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So were they looking up to you or were you sort.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Of well, I don't know about looking at they have
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: they have a lot of respect for us, you know,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and and they're very They were awesome to be around.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think, you know, yeah, I think there's
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: there was a mutual respect, but they they definitely were
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: you know, watching from the side of the stage and stuff.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: They have difference there real life besida to what you
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: get with the band.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Steal Panther, like they.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Get they different off stage or are they still like
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: it's prices or they are on stage?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: They're funny, man, They're all really funny. So yeah, they're
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: funny on stage and they're funny off stage. Michael Starr
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: is somewhat pensive off stage, I would say much more,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: much more chill. But they're all really funny, so it's
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: not that different, you know.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Fantastic ka. Well, thanks very much for Tombo. It's being
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: a pleasure speaking with you. The tour kicks off on
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: April fourth. I'll be at the Brisbane show Mates, so
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: until then you take care and don't drink much sockey.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Nice to see again man, I'll see you soon.