Attention Deficit Delirium

Kip Winger live.
(Courtesy of Kip Winger.com.)

People generally know Kip Winger as a purveyor of pop metal. Some know of his classical ballet training as a teenager. Fewer know that he is now a classical composer. But that is slowly changing.

The bassist, guitarist and singer, who still records and tours with the band that bears his name, is increasingly making the move into the classical world, with his first major work Ghosts premiering to critical acclaim at the San Francisco Ballet earlier this year. (Take that, Beavis and Butthead.) Like fellow rock musicians Duncan Sheik and David Bryan, Winger is finding new musical avenues to express himself in.

While touring in Europe last month, Kip sat down to chat with ADD about his life in rock, dance and classical and expand upon the dual life he has been leading all of these years. (Part One can be found here.)


I imagine that this has been an interesting transition period for you because you’ve been known mainly for your work with Winger, and even though you have this ballet and classical background, there are probably people in the classical world who knew very little about what you have done there. You surely have surprised fans in both worlds. Have you met classical people who had no clue about that side of your life?
Most of them. Maybe there’s one or two [who [knew]. It was amazing in San Francisco, by the way, because I walk in and people think, “What’s this going to be like?” I actually read a couple of reviews that said when they heard Kip Winger did the music, they thought it would be blues or rock, and they were really into it. They were very shocked by it actually because it’s very organic classical music. I was actually considering changing my name to Charles, which is my real name, thinking that would give me a little more credibility. Kip has been a nickname since I was a kid, but I called that off because what ended up happening was I got more press for the San Francisco Ballet than they’ve ever had for one of those ballets.

Being honored by the State Department:
Kip receives the American flag from General Cross.
(Courtesy of Kip Winger.com.)

Do you think that was part of choreographer Christopher Wheeldon‘s decision to work on Ghosts?
He didn’t even know who I was. The first time he realized I was famous was when he saw Rock Of Ages, and [the narrator] Lonny said he was going to beat up someone for dissing Kip Winger. He didn’t know. He totally didn’t get it. It was amazing, which was great for me because he chose it [Ghosts] off the merit of the music.

The latest Winger album, Karma.

I’m a big ’80s fan, and I embrace music from my past, even if some of it is considered to be cheesy. Some people refuse to acknowledge that aspect of nostalgia in a positive way, as if liking it in earnest is bad.
It’s no great mystery that I was at the scene of the crime of that whole thing. I went through a whole period of being publicly stoned to death. When the grunge thing happened, it really fell out, but on top of that I was singled out, which ironically turned out to be great because it gave me a lot of time to go back to the books and study and do what I really wanted to be doing.

What was the inspiration for you to create Ghosts?
Writing a piece for Chris Wheeldon. I wanted to write a legitimate piece that would hold up in any arena. I was living in Nashville, and still do, when I was writing it, and I didn’t know where I was going to go with it. It’s kind of a bizarre story actually. I was working [on the music] in an old hospital in Nashville that had been converted into office space and recording studio space, and the place just had the weirdest vibe. There was a mystical thing about it. I just kept hearing strange noises and stuff. I kept hearing this one theme that starts in the cadenza of the first violin bit at the beginning of the first movement. The place was not like a haunted house, but there was this strange, mystical essence around the studio, and the word “ghosts” came when I was writing that little bit there. It just stuck, and I used it as a working title. The further that I went into writing the piece, I started seeing different personalities that were popping out of the music and started developing the characters in that way. When Chris heard the music and heard the title, there was really no turning back. Usually choreographers name their piece whatever they want to, even if the music has another working title, but he stuck with that. There are 17 dancers I believe, and he made the ballet like a mass of souls after a tragedy, all trying to find their way. It works so well. I couldn’t believe how he did that, almost like it was a shipwreck or something. There’s a big piece of wreckage above the stage that continually moves throughout the piece, like the wreckage of a boat, and the dancers are below it. Sometimes it looks like they’re underwater. What he did was unbelievable, and the costumes were amazing. The whole team was exceptional.
[continued below]

Kip Winger at work during the Ghosts recording session.
(Courtesy of Kip Winger.com.)

One thing that he did that was very interesting was that I wrote the piece in three movements — misterioso, largamente and the adagio — and in ballet the adagio is usually in the middle, but the arc of the piece fell into this form I did. He got the piece, and a month before he went to San Francisco he called me and asked if I could make it longer. He needed about four more minutes. After messing around with it, I decided to write another movement. I wrote another movement that was about four minutes and squeezed in there. When I went to watch the rehearsal, he rearranged all the movements where my second movement went fourth, my third movement stayed third and he stuck the new movement in second, and it’s awesome. I don’t have an actual recording of the second movement. It’s on iTunes in the way I [originally] wrote it, which is why I called it “Suite No. 1″. So I’ll record the other one and call it “Suite No. 2″ and arrange it in the order that he did. At first there was a little voice in my head that said, “Wow, he changed it. Is that good or bad?” But then I thought that this is what art is. You get the other guy who’s doing his vision. He grabbed the piece and turned it around into what he saw it as. He’s a master, by the way. He rearranged the whole piece, and it was better. It was really an amazing experience. It’s very satisfying and gratifying.

Is classical music something you’re going to be transitioning to in the years ahead?
Yes.





After all of these years — having reunited Winger, recorded and toured again, and having completed your first classical ballet — do you feel vindicated?
Yeah, I do. I feel like now people are starting to understand [it]. The most painful part about getting booted out of the business back in the ’90s would have been — and I don’t know if they did or not — if people didn’t think I was a good musician. That was always the most important thing to me. Now that my career is basically living off of the good musicianship, that is really the vindication for me because that’s the most important thing.

A thumbs up from Kip at the Palms Casino Resort.
(Courtesy of Kip Winger.com.)

What are the most underrated Winger songs?
It depends on what level you’re talking about. We did some really deep stuff on Winger IV. It was our first record in 10 years, and a lot of people didn’t get it because I was in the throes of this explosion of music theory and chromaticism. I jam packed that record with a lot of heavy duty music. People just didn’t connect a song like “Right Up Ahead” and “Blue Suede Shoes”. Actually, the State Department gave me an award for “Blue Suede Shoes,” so I did get recognized for that. Musically, even “Headed For A Heartbreak” had a different approach to it. It [also] had a huge guitar solo. We were very proud of the fact that we always had these ripping guitar solos on our hits. I think when musicians hear it they go, “Wow, these guys are really happening.” The general public either likes the songs or they don’t. In pop music you could be doing computer music like Britney Spears and still could be great or could be shit. There are a few of our tunes that I would say [are underrated] like “In For The Kill” and “Under One Condition,” or “Witness” on Karma. People get it if they like it. I don’t really pay attention to that stuff anymore.

All of you have strong musical pedigrees and went on to other solid projects. For example, Reb Beach played on Dokken’s Erase The Slate, which is a great album.
He did, and he’s been in Whitesnake for six years. He’s got an amazing career — he did Alice Cooper, Dokken, Whitesnake and Night Ranger. He keeps getting better, man. Our drummer Rod Morgenstein is now a full professor at Berklee, and the other guy John Roth is the lead guitar player in Giant. Everybody has their own thing going. Like I say, honestly, we get together to do this to hang out with each other and make a few bucks. We just all have too much going on.





Are there any other projects that you’re working on?
It’s funny, because I’m actually writing another ballet. I’ve got sketches for four movements. Again, this stuff takes a really long time because it’s just a deeper art form. I don’t mean it in an egotistical way, but to not sound dorky you have to really flesh it out. It’s like a movie script — you’ve got all the different characters, and they all have to develop. It’s like the difference between you writing an interview and a short story. Seeing the whole thing simultaneously from beginning to end — if that muscle memory is not developed — it’s hard to develop that, where you can grasp something so much bigger simultaneously. That’s been a big challenge for me. I’m getting better at it, but it really just takes practice. That’s what guys like Beethoven did. There was no Internet, no TV. They would just do that until that part of the brain was working all the time. I’m trying to wean myself into that whole world, and it’s definitely different.

Recent Winger promo shot
by Studio Rigby/Andres Martinez.
(Courtesy of Kip Winger.com.)

Some rock musicians and bands want to change and evolve, and some don’t. Some don’t need to change to succeed if they have a winning formula.
We were one big album away from headlining arenas and making shitloads of cash. My band came too late. We hit that genre about four years too late. Bon Jovi is obviously the one who nailed it. But had I done that and been making all that money, it does get addictive, man. I’m just happy that stuff turned out the way it did for me. I’d love all the money, of course, but if I had the choice I’d rather be in the position I am in now with the music I’m able to write. One of my biggest templates is to seek out this mentor program that I do. I find somebody that whoops my ass, and I go study with them. I continue to do that.

Do you mean that they’re mentoring you in music?
Composition, man. Right now I go to Michael Kurek. I’ve been going to him for a long time. He can still pull my head out of my ass, and it’s not like taking lessons. I’ll go three months and get stuck and go to him. He’ll look at it and give me a clear picture of what I’m doing, and so far he’s still inspiring it out of me. I was with a guy in New Mexico for four years and got everything I could out of him and moved on. There have been a couple of very famous composers that I’ve met, and I am working on maybe going to work with them a little bit, just finding people that are better. It’s kind of like skiing. When there’s somebody better than you, you go down the black diamond and watch them do it and you get to get better, rather than hang out with the people that are worse.



Could you imagine this band without this frontman?

In the late Robert Altman’s satirical film The Player, Hollywood executive Larry Levy proposes that his studio can save money on hiring writers by developing scripts themselves, tearing ideas right from front page newspaper headlines. To which the film’s anti-hero, fellow executive and competitor Griffin Mill, retorts: “I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we’ve got something here.”

That same wisecrack can now be applied to lead singers — after all, who needs someone with a famous face to deliver the words? With the near departure of vocalist Steven Tyler from Aerosmith on the eve of their 40th anniversary, his bandmates immediately began contemplating who might take his place. That seemed like a rather hasty move, but then again this is a group that is in middle age and would not have years to wait for their frontman to decide to return. And these days famed rock gods, particularly vocalists, are becoming more replaceable than ever, something rarely heard of twenty or more years ago.

Replacing famous singers is not without precedent. When Bon Scott died, AC/DC brought in an equally distinct but different screecher in Brian Johnson, and they became huge. That’s a rare exception, but there are others. After Peter Gabriel departed Genesis, the British art-rockers soldiered on with drummer Phil Collins as frontman (so to speak), but he did make them more commercially viable and generated bigger hits. (For true progressive music fans, though, that was heresy.) Sammy Hagar’s turn in Van Halen allowed them to go more pop as well (not that everyone liked that). Hagar was also a star in his right when he joined VH, but lightning did not strike twice for them after he left their ranks. Remember the Gary Cherone era? Further, Ronnie James Dio kept Black Sabbath successful for two albums (and subsequent reunions) after they fired Ozzy Osbourne in 1979, and their music remained as hard and heavy as ever, even today under their new moniker Heaven & Hell. Dio also gained fame previously fronting Rainbow.

Van Halen reunited with Sammy Hagar in 2004.

My friend Eric Vitoulis went to see Journey three years ago at Jones Beach Theater on Long Island. Prior to the show it was announced that former Yngwie Malmsteen vocalist Jeff Scott Soto would be filling in for Steve Augieri, who was having vocal problems that soon lead to his departure after eight years with the group. A woman in front of Eric turned to her friend and said, “Steve Perry’s not here?” (Not since 1996, my dear.) That ironic statement is proof that many fairweather fans — i.e. the casual listeners who turn musicians  into platinum hit machines — do not really pay all that much attention to the lives of the artists they listen to. It’s what I call the “Rock Of Ages syndrome”. The opening night crowd for that Broadway hit were true ’80s fanatics, right down to their attire, while a subsequent audience months later was mainly comprised of suburbanites, many of whom clearly do not often listen to the songs that were performed nor always remember who performed what. But they love the nostalgia and kitsch factors that Rock Of Ages represents.

Alice In Chains with new frontman William DuVall (at right).

There are many Journey fans who would vehemently argue that no one could fill Steve Perry’s legendary shoes. Yet three vocalists have since, and the latest one, Filipino native Arnel Pineda, has helped boost their careers once again, both in terms of album and concert ticket sales. Journey are admittedly an anomaly, a beloved institution who do not seem to get sidelined for long due to limited warranties on replacment singers, two of whom have purposely sounded very close to Perry. Conversely, when revered metal bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Ratt and Black Sabbath replaced famous frontmen who left — in Sabbath’s case there were two — fans did not respond as well. They were still there but in diminished numbers. More commercial bands like Foreigner, Styx and others seem to be able to pull this off a little better. Queen certainly made it be known that they were not attempting to diminish or tarnish the legacy of the late Freddie Mercury by bringing in former Bad Company and Free singer Paul Rodgers, and fans responded favorably. They also performed songs by Rodgers’ previous groups to hammer home their point that they were Queen + Paul Rodgers, rather than with. Similarly, ’90s rockers Alice In Chains have soldiered on with William DuVall as original frontman Layne Staley died of a drug overdose in 2002. Like Journey did last year with their platinum Revelation, AIC’s latest album Black Gives Way To Blue hit #5 on the Billboard charts.

Could anyone truly replace Steven Tyler in Aerosmith? Of course not. When guitarist Joe Perry was gone from the band between 1979 and 1984, the group experienced a dip in popularity. Imagine what would happen with a Tyler-less line-up? Plus he has always been the singer. Groups that have experienced downtime between singers often were going through a quiet phase (the ’90s comes to mind for many) and were a little younger when it happened and thus have been able to cope with such a transition better. A decade after the departure of original frontman and songwriter Dennis DeYoung, Styx has persevered with vocalist Lawrence Gowan. Guitarist Mick Jones has been the lone original member of Foreigner since singer Lou Gramm departed in 2003, and they had been the two lone original members for years prior. And Perry hasn’t been in Journey since 1996, nor performed live with them since 1987. (And who knows when he’ll reemerge publicly.)

Styx ten years after with frontman Lawrence Gowan (at bottom center).

We should not begrudge a group that wishes to continue once a famous member, usually the frontman, departs. This is their livelihood. They deserve to make a living. And there are people who still want to hear the music, regardless of who sings it, as long as they’re good. The irony that the aforementioned Journey follower did not even know who she would be listening to onstage may be ironic — some casual KISS fans probably do not know that Ace Frehley and Peter Criss are long gone — but the upside of this situation shows how some fans really just want to hear the music. Purists will certainly argue that point and are certainly free not to attend the shows or buy the new albums. In terms of replacing iconic singers, the cliché business concept “what the market will bear” comes to mind — even if some people think the results are unbearable.

My latest cover story for Stage Direction focuses on the wild wig work of "Rock Of Ages" hair designer Tom Watson.

Eighties jukebox musical Rock Of Ages has taken Broadway by storm while helping fortysomethings relive their alcohol fueled, peroxide filled hair band daze. The fun, flashy show is the pop version of the metal movement of the Eighties (where devil horns were tossed with unintentional irony) that tones down the reality of the mouching, boozing, sexist rockers who littered the Sunset Strip (they were generally more Stacee Jaxx than Wolfgang Von Colt, for those of you who have seen the show). It’s also interesting to note that this long haired extraganza has arrived on the Great White Way at the same time as the return of the classic Sixties musical Hair. Here we have two different types of hair revivals linked by not only their lengthy locks but the fact that the children of the Eighties experienced a diluted Sixties flashback.

For the current issue of Stage Directions I wrote the cover story “Hair-Raising Wigs” (on page 32), which examines hair and wig designer Tom Watson’s superlative and meticulous work on the show. Seriously, you’ll be shocked when you compare the guys onstage with their shorter maned Playbill photos. Except for star Constantine Maroulis. His hair is real.

“Hair-Raising Wigs” PDF version

“Hair-Raising Wigs” HTML version

Journey back in the day with Steve Perry.

Sounds absurd? It isn’t. Not totally.

Melodic rockers Journey have sold boatloads of records (an estimated 75 million) since vocalist Steve Perry joined the group back in 1977, not to mention plenty of concert tickets. Even their short-lived reunion with their famous frontman in 1996 did not derail them. The San Francisco quintet has had three singers since Perry’s departure and can still play to crowds of 10,000 people or more, effectively warding off the frontman curse that befalls any superstar group that loses its “voice”. On top of all that, Journey’s 2008 album Revelation (a Wal-Mart exclusive) even hit #5 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and sold over 1,000,000 copies in America. Classic rock dinosaurs? Far from it.

More importantly, Journey’s songs have become pop culture touchstones that work everywhere, from major video games like Rock Band to TV shows. When The Sopranos used “Don’t Stop Believin’” for its series finale in June 2007, the song shot to the top of the iTunes chart and become the site’s biggest selling download ever, reaching the 2 million mark as of last November. The same tune, along with “Any Way You Want It,” has been used in the new Broadway jukebox musical Rock of Ages. And it is also sung by a high school glee club in the finale to the pilot episode of Glee, a charming Fox TV series due to air in September. (And by the way, what is “Don’t Stop Believin’” about anyway? Despite being an inspirational song for many — the first stanza seems like the lyrical rough draft for Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer” — the rest of it is essentially snapshots of everyday people’s lives with little characterization.)

At any rate, it’s all about perception. While heavier bands like AC/DC and Led Zeppelin have probably sold two to three times as many albums as Journey (we won’t include Elvis or The Beatles here since they trump everyone), downloads and individual songs are how you reach people these days.  The band is doing big business that way, and many of their instantly hummable, melodic tunes are tailor made for mass media consumption. I don’t mean that as a diss. While I generally can’t stand their hit ballads, I think that Journey actually write a lot of great rock songs that often spotlight stellar musicianship, and their timeless quality has helped their music endure. The fact that they are undergoing a massive resurgence simply adds to their legend and should keep their fanbase growing for years to come. Like it or not, disbelievers.

Journey today with Arnel Pineda.