I vividly remember hearing “Madalaine” for the first time and just being blown away by the energy, the big vocals, the swirling guitars of Reb Beach, the locked in yet somewhat non-traditional drumming of Rod Morgenstein, the whole package. The album took awhile to get off the ground but then the “Seventeen” video hit MTV and Kip Winger’s smiling face was pretty much everywhere. Personally I always loved the band and really thought they brought something different to the table, but for some reason they seem to be brought up most often when people talk about what went wrong in the 80’s. Probably didn’t help that they were prominently displayed on the t-shirt of Beavis and Butthead’s geeky friend Stewart… but I digress.

Winger was never one to deliver the same formula with every release, as exhibited by their four releases to date. Yet with “Karma” their fifth release coming soon to a retailer near you, Kip, Reb, Rod and John have delivered a hard hitting, guitar heavy record that they say is based on feedback from the fans after the much more experimental “IV”.

So I had a nice long chat with Kip as follows, about the new album, the fans, recording, and composing classical music for ballet, Kip’s latest endeavor and what he seems most passionate about.

Pete: Thanks for taking some time out of your schedule to talk to me.

Kip: Yeah, no problem.

Pete: I’ve been a fan since the 80’s when somebody introduced me to “Madelaine”. I’ve seen a lot of changes in your musical direction over the last 4 studio albums. I notice with “Karma” rather than going off in an entirely new direction you seem to be taking everything up to this point and kind of tying it all together. Is that what you set out to do? Did you achieve what you were going for?

Kip: Yeah absolutely, I told Reb I want to do a cross between the first record and “Pull”, and so that’s basically what we did. Spent a lot of time just jamming on riffs, that’s how we do it we set up with a drum machine and then we start writing riffs, and then when we get some riffs that we dig, we start putting them together.

Pete: Very cool, I would say you did pretty well at achieving a good combination of those two albums. In addition to the evolution of the band, the musical landscape also has changed significantly over the last twenty-odd years or so. Your reputation as a band has always been to pretty much write what you want to write, do you ever feel the pull of your diehard fans that want to hear “In the Heart of the Young” part 2 and how do you deal with that?

Kip: Well that’s what I did on this, I mean…“In The Heart of the Young” was more of an experimental record, the real record of our band was “Pull” in my mind. If you put “Rainbow in the Rose” and “Headed for a Heartbreak” on “Pull” that would be the definitive record until now. So, you know I write a lot of classical music now so I kind of separated those two things. Right now I’ve got a couple symphony premiers and stuff, so when I set out to write this record I really wanted to keep it straight ahead, just in your face rock, and just go with what I’ve heard some of the fans want. Really just trying to bring out the elements of what I’ve known people really dug about our band the most.

Pete: That’s great, it’s actually refreshing to hear somebody say that rather than “no way, we just do what we want” and it just happens to be what the fans want.

Kip: Yeah, I mean I know what people dig about the elements, particularly this record just rocks your face off from song 1 to 5 and then we take a break when “Supernova” comes after that. You know, I just turned it up on this really.

Pete: Yeah it’s really “riffy” compared to “IV”.

Kip: Yeah it is.

Pete: And even when you get to things like “Supernova” I notice that you’ve still got a really wicked groove going on, it’s definitely like you said, it’s more in your face. Again with regard to the music scene these days, it seems to me like melodic rock is starting to come to the surface slowly but surely, this year in particular being a year of some really great releases. Have you seen that too, and are you optimistic about the future of melodic rock, is it important to you where you’re at right now?

Kip: You know I just do music, I got in as a guy in the 80’s and have made records ever since so I just do what I do, I don’t really pay attention to what anyone else is doing to be honest with you, I just try to write the best stuff I can come up with and hope that people dig it really. I listen to other bands rarely, because I’m always composing something so I don’t know too much about what’s going on out there honestly, I just kind of stick to what I’ve got.

Pete: That’s cool, nothing wrong with that, that way you don’t sound like anybody else. Seems like all of you are involved in a variety of projects. Is it hard to focus on getting the writing, recording and tour scheduling done, how do you give everything the full attention that it deserves?

Kip: I just do project by project and I don’t work on the next thing until I’m finished really. So the Winger record took eight months, that’s quite awhile, I mean a lot of people make a record in three months but I’m really particular about the way it sounds, making sure the parts are all done, it’s recorded very well, the mix is happening. I’m very hands on with all that stuff, I do most of it myself. Because I just want to make sure that level of quality is as high up as I can get it.

Pete: Absolutely. I saw in the Frontiers press release and also you mentioned it, that you and Reb wrote the album in about a month, which from the musical complexities on Karma is pretty impressive. How do you guys write together, it sounds like you guys just sit down together, so that’s pretty much it, you guys just get together and jam?

Kip: Well, we’ll go buy a 12-pack of beer and crank up the drum machine, start writing riffs, and once we come up with a cool riff, we start to arrange it. But my big thing is like I want to listen to music, and if I feel like, okay three passages go by and I’m bored, I’m changing it up you know? I don’t do anything that I’ve heard before, there’s a lot of stuff on the 1000 year recycle bin… so it’s got to be really inspired stuff, and I know what I want to do when it comes to arranging, so I just try to keep it interesting, and when you’re listening down, there’s never a point where you’re like, you know what’s coming next, or if you do know what’s coming next, it’s because you want it to\, you know what I mean?

Pete: Do Rod and/or John  have much creative input?

Kip: Not as much as Reb and I, you know, it’s always been Reb and I, we write all the stuff. But when it comes to what Rod wants to play, he just plays and I record him basically, and then with John, John  co-wrote one song on this which is a new thing for him, and we gave him a big blues showcase on “After All This Time” so yeah they do, although the core of the message comes from Reb and me.

Pete:  Next week you are off to Brazil to play some solo shows, in November/December with Winger you are headed to play shows in Europe including Moscow and the other year you even took Winger to Australia.  What have been some of the highlights from a non-musical sense with these worldwide excursions? 

Kip: I love Australia, it was an awesome rock crowd, the people are so nice. I like Europe, I particularly like Spain and I love Paris, I like the ambience of other cities. America’s cool but it doesn’t have a great ambience, so it’s nice to be in a foreign place and just take it in. I love traveling, it’s probably one of my favourite things to do, so getting to travel as much as I do is very lucky from the point of view of even though I have to work, you know singing on tour is not the easiest thing but it’s great to be able to travel. I like a lot of places man, I’m going to Russia for the first time this year which is really cool.

Pete: Sounds very cool. So in addition to kind of play off the ambience between the states and Europe, etc. you’ve got quite a few dates in Europe set up and talk of more dates in 2010, plus some in the US and beyond. From other bands and musicians I’ve spoken to recently it seems like Europe is the place to start when you’re a melodic rock act, have you noticed that kind of progression as well?

Kip: Well they’ve stuck with the music more than anybody else. They’re avid fans about it,  they’re not finicky, once they dig you they stick with you.

Pete: So Australia’s been a country that you first visited doing a promo visit many years ago and you played some shows down under the other year with Ratt.  How did those shows go and could you see Winger touring Australia again anytime soon?
Kip: I’d love to go back, except the flight was pretty… long… (laughs)

Pete: (laughs) I can’t even imagine.

Kip: Yeah, I’d love to go back, we had a great time with Ratt, it was a great bill you know, the music really lends itself well to each other. We’re going to Europe November/December and hopefully the states after that and then were going to go back over there, and hopefully we’ll get over to Japan.

Pete: Very cool, I’m  looking forward to the US dates myself, so as far as a set list for live, do you focus on the newer material or do you concentrate mainly on the classics, or somewhere in between?

Kip: We’re doing both, we’ll play 4 or 5 songs from the new record and then all the hits and stuff.

Pete: When you do play the classics, do you try to keep them as close to the original versions or do you reinterpret them?

Kip: We just do what we do live, if you’ve ever seen the live DVD, it’s pretty, you know, it’s a four piece band, there’s not much you can do, we don’t play with Pro Tools or any tapes or things like that, so those guys sing their asses off and we just try to keep it real.

Pete: That’s the way to do it, so many guys these days are using tapes, and prerecorded digital stuff.

Kip: Yeah I mean it can be cool, I mean like a band like Def Leppard, they kind of have to because the records are so deep, there’s just no way, you’d have to have a 20 piece band. But you know, I’m not so into it.

Pete: Yeah, it kind of feels fake when you do that.

Kip: Yeah I mean it definitely sucks the energy out of it.

Pete: So “Karma” has a great sound to it and is possibly the most sonically pleasing Winger effort to date. For the recording of the album, did you use a producer and/or any other outside help? It sounded like you mostly did it yourself, was there anyone else who helped you out with it?

Kip: No, I mixed it and mastered the record myself dude, I’m just kind of a nutcase when it comes to that, I’m really into learning how to get it better and better, and I’ve got a couple of my favorite mix engineers that I’m listening to what they do all the time. Actually I’m friends with them so it’s “How do you do this? How do you do that?” (laughs). I appreciate you saying that because it’s been a long haul for me to really get the mixing to be p to level that I want it to be, but I’m really happy with this one.

Pete: That’s great, so who do you look up to as far as the engineers and such?

Kip: Mike Shipley. He’s the top, he did our “Pull” record with us and I’ve been friends with him since ’94. I think he’s the best mix engineer out there. And I like Richard Dodd, kind of a guy from another end of the world, he’s an English guy that worked with George Harrison and Traveling Wilburys, so he comes from a whole other end of it. So between those two guys I get a pretty well balanced idea of what’s going on.

Pete: You mentioned Pro Tools, are you guys analog, digital, a hybrid?

Kip: I use all Pro Tools man, and I sum out of Pro Tools analog when I mix, I come out of all the channels into analog stuff, and then I mastered analog.

Pete: So as a bass player, I know a lot of bass players tend to go direct in the studio as well as sometimes live. What does Reb do, does he bring in an amp, or are you using Pro Tools plug-ins, what kind of stuff do you do there?

Kip: No, I record everything through amps, I don’t do plug-ins for anything, I just don’t dig that. I use plug-ins for echo and stuff when I’m mixing, but I mic everything dude. Everything’s played live, no bullshit with any of that, like if I record a piano, it’s a real piano. Like okay, if I’m writing a pop song with a young artist or something I’ll do the MIDI thing, but when it comes to our band it’s all very puritanical recording. Digital is now to the point where it’s, you know, I cut Winger “IV” on analog 2”, like 16-track 2” thinking that was going to be a huge difference and ultimately it didn’t make that big of a difference. So I’m a big fan of Pro Tools. The key to recording man, is microphones and preamps. So if you have that part f it down, you’ll be fine.

Pete: Besides overall sales, MTV, etc. what do you find to be different about being a working musician today as opposed to 20 years ago? What are the good/bad points?

Kip: Well I mean the internet’s taken a lot of the money away, but it’s also brought a lot of new bands into the picture, so that’s cool. Live playing has become much more important. But for me dude, I feel very lucky, I got in under the radar before the internet, so I’ve got a pretty good name, so I can go out and play and stuff. I get to pretty much stick to what I’m into which is learning how to write music, I work a lot on classical music, just trying to get better as a composer and stuff, so I’m kind of out of the loop with what’s happening out there to be honest with you.

Pete: It’s a bloodbath out there (laughs) but it is what it is. But honestly this year’s been really great from the newer bands coming along as well as the more classic acts putting out good stuff. I’ve been listening to melodic rock for a long time, and your band was one of the early ones I was into, and I really like the new record, and I’m not just saying that because I’m talking to you, but because it brings back memories of listening to “Pull” which was easily my favorite from you guys.

Kip: Well that’s where I was trying to come from and for you to think it sounds good sonically is a huge compliment, because that was tough to beat. But if you listen to them back to back, I mean “Pull” was a magical record definitely, but sonically I think this ones a little beefier sounding.

Pete: Definitely, and there were some heavy/beefy moments on “Pull” so I think you’re right on with that.

Kip: Well no, I mean the music is apples and oranges, I just mean like sonically the sound of the record is bigger if you put one up against the other, you know what I mean.

Pete: Absolutely, and speaking of the classical stuff, you’re always one to push the musical boundaries both with Winger and your solo material, it must therefore be a particularly proud achievement to have your classical piece "Ghosts" being choreographed and performed by the San Francisco Ballet in February 2010. How did you get involved with that?

Kip: Well I studied ballet when I was a kid, and always wanted to write music for ballet, that’s been one of my biggest goals in my life, to write for the orchestra for ballet music. So I’ve studied on and off for 20 years, music theory, composition, stuff with different professors, with different universities, and taught myself what you would learn if you went to go get a Masters degree in composition. I used to date a girl in New York City Ballet and met a bunch of those really high end dancers, and just kind of approached one of them with “Ghosts” and he loved it, and it was very odd, because I really put my heart and soul into it and I sent it to him and he loved it, which is so rare dude, in this business. I’ve sent my stuff out to so many people in the past, or when I was trying to get a record deal, and you get that “no” at every turn and you just try to eke out a “yes” sometimes. But in this case it was “I love this, make it 20 minutes, I’ve got a commission for the San Francisco Ballet, so send it to me when you’re done”. So I finished it, and recorded it with a 30 piece orchestra in New York and sent it to him, and he loved it and choreographed it on the San Francisco Ballet. I saw rehearsals dude, it was a total dream come true, it was amazing. It’ll be done at the opera house in San Francisco, so for a guy like me I dropped out of fucking high school man. I got a GED and said “see ya”. So it’s been a long road, and a composer in residence in Tucson heard it and gave it to George Hanson, the conductor of the Tucson Symphony, and he loved it and wanted to program it. So the musical premier is with Tucson Symphony November 14th and 15th and the ballet is February 9th, 2010.

Pete: That’s amazing.

Kip: Yeah I’m really psyched about it. And there’s a lot more where that’s coming from because that’s really where my heart is you know? Love the band, love working with the band, Reb and Rod and John, the hanging is especially cool, and I love making the rock records, they feed the other thing so between the two of them it’s a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde thing but one really feeds the other. Doing the orchestra stuff gives me a really keen insight on how to make rock records a little more interesting.

Pete: Yeah I can imagine, there’s so much more going on, so many levels of complexity when you’re doing orchestral stuff. So it sounds like the rewards for you are definitely there. Does it feel different from making a successful rock record, and is it better or worse?

Kip: Dude, there’s nothing like putting your music in front of 30 musicians that have lived their lives doing music. There’s no like “Okay, take one! Take two! Can we do that again? Double track that. Okay let’s mix it.” There’s nothing like that, it took me a year and a half to finish that piece, and then I put all of the pages in front of the musicians, and 1, 2, 3 ready go, they just played it down, it was fucking amazing, just absolutely amazing.

Pete: Kind of brings new meaning to the term “professional”.

Kip: Yeah it does, definitely, and you know it’s ballsy, they’ll call you out if you don’t know your shit.

Pete: How long will that run, is it a one time thing?

Kip: The ballet’s going to run for 7 or 8 performances, but then I’m hoping that other ballet companies around the world will commission it. There’s more to come dude, I’ll be writing more of that stuff.

Pete: That’s great, I’ll definitely be looking into that.

Kip: Well there’s a few snippets of it on my web page, kipwinger.com, just look under where it says “music” and listen to “Ghost“ and you can hear bits and pieces of it.

Pete: Great, I’ll definitely check that out. So back to the rock’n’roll, do you believe there are still opportunities out there for younger people just getting in to the music business? If so, what would your advice to them be?

Kip: Try out for American Idol. (laughs) You know TV is the big game for the big stars but yeah man, there’s a lot of bands coming out that get recognized. It just depends on your will to survive, there’s way more avenues to get it happening and there’s a lot of stuff that can be done. It’s definitely worth going for it, I mean it’s the same as it always was, just the venues are different.

Pete: It seems a little hard to adapt from going to where your big deal was like “find me a record label and then I’ll make it” and now I have to 16 different things to be half as successful. Just seems like there’s a lot more work in it to get where you want to be.

Kip: Yeah, it’s a lot of work, for me like if I was 25 now, I’d be like know PhotoShop, and web page design, all that shit, I’m over it now, but there’s a lot of stuff you can do on your own.

Pete: Yeah absolutely, so do you have any last words for your fans out there?

Kip: Just thanks for sticking with us and particularly bearing with me and my need to expand on so many aspects of music. I definitely don’t serve up the same plate every time, but I appreciate the fans that stick with me.

Pete: Very cool, I appreciate your time Kip.

Kip: Have a good one.

Read our review of “KARMA” click right HERE!!