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Kip Winger 'Won't Put Anything Out if It Sucks'

Posted on Jan 5th 2010 9:00AM by Allyson B. Crawford Comments

"The difference is being an artist or being a businessman. That's the difference. If you boil it down, I'm not doing this to sell a cool T-shirt. I'm not doing this to sell a brand name. I'm doing it for the art and the love of the music." So says Kip Winger of his place in the music industry. Winger has greatly expanded his career since his days playing bass with Alice Cooper before forming Winger, and later branching out to a solo career and also classical composition.

Winger recently released 'Karma,' an album he and lead guitarist Reb Beach wrote together "in about 10 days." Winger then juggled a lot of projects while mixing 'Karma.' In all, it took about seven months to get the sound just right. Most critics say 'Karma' is Winger's heaviest album as a band. Not so, says the band's leader.

"Honestly, the mix is fooling people on 'Karma,'" says Winger to Noisecreep. "The way I mixed it makes it sound really heavy. If you remix the first album ['Winger'], it's really just as heavy. It's just that the mix made it sound kind of puss. 'Winger IV' has really heavy music on it. I mixed that record, too. I just didn't mix it guitar-heavy enough. On this album, I was going for the first album meets 'Pull' but even ballsier."

Even with all his various projects and writing songs for other bands, Winger says he hasn't done enough. "I personally kind of look down upon myself," he admits. "There's a lot of stuff I'd like to be doing and could have been doing and should have been doing but I haven't been able to get done yet. From my point of view, I'm not working hard enough. No regrets, but I feel there's a bunch more music, especially in the classical department [left to write]. Like I'm a little behind the eight ball. Touring takes a lot of time. It is what it is and I'm doing my best. The main thing is I won't put anything out if it sucks."

Winger will play select European cities in support of 'Karma' starting in March 2010.

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Filed under: Interview, New Music

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James McDaniel

I wasn't a real big fan of the first two Winger albums. I thought there were a couple of decent songs on those albums but viewed Winger as a somewhat generic band. However, that changed with the Pull album which did not sell all that well with grunge taking over the charges. The songs were heavier, and Kip Winger and the band seemed to write much better lyrics. Pull was a great album.

I never got around to checking out Winger IV a few years ago when they reunited (but I may). A week ago, I decided to pick up Winger's new album "Karma." I had seen where it had gotten some good reviews and a few compared it to the Pull album (which previously was the only Winger album I really liked). I was completely floored. The guitar work on the new album is the best of any Winger album and the songs are hard rocking. This is one of the better reunion albums I heard from an 80's band in a long time.

January 13 2010 at 2:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

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