Kip Winger Shares Unusual Journey from Arena Rocker to Authentic Classical Composer

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Dec. 13, 2018 - PRLog -- Kip Winger, of rock band Winger fame, recently gave an intimate, career-spanning interview on the 1Track podcast where he discusses everything from the success of Winger, to the band's dissolution and the subsequent low-points of his career, to how he came to be a Grammy-nominated classical composer.

1Track podcast invites contemporary classical composers to answer one question: "If someone was interested in getting to know your music, and you only had ONE track to play for them, what track would that be?"

Kip Winger actually shares three tracks: one from his days in Winger, one from his solo career, and one of his classical compositions. Each era and track is discussed in-depth.

On Winger (21:01): "We came out at the very end of the 80s explosion. We were a little too late, actually. We kinda came in when the wave would just hit the sand. We were ready to go and boom, we hit the sand. And here comes grunge and 'Beavis and Butthead' and all that stuff making fun of the 80s, and Metallica throwing darts at my poster, and we just got killed. We were at the scene of the crime of the 80s and Winger was a cuss word in the music business."

On his late 1990s post-Winger career (24:55): "The only job I could get was to play acoustic at Border's book store. So I went from playing 10,000 a night to . . .  I did a Border's book store in '97, 40 Border's book stores, where I'd play 4:00 in the afternoon to like 10 people."

On his approach to music after Winger first ended in 1995 (33:02): "When the whole business came crashing down on [Winger], I made a self-declaration at that point, in 1995 basically, like, 'Hey, I am not gonna do that anymore. I'm not gonna write for anybody anymore. I'm not gonna try to be commercial, I'm not gonna try to write a hit, I'm not gonna try to do any of that. Done, I'm done. I did it, it was really difficult to do it, I got the platinum album on my wall to show that I've done it. And then I don't care if I have to work at McDonald's, I'm never gonna do that again. I'm only going to self-explore the art of music.'"

On writing classical music (15:38): "When I approach classical music, I'll often take what could be a riff on a guitar and put it in the low end of the orchestra, and then build an orchestra piece from that."

On his Grammy nomination for his classical music (11:51): "I was really shocked by it. That was the greatest day of my life when I saw that nomination. To come back from what I came back from was a long journey. There was a point in time when I felt like I couldn't even stand on stage, like 'Hey, I'm sorry, I'm Kip Winger, I'll play one of my songs for you,' during the 'Beavis and Butthead' era."

On using his rock background to compose contemporary classical music (48:56): "There's a lot of people that abandon their origins in favor of what they're being told to write. What you're doing is you're abandoning your own voice and your own instincts. There's nothing worse than abandoning your own instincts. It's better to just try to defend your instincts and make them work within the realm that you're in."

Kip Winger received a Grammy nomination for best contemporary classical composition for his album Winger: Conversations With Nijinsky.

Anthony Joseph Lanman, a contemporary classical composer who has written for ensembles and soloists around the world, hosts 1Track.

To listen to the podcast, visit https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/1-track-podcast/id1189443272?mt=2 or https://soundcloud.com/anthonylanman/1-track-podcast-77-s7e1-kip-winger

For more about 1Track, visit: http://1trackpodcast.com

For more about Kip Winger, visit: http://kipwinger.com

For more about Anthony Joseph Lanman, visit: http://anthonyjosephlanman.com