For a moment in the late ’80s, Winger was flying high. Their 1988 debut went platinum. So did the follow-up, In The Heart Of The Young. And then, almost overnight, it all fell apart.
In a recent interview with Badass Network (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), guitarist Reb Beach looked back on the dramatic rise and fall of the band—and revealed why 2025 will be Winger‘s final year.
“Everything I thought it would be,” is how Beach described the early success. “I thought it would go on forever, you know, but it was a lot shorter than other bands from our genre. If Winger came out in 1986, I’d be a rich man.”
Instead, the band got swept under by a cultural wave that few glam metal groups survived. When asked how the grunge explosion changed their career trajectory, Beach didn’t hold back.
“The shows were canceled. People stopped buying tickets overnight. Beavis and Butthead came out. Metallica threw darts at a poster of Kip Winger. We were on tour at the time. The tour was canceled. Ticket sales ended the day Beavis and Butthead came out. Like a week later, done. No one would be caught dead at a Winger concert.”
It wasn’t just a dip in popularity — it was a complete collapse. The band’s 1993 album Pull was, in Beach’s view, their best work to that point, but it couldn’t save them.
“I had a big house in Florida that I just bought because my next publishing advance was for $300,000 for the album Pull, which I thought was a genius record, and we were going to be humongous. It bombed, even though, in my opinion, it was our best record until then. And so, I sold my house, sold all my guitars, and moved back home, and I lived on selling 20 guitars for a year, until I got to Alice Cooper. I didn’t have the money to fly to go to the audition, and Kip had to lend me 500 bucks.”
The downturn wasn’t exclusive to Winger, but they certainly felt it harder than most.
“So it was bad. It was really bad. It didn’t just happen to Winger. Winger got it worse than anybody, but it happened to all the ’80s bands, even Mr. Big.”
Despite a modest comeback with the release of Seven in 2023, the band announced this year that it will be calling it quits for good. The reason? Vocalist Kip Winger is ready to move on — and not just because of the old hits.
“The band’s called Winger, Kip Winger doesn’t want to sing She’s Only Seventeen anymore. The lyrical content bugs him a little bit, but not that much, since it was a long time ago and everyone was doing that… No, it’s hard to sing for him. So many singers of the ’80s sound like sh*t these days, he doesn’t. He sounds like the record. And the reason he does is because he works really, really hard for it to be that way.”
More than anything, it’s about artistic fulfillment and quality control. “It’s embarrassing for him when he misses two notes. And he’s just sick of that embarrassment. He’s sick of all the travel, and in his heart, it’s classical music. That’s what he wants to do. He’s done this rock thing for 35 years, and he’s always wanted to be doing the classical thing, and he’s finally having some real success with it. I mean, there’s no debating what the guy’s achieved in the last three years…”
As for Beach, the decision to disband hits differently. “And it’s sad for me, because I can do this for another 10 years. I mean, this is my band. I wrote all the songs, all the riffs, so it’s like an old pair of jeans. And when I’m up there with Kip, I’m shoulder to shoulder with him, and it’s the most comfortable place I can be, honestly. But I’ll survive, and I’ve already had calls for other bands.”
