In a recent interview with Badass Network, guitarist Reb Beach reflected on the ups and downs of his band Winger.
Speaking about their success in the ‘80s, Beach said those early days felt like “everything I thought it would be.”
“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,” he added.
Towards the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, however, the public’s taste in rock and metal began to shift. When asked to comment on how the rise of genres like grunge affected the band, Beach explained that Winger went from being a successful band to nearly worthless in just a few weeks.
Referencing Metallica’s music video for their hit song “Nothing Else Matters” – in which drummer Lars Ulrich throws darts at a poster of his bandmate Kip Winger – Beach said:
“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. 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.”
He continued: “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.”
“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.”
