Kip winger why

All rights reserved. Who would have thought the once infamous Ozzy Osbourne would become a lovable reality TV personality? That Twisted Sister would have a hit Christmas album? Conversations With Nijinsky is a tribute to Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, whose career was cut short at the age of 29 by schizophrenia. Why was a former glam metal star drawn to his story, or anything to do with classical music, for that matter? The answer is a story of determination, survival and relentless creative drive.

Winger himself is a study in contradictions. His classical career is flowering from his home base of Nashville, the capital of country. His parents were jazz musicians, but he and his brother played classic rock in a band while growing up in Colorado. When Winger was 16, his then-girlfriend wanted a friend to try ballet with her.

Instead of scoffing at the idea, he joined her. The incident was his first major exposure to classical music. He eventually landed work as a bassist with Alice Cooper and later founded Winger. This is like heavy metal. I can do this. But in , nostalgia for the headbanging bands that had their heyday in the late s generated enough buzz and demand to reunite.

The band has been performing, off and on, ever since. Thursday at Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers, Winger will headline a concert with another band that faced similar circumstances, Firehouse, opening for it. People know every word to every song. The end. Then we tweak them, and I finish the tunes.

Winger has a mini-tour going this month before the artists will go their separate ways. They have tentative plans to reunite, write and release another album in Then came that little album called Nevermind by Nirvana that sold 10 million copies in , making grunge the defacto rock replacement. Kip decided to go solo. To his credit, rather than sulking and releasing a bunch of Winger knock-off albums, he decided to record something more tonal, less distorted, and more modern.

He followed with a stripped-down tour, playing bookstores and other personal venues. At the same time, he turned back to studying music theory, focusing on the classical style. This ultimately led him to reach 1 on the Traditional Classical chart. To paraphrase David Byrne, how did he get here? As a teenager, his girlfriend asked if he would join a ballet class with her since none of her friends would. He must have loved her a lot because he agreed, and it introduced him to ballet, which entranced him.

He tried his hand at it and, as he says, in another life, he could have been a very good danseur.