REB BEACH Talks End Of WHITESNAKE, Future Of WINGER And What's Next: 'I'd Just Like To Play Guitar'

By David E. Gehlke

The 2025 full retirement of WHITESNAKE frontman David Coverdale and the eventual retirement from WINGER live activity for frontman Kip Winger have apparently done little to put a damper on guitarist Reb Beach. The Pittsburgh-born-and-bred musician has served as Coverdale's key axe-man and Winger's songwriting partner for decades. Cementing his reputation as one of rock's most elite players, he's known equally for his chops and session work, with a CV that includes Chaka Khan, BEE GEES and TWISTED SISTER. He also doesn't take himself too seriously, as evidenced by his recent stand-up comedy gigs and propensity for storytelling. Therefore, for Beach, it's likely a case where when one door closes, a few others will open.

Part of Beach's current activity involves the supergroup BLACK SWAN. He's alongside vocalist Robin McCauley (MSG),bassist Jeff Pilson (DOKKEN / FOREIGNER) and drummer Matt Starr for another jaunt of well-executed, hook-laden hard rock by way of their third studio album, "Paralyzed". And while the jury is out on whether BLACK SWAN will perform any live dates, Beach appears to have plenty of things to do to fill his calendar, of which he was kind enough to share with BLABBERMOUTH.NET.

Blabbermouth: How does Reb Beach end up doing stand-up comedy?

Reb: "I've been doing the Monsters Of Rock cruise with WINGER for a long time. [Comedian] Don Jamieson came out on the cruise, and they came up with a thing where they asked some of the more outgoing artists if they would be interested in trying their hand at stand-up comedy. My whole life on the road, every band I've been in, somebody has always said,' Reb, you should do standup comedy.' I tell bizarre, funny stories and I seem to make people laugh. People find me to be funny. I wanted to try it, so I did it for the first time, and it went over like gangbusters. People were hysterically laughing. I loved it. I love to make people laugh. It makes me feel great. I have really good timing: I'm a musician, so I've got a good ear for delivering a punchline. It went really well, and they asked me to do it again. That went really well. Then, Don Jamieson was going to be in town and asked, 'Do you want to open for me?' I said, 'Sure.' Now, I've done it eight times, and it's gone over really well."

Blabbermouth: Were you ever nervous doing stand-up? I guess the difference is that if you mess up with WINGER or WHITESNAKE, no one will notice, but if you bomb during standup, it's pretty rough.

Reb: "Luckily, I've had years to try different stories out on audiences because I do guitar clinics. My clinics aren't like other clinics where they hand out worksheets — I don't read music. I learned from watching other guitar players. I play and say, 'Watch this, and this is the scale.' I play and tell stories, so a lot of the stories in my standup I tell in my clinic. The ones in my standup are a little more sexual and risqué."

Blabbermouth: There's a new BLACK SWAN record. What do you get out of working with Jeff, Matt and Robin?

Reb: "I think I first worked with Jeff when I got the DOKKEN gig. I came in, and they had these songs, including one called 'Erase The Slate'. It was like a BEATLES song. I said, 'No, no, no. You're DOKKEN.' It's got to be [hums heavy riff]. I said, 'It needs a guitar riff. Give that song to me. I'll write a riff.' I came in the next day with the 'Erase The Slate' riff, and that changed the whole thing. They just said, 'Oh. You want some old DOKKEN? That's a good idea.' We wrote a whole album of that stuff, and Jeff and I clicked instantly. We're both songwriters, and he had what I'm not good at, and he's not a guitar player. That worked out great. When [Frontiers head] Serafino [Perugino] asked Jeff for a new project, he wanted to work with Robin, his best friend. Their families have dinner twice a week. They live right down the street from each other. I had been on the road with FOREIGNER with WHITESNAKE. That's what made Jeff think of me. We got together, and I had a bunch of riffs that Kip turned down. They were too '80s. On our last album, he was all cerebral, and it's an excellent, amazing record, but it wasn't the '80s riffs and the 'nah, nah, hey, hey' choruses. It was perfect. It was easy writing that first album since I had a bunch of stuff. The second one, I had to write more riffs.

"The whole thing about it is riffs. If you listen to your typical Frontiers record, to me, it sounds like keyboards playing chords, just holding them down for a long time with a drumbeat. I like songs with a guitar riff. It's really easy to write a shitty guitar riff. When I write for BLACK SWAN, I write 60 guitar riffs, and most of them are not good. I have to throw 'em out. You have to take what rises to the top, and I bring that to Jeff. I'll come in with 20 or 30 ideas, and he'll pick the ones he likes, and we'll finish them. I'm not a great arranger; that's not my strong point, but that's his strong point. He can, 'Okay, we need to go to the key of D.' I'll play something in D [hums riff]. He goes, 'That's it. Awesome.' It goes like this [snaps fingers]. I'll come in with a chorus and a verse. We'll finish the song and record a song a day. Every BLACK SWAN album has been recorded in 10 days; no exaggeration. We finish a song per day."

Blabbermouth: How does that make you feel, considering how long you had to do records in your major label days?

Reb: "Oh, we had years. 'Rainbow In The Rose' [WINGER] took six months to write. We didn't have Pro Tools. We had cassettes. We were recording on cassettes!"

Blabbermouth: Is it that easy working with that Jeff? As in, no pressure?

Reb: "No pressure. I'm really, really good at writing guitar riffs and writing melodies for pop music. I hear that stuff; I listened to it in the '70s in the car, it was always on. Yacht rock was always playing, so there was always great songwriting. When you put me together with an arranger, it's all over. The same thing with Kip Winger, even though we had problems on some of the albums because we were both going through hard times. It took longer. He has a really high bar."

Blabbermouth: Kip is a pretty accomplished musician. Does it drive him up the wall when he hears something even slightly out of tune?

Reb: "Yeah. He's got me that way about tuning. We've done a lot of takes when it's not in tune."

Blabbermouth: Can you turn it off? Do the same things bother you?

Reb: "I hear it, and I can't believe they put it on a record. [Laughs] I hear bands, and I'm like, 'How did they let that slide? They can't hear that?' It drives me up the wall. It's like when they play a major scale over a minor riff. No! When they play a minor solo over a major chord progression. They put a minor third in there. No!"

Blabbermouth: What's it been like working with Robin? He's such a great, yet underrated, singer.

Reb: "I hate to say it, but he's not there when I'm doing my thing. He does the vocals later. But he sends me his vocal ideas, and sometimes I'll have ideas that I'll give him, and he's very open to my suggestions. I love his voice. Everybody loves his voice. I'm very honored that I can hear his voice over a guitar riff that I'm proud of. You have to hear his voice over a guitar riff, rather than over a three-chord progression being held out on a keyboard. That guy, when he was with [Michael] Schenker [in MSG], he'd sing over his riffs. That's what you want. That's his wheelhouse. Everyone knows what a lovely guy Robin is. And he's very real. There's no bullshit with Robin. He'll tell you what he thinks — he's Irish! There's no pulling punches with him, but he does it in the sweetest, nicest way. [Laughs] He's very genuine."

Blabbermouth: Have shows ever been discussed for BLACK SWAN? Or do you think it will always be a studio band?

Reb: "That's a great question. There are very positive facets to us performing live. And there are negative ones. BLACK SWAN: Who in America knows who BLACK SWAN is? Not many people. I don't know how many promoters know who BLACK SWAN is? What are they going to pay BLACK SWAN? What would they pay us to play clubs? An unknown band. Yeah, some of the members are kind of known. It's not like we have a hit or anything. That's the downside. I don't know if we could get a tour to make enough money. It costs a lot of money to tour. To fly these days, you have to stay in hotels — that costs money. To actually make a nice profit that all four of us are used to making in the bigger bands we play in, I don't know if that's going to happen. Playing Europe? Way more people will know us in Europe, but again, it's super expensive to fly us to Europe. Now, another upside is that the band would be fantastic live. All four of us are strong singers. Matt Starr sings his ass off, I'm told. I've never heard him, but I hear he sings his ass off. I just did a gig with Matt and Billy Sheehan [MR. BIG] at NAMM, with David Ellefson [ex-MEGADETH]. We did a MONTROSE tribute. Matt played great. I was very happy to play with him. The band would be great live. Also, Frontiers owns BLACK SWAN. They would get a percentage of the T-shirts, any money that we make, we get a percentage. They have their hands in every single pie we could make money from. So, that's why we would have to do some real research. That's why there may be some hesitation, but also, Jeff Pilson is out with FOREIGNER for the rest of his life. [Laughs] I would be out with FOREIGNER for the rest of my life! It's a killer band. And John Roth is in that band. A lot of people don't know that. He's been in WINGER since 1993. He sings like a bird. They got him."

Blabbermouth: Speaking of WINGER, are you comfortable doing occasional gigs now?

Reb: "No! Hell no. [Laughs]"

Blabbermouth: Did you want to keep going?

Reb: "Of course. That wasn't my idea. WINGER is my band; it's my music. Kip is my best friend. I talked to him for an hour today. I talked to him for 20 minutes yesterday. We talk all the time. We're total opposites. Complete opposites. He's a genius, and I have to call him whenever I have any kind of problem in business and life."

Blabbermouth: Not to get sentimental, but it's rare to have a friend like that in this business.

Reb: "We're lifelong friends. We've known each other since I was 23. That was 1983. It's true. [Laughs] I totally understand. He told me a long time ago, six years ago, at least, 'I don't want to do this music anymore. It's hard for me to sing. It's not in my heart anymore to sing that stuff.' He says that when he goes out on the road, when he does a show, a rock show, it's all concentration for him. He can't really have fun. The whole time he's thinking, 'Okay, here comes that big note. I have to hold, then I have to breathe.' It's all about breathing for him. It's like 'I need to take a breath after that. Maybe I can get John [Roth] to sing.' And he points: 'John, sing this!' It's the whole show is nerve-wracking for him because he has to constantly remember how to breathe, play the bass parts and hit those notes. He gets easily distracted if he doesn't peg it. Some nights, it will be a perfect show, and he'll come back and go, 'I sang really well.' That's my Kip Winger impression. Other nights, he'll be totally bummed out because he missed two notes that nobody cares about. People are used to seeing bands like us with a shitty singer, but when you see WINGER, 98 percent of the time, Kip is going to peg every note. It's really a great band to see. We still have that thing from 'Beavis And Butt-Head', that stamp on us. 'WINGER, they're stupid. It's all dumb pop songs.' I'm like, 'No, it's not! That's like six of our songs. We have 100 songs."

Blabbermouth: Didn't you or Kip say it's hard to play the opening riff to "Seventeen" correctly?

Reb: "It's true. It's funny when I work with guitar players, I guess that became a thing. Guitar players will come up to me: 'This is it, right?' They'll play it for me. Now, you can go on YouTube and hear the guitar from the album isolated. The guitar sound is awesome. You can really hear what I'm playing. Everyone messes up this one note. That's all it is, or two notes. It's different than what you would normally play. It's very syncopated [hums riff]. For a lot of guitar players, it's hard to do that. The guitar players of today are just strumming. They're not going [hums riff again]. They're not doing that stuff. All the great guitar players I know have played it for me: Andy Timmons goes, 'It's this!' I'm like, 'Yeah, that's it.' Doug Aldrich [ex-DIO / WHITESNAKE] did the same thing: 'It's this!' I go, 'Yeah, that's it.' Joel Hoekstra [WHITESNAKE] came up to me and went, 'By the way? Is this 'Seventeen'?' I go, 'That's it, Joel. You're Joel Hoekstra. You got it first take.'"

Blabbermouth: While we're at it, did you get any sense of closure with WHITESNAKE now that David has retired?

Reb: "No! It was the worst ending that it could have been. It couldn't have been any worse than it was. It's just how the cookie crumbled. We had a new management, and we had a terrible soundman, then everyone got sick, and it fell apart like Jenga, like all over the table: 'Okay, guys, that's it. We sucked. Goodbye."

Blabbermouth: Are you saying David had a poor monitor mix?

Reb: "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about front of house. The whole band's sound was bad. We had shitty hotels. It was a terrible tour; that last tour. Now that's going to be the fucking headline! [Laughs] I got sick early on during the tour. I was the music director of that tour, and I wasn't happy with what was going on with some of the sound issues. It had nothing to do with David's voice or anything. We weren't the team we used to be. We had some great things on that tour, like Tanya [O'Callaghan], the bass player. She was incredible. We all loved her, like, if you even looked at her wrong, all of us would kill you. We'd gang up on you. She was our sister. That was a beautiful breath of fresh air. It's really cool that they got to play with Steve Vai. I missed out on that one. That was super-cool. Other than that, we had a whole tour scheduled with SCORPIONS. David couldn't do it. He called me and said, 'Rebel. I'm exhausted.' He was having some issues at the time, so he told me to leave my equipment at his house in case we record something. That was three years ago. They called and said, 'We've got your equipment. We're sending it back.' [Laughs] That's it. WHITESNAKE is definitely done. It makes me sad, of course. We'd be there in a second if David were up for it, but what the hell? How old is David? Seventy-three? Let him retire. I think it's lovely that he's going to retire and go on the beach and just enjoy his later years. That stuff is impossible to sing, let's face it [sings'Still Of The Night']. A 73-year-old guy singing that? Unless you're a freak of nature like Mickey Thomas [JEFFERSON STARSHIP]. There are a couple of guys who can do it; that's a weird miracle."

Blabbermouth: What were you tuning down to at that point?

Reb: "D."

Blabbermouth: I wondered if you would go to C. That would have muddled it.

Reb: "We tried it in C-sharp. We have an album in C-sharp, which is horrible. It's not listenable as far as I'm concerned. I think it's 'Made In Japan'. I didn't agree with that name. David called it. It's WHITESNAKE in Japan, down to C-sharp. Then, after hearing that record, we realized that C-sharp doesn't work. It wasn't good."

Blabbermouth: With all this said, what's next for you?

Reb: "The comedy thing is just for fun. It's not like I make good money for it. I do it because I really enjoy making people laugh, getting up there, and not having to worry about my guitar. There are a couple of things: I had some choices. It's like, 'Okay, do I want to take REB BEACH's '80s GUITAR EXTRAVAGANZA on the road?' Get great musicians and get some other has-been '80s guys like me [Laughs] and go out there and do WHITESNAKE, WINGER, CINDERELLA songs. People love that! They would love that. It would be great. Is that what I want to do? Play cover songs of the '80s shit I've been playing forever? I'd like to play guitar. I notice when I have my band here, THE REB BEACH PROJECT in Pittsburgh, the songs that people like the most are when I play guitar. I love [Jimi Hendrix songs] 'Red House' and 'Voodoo Child', they sound awesome. So, why don't I play guitar?

"I put a band together of fabulous musicians. I have Greg Smith on bass, who was in RAINBOW. He was in Ted Nugent and Alice Cooper for 12 years. He's a great guy. We get along so well. I always wanted to be in a band with him. I did one show with him, and we both went, 'Yup. That's it. You and me.' The drummer, 'Throck,' whose name is David Throckmorton, is in seven different bands in Pittsburgh. He's in the LED ZEPPELIN tribute band [STEEL ZEPPELIN], and they're amazing. Everyone in Pittsburgh knows him; he's the most famous drummer here. He played with [Canadian jazz trumpeter] Maynard Ferguson. He's like a jazz cat, but he hits really hard. And he does these fills that freak you out. I released a fusion record a few years ago, 'The Fusion Demos', which people went gaga for. I sold a ton of them, which is me playing guitar with beautiful melodies and nice solo sections, with real inside music, kind of Joe Satriani-esque. Everyone knows 'Black Magic'. Songs like that, or 'Cutting Loose'. Just get out there with a bad-ass band. Then, if that goes well, I get on or start my own tour of guitar guys. Because the guitar is still really popular, I went to NAMM, and I can tell you that there are guitar geeks out there. There are a lot of them! They just want to watch guitar playing; they're enthralled with pedals, guitars and stuff. I'm going to try that route. If I get a call from DEF LEPPARD saying their guitar player broke his hand, I'm going to be there in a second. I'd love to go on a tour. That's where I belong. I belong on the road. I'm a road dog. I love hotels and being with the guys. I was born for it."