KIP WINGER On WINGER's Decision To Retire From Touring: 'It's Been Coming For A Long Time'

In a new interview with Waste Some Time With Jason Green, WINGER frontman Kip Winger addressed the fact that he and his bandmates have booked several shows for 2026 despite having previously announced that they were retiring from touring after the completion of the group's final gig of 2025, which took place on August 31 at the Rainbow Bar & Grill Backyard Bash 2025 in West Hollywood, California. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's been coming for a long time. I told the [rest of the] band five years ago that I'm gonna stop performing. And so it's been kind of this slow kind of exit off the runway. We did a show in L.A., at Rainbow [Bar & Grill], at the Backyard Bash. And that was pretty much our last show that we had, in the shows that we had booked. Although we've got four shows this year, in '26, that were already booked. So when I said, 'Listen, I'm gonna stop touring,' and then we put some shows up, everybody was, like, 'Oh, you didn't retire.'"

Kip continued: "'Retirement' is not in my vocabulary. I wanna spend more time writing classical music, and I'm don't wanna be on the road all the time. It's very stressful to sing that [WINGER] stuff now, and I'm just not feeling it. And I'm really interested in learning how to become a better composer and writing more music. Let's put it this way: if I hadn't done all the work I've done on the road, I would have twice the amount of albums. So I'm very interested in spending the rest of my days just writing music."

Winger added: "We're playing Brazil at the end of this month, and then we have two in August and then one in September and maybe one in 2027. I'm not sure. But that's it. I'm not doing it anymore. Well, unless one of my favorite rock stars calls me up to play bass on something."

After show host Jason Green noted that Kip had previously said that he would never do a "bus tour" again, Winger said: "No, no, no. There's no way I'll get on a bus again. That's like a scary movie. I just can't do that. The last tour we do with Tom Keifer on a bus, that was really rough. I mean, yeah, the answer's no. But we [the members of WINGER] get along great. We've always been the best of friends. I just talked to Reb [Beach, WINGER guitarist] 10 minutes ago. So maybe WINGER will do annual coffee get-togethers or something like that, 'cause I really miss those guys. And, yeah, they're great musicians and I've been very blessed to be with those guys my whole career. So, God bless 'em."

Kip went on to say that he will never completely rule out playing the occasional one-off show with WINGER. "If a spectacular gig came along and the timing was right, I'm not opposed to doing that," he explained. "I just wanna spend more time writing, basically. The traveling's too brutal. And we've played those songs so much that I feel very blessed to have been a part of it all, but it's just not really where I'm at anymore. Like I say, we have a few shows left that are on the books, and I'm not actively asking my agent to book shows."

This past February, WINGER drummer Rod Morgenstein spoke to Chris Akin Presents about the band's decision to retire from touring after the Rainbow Bar & Grill gig. He said: "Well, let me start by saying last year turned out to be a very rough year emotionally for me because I didn't realize how much my life and my vision of who I am is tied up in my band. And I think a lot of musicians understand that, but a lot don't really until it hits them in the face.

"So we've been talking about the end of the band for years," he continued. "Hindsight is 20/20. When the band formed, Kip and Reb and Paul [Taylor, keyboards], they were in their twenties, I was in my thirties. For a singer to sing in the stratosphere, it was no problem. Well, when nearly 40 years later, all you're doing is detuning your guitars and basses a half step, which is not very much, singing in those registers becomes an issue for every singer. I couldn't even name three, I think , who in their sixties can still do it. Mickey Thomas from STARSHIP is the main one. Glenn Hughes [is another one]… But we're not gonna get to five, I don't think. So we knew it was coming. And the last gig that we did, and at the concert, instead of saying, 'This is the last show. You'll never see WINGER again.' We said, 'Never say never. Circumstances change.' And sure enough, we have four shows on the books this year — a festival in Brazil, a festival in Cancun."

Rod added: "But on August 31st [of 2025] we played the Rainbow Bar & Grill, the infamous birthplace of American heavy metal. And I don't know how many years ago — in the last few years, they started, twice a year, setting up a stage and lights in the back parking lot of the Rainbow. And next door is the Roxy. That's the nightclub that broke the DIXIE DREGS in California way back in the '70s. And so that's where we played our last concert where we thought, 'This is wonderful.' And there were a total of seven or eight bands that played… But it was such a fun day, like 10 hours of music. But, yeah, when I mentioned a couple of minutes ago that last year was an extremely rough year for me, it was, like, holy cow, September, this past September, was the 50-year anniversary for me of having gotten out of college at the University Of Miami in Florida, where I met what became the DIXIE DREGS. And so, wow, being a professional musician 50 years, I've done a lot of introspective work in trying to come to terms with everything."

Morgenstein previously talked about WINGER's decision to retire from touring last December in an interview with Anthony Bryant of The Hair Metal Guru. He said at the time: "I think it's been years in the making. Part of it is Kip's concern over his voice.

"When you're a crooner, you can sing forever, but when the vocal demands are in this high register — we've seen it all too many times with singers who were in their forties, fifties and sixties; it's just not possible for them to do it anymore," Rod explained. "If you saw Robert Plant try to sing [LED ZEPPELIN's] 'Rock And Roll' [now], he would [sing it in a lower register]. It's not possible [for him to sing it the way it was originally recorded]. And so, from show to show over these past few years, Kip always worried, like, 'Uh-oh, is this the show where the voice is not gonna give me all that I need?' There's that, and then just, like, wow, I mean, it's been a 37-year run. Pretty not bad. Some of us have other things in us that we'd like to do. [Kip] would like to spend more of his time in his classical world."

Rod added: "But when we did that last show [at the Rainbow], we kind of left the stage instead of saying, 'This is it. You've been the best. We are done a hundred percent' over, over, over. It's, like, 'Hey, look, let's never say never.' So, being a little cutesy to leave the door open if maybe there might be the occasional event now and then."

In March 2025, Beach told Adam Roach of the Become A Guitarist Today podcast about WINGER's announcement that it was embarking on "farewell" tours of Australia and Japan in 2025: "It's too bad that Kip wants to end it, from my end, just because I'm loving it and I could do it another 10 years. But it's really hard on his voice. When he says he has a bad night, you'd never know it. I've seen singers have a bad night, and his bad night sounds like a record. One note might be flat, or he might have trouble with three notes in 'Miles Away', and then afterwards he's, like, 'Uh, this is so embarrassing.' And it's, like, 'No, those are three notes. Come on, man.' These people go to see these singers from the '80s who just can't sing a note anymore. And Kip's really, really amazing. But it's just such an effort for him to keep up that vocal excellence."

Reb continued: "It's that, and it's also that touring is hard, but it's mostly that he hears a different drummer. He's always wanted to do the classical thing. That's what's in his heart. He's been rocking for 35 years here with this band, and he's finally broken into the classical world. He was nominated for a Grammy a few years ago. And the Nashville Symphony Orchestra is performing his piece that he wrote for them. And that's what really excites him. He doesn't need the money. I could use the money. He doesn't need the money. So it's his time to quit it now. And it's too bad, because you would think we could get another singer. But no — you can't have another singer in WINGER. That wouldn't make any sense."

In a separate interview with The Rockpit, Beach was asked if WINGER might continue making music even after the band stops touring. Reb responded: "No. Kip is classical. That's where he's at. He's over the rock thing. He gets so much more enjoyment from writing classical music. And he overbooks himself with the classical music. He has to write. You can just hear him saying, 'I have the 12 symphonies I have to write in the next three years, and I'm not even halfway done with the first one.' So, yeah, there's no way. There won't be another WINGER record, I don't think, unless I come to Kip and go, 'Kip, I've written 70 precent of the new WINGER record.' If I'm desperate for another WINGER record and I just write great riffs and I already have a verse and a chorus and a solo section for 10 songs, he may do it. It's never worked that way, though. Most of the time if I come in with a completed idea like that, he just feels like it has to have its inception when he and I are sitting in a room for it to have the magic. As soon as I play a riff that I come up with on the spot, that's exciting to him. If he's listening to something that I put a drum machine to and have any kind of production to, he's not inspired by that. I don't think he's ever used a riff that I brought in, whereas [my] BLACK SWAN [project] uses every riff that I bring in, which are usually the riffs that I brought to Kip that he turned down."

Earlier in March 2025, Kip was asked by Steve Mascord of White Line Fever TV what he would miss about playing with WINGER. Kip said: "Listen, I've been well-known my whole life. But I was never, like, 'Hey, I'm a rock star' or anything like that. It's very matter of fact to just talk to people. What I'll miss is playing with these guys that I really love so much, but I'm very excited to move on to this other world that I'm really inspired because I'm hearing so much of the music.

"At some point I'm gonna play a final show with the band," Kip explained. "I don't know when it is. But that's not to say I might not do a cruise or something. I don't really know. I'm not going, 'Hey, this is the last show we're ever gonna do' because… Well, hey, KISS did it for 10 years, so… [Laughs]"

Kip also talked about how his daily routine would change once WINGER had stopped touring. He said: "Well, the biggest thing is the traveling. If you do 40 gigs in a year, and sometimes we do more than that, you have twice that many days on each end traveling. So, you spend half of the year of your life sitting in an airport, and it really… Listen, we're not a huge band — we don't fly around in our own Learjet — so it tends to take a toll on you. And then, all of a sudden, all my personal goals just end up drifting away in an airport somewhere in Chicago. So my life will be different in that way."

Kip continued: "Listen, interruption is the death of creativity. So my focus is to get myself into a place where I can be 100 percent creative and keep it rolling because it's really difficult to have it all broken up so much. And I've written every kind of rock song possible. I've made my final statement on the last WINGER record. And a lot of people think that's, like, if not our best record, it's close to being our best, along with 'Pull'. And I kind of brought back the original guys and put the original logo on and gave it a nice full circle. So, there's nothing else that Reb and I could do with WINGER that wouldn't just be, like, 'Okay, let's write another one of those' or 'another one of those.' And now I'm in this whole other mentality where the sky's the limit and I've got 30 more years of expressing myself in a world of things that haven't been done by me."

WINGER issued its seventh studio effort overall in 2023, the appropriately titled "Seven". Kip is also a respected and successful symphonic composer, having issued recordings under the name C.F. Kip Winger, while Reb had been a member of WHITESNAKE since 2002, and drummer Rod Morgenstein had served as a professor at Berklee College Of Music (in addition to playing in a variety of other more jazz-fusion-based projects).

WINGER formed in the late 1980s and soared to immediate success with its 1988 self-titled release. The album spawned the hit singles "Seventeen" and "Headed For A Heartbreak" and achieved platinum sales status. "Winger" also stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for over 60 weeks where it peaked at #21. Their next album, "In The Heart Of The Young", also achieved platinum status behind the singles "Can't Get Enuff" and "Miles Away". The change in musical climate of the mid-'90s, compounded with unprovoked ridicule on MTV's popular "Beavis And Butt-Head" show, led the band to go on hiatus in 1994. In 2001, WINGER reunited and has not looked back since. Kip also earned a 2016 Grammy nomination for the classical album "C.F. Kip Winger: Conversations With Nijinsky", recorded with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra.