In a recent interview on the Scars And Guitars podcast with Andrew McKaysmith, WINGER frontman Kip Winger discussed how he avoided the common pitfalls of fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s—an era when many musicians, including the late WARRANT frontman Jani Lane, struggled with the rock and roll lifestyle. Kip shared his experience (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):
“First off, alcohol made me physically ill. I could drink, and my grandmother was an alcoholic, so it not only made me sick, but I could out-drink anyone. It just wasn’t good for me. If I drank one bottle of wine, I’d be on my way for the second one. When I moved to Nashville, people wore drinking and driving like a badge of honor. One day, I just put the bottle down and said, ‘I’m done.’ It was starting to mess up my voice. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I drank when I wasn’t performing because it would destroy my voice.”
Kip went on to share his thoughts on Jani Lane and the challenges he faced with addiction: “I had some rough interactions with Jani, but when he wasn’t drunk, he was the nicest guy. I don’t know what it is—maybe it’s a weakness, but I don’t mean that harshly. If you have a tendency to drink, that’s a tough thing to overcome. Vince Neil from MÖTLEY CRÜE is another example. The nicest guy when he’s sober, but a completely different person when he’s drunk. In the ’80s, with bands like GUNS N’ ROSES, everyone followed that rock star image with bottles of Jack and all that nonsense. That was never my thing. I wanted to be a better musician, so I stayed away from it. And in all these rock star autobiographies, I see people talking about how they OD’d and were rushed to the hospital. I’m like, ‘You overdosed because you were stupid. You did drugs because you were stupid.'”
Reflecting on his own experiences with drugs on the road, Kip noted: “I played with Alice Cooper after he got out of rehab. I never saw drugs on any of those tours—never—except for one time. On the POISON tour, FASTER PUSSYCAT had a bus we called the ‘Evil Bus.’ That’s where you’d go if you wanted to get wild with absinthe and coke. That was the only time I encountered that stuff. And I want to give a shout-out to Taime [Downe, FASTER PUSSYCAT’s lead singer], who’s sober now. I’m sorry about what happened with his girlfriend, and he’s a great guy. We all grow out of that stuff, hopefully, but Jani never did. He drank himself to death.”
Kip also spoke about Jani Lane’s struggles with the success of “Cherry Pie” and the way it impacted his self-worth: “We all have that one song that defines us. Jani had trouble accepting that ‘Cherry Pie’ was his big hit. He felt like it made him less of an artist. But I’m thinking, ‘Who cares? It paid for everything else.'”
When asked about his personal interactions with Jani, Kip revealed: “We did an acoustic tour once, and Jani was such a jerk. When he was sober, he was really nice, but he insulted me in a way that was just too much. Eventually, we had to kick him off the bus. At one point, he even brought his preacher along to help keep him in check. But his preaching, combined with the insults, just pushed me to say, ‘Go away.’ I don’t mean to say he couldn’t have turned things around—if he’d gotten sober, he could have cleaned up. I know a lot of people who went through AA and got better. Look at the guys from GUNS N’ ROSES—Duff McKagan, especially. When I hung out with him back in the early days, he was a mess. But now, he’s sober, went back to school for business, and even got his black belt. He truly turned his life around, and I have a lot of respect for that.”
