Rod Morgenstein - Winger

November 24th 2009 - Batofar

It's with a genuine pleasure that I met WINGER's great drummer Rod Morgenstein, seemingly very happy to be at last back in Paris for the "Karma" tour, just 40 mn before going on stage for what would be a wonderful WINGER show. Always smiling, even on the most personal serious subjects, the multi-band hitter (he played with the Dixie Dreggs and several members of Dream Theater amongst others) talks about the very achieved new album, the exceptional musicality of Kip Winger, and his own projects.

Fab : A big, big welcome to you, finally here in Paris!
Rod : Yeah, I guess it was 1991 (the last time Winger played in Paris). It's wonderful, it's a beautiful city. I remember back in December 1990, Winger was on tour with Scorpions, and right around Christmas, between Christmas and New Year, the Scorpions took off, you know, they didn't wanna work those days. So, as we happen to be in Europe, my wife and I just got on a train and came to Paris, for 6 days (big smile on his face) and have the best time. I think we stayed in the "Saint-Germain" area (with a hesitant French).

Fab : Your last album "Karma" is really up-tempo, was it a consulted decision ?
Rod : It was definitely in the thinking. When you look back on our other records and you listen, you know, you take mental notes, and one thing that we realized is that much of our music is mid-tempo, or what you can call slow (miming heavy slow rhythm), those kind of tempos, which are fun and cool to play. But it hit us like "we need to have something that is more in your face up-tempos". So yes, that was a conscious decision to try to come up with some songs that were pushing tempos.

Fab: And the result is really great.
Rod : Thank you very much.

Fab : The first song of the album and also the first song you wrote for the new album "Deal with the devil" is a critic of the music business and of the weakness of human nature ?
Rod : (hesitantly) Yeah…You know, I think it's just more of, like a light-hearted kinda look into the life of rock'n'roll band really. I think sometimes the lyrics of songs, of the song content (have) to be very very serious, and on this record, for some of the tunes, we just wanted to be a little bit more…

Fab : Light?
Rod : A little more light, yeah. I mean, what is Rock supposed to be? "Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll"! We wanted to have a bit of that look this time around.

Fab : Lyrically speaking, is this song related to "Feeding frenzy" ?
Rod : You know what, it's just that it's Kip (Winger) that writes the lyrics of the songs, so it's hard for me to totally interpret.

Fab : Yeah. Talking about Kip, can we say that Winger the band is the hard side of Kip?, and Kip Winger in solo, the soft one ?
Rod : I guess this is a general statement, you can say that…Kip, is a very well-versed musician. He just has a classical piece of his premiered in the United States, "Ghosts" by the Santa Fe symphony, and in February, the San Francisco ballet company, euh, has a whole choreographed ballet of his piece. So it's like he's branching out into the classical music world. But I think, yeah, on his solo work, he's got a little bit more "artsy", certainly less metal approach of things. So, you know, it's like his alter ego per se.

Fab : What's behind "First Ending" ? As you play keyboard on this one.
Rod : Euh, this is a song that I wrote when my wife Michelle and I got married in 1993 and we, you know, walked down the aisle through a harpist playing this. Euh, I lost my wife december 10th will be 4 years. She battled breast cancer for 22 years and…

Fab: Sorry to hear that…(needless to say that, at this point, I wasn't well, in spite the fact that Rod was trying to keep smiling while speaking).
Rod : Thank you. She was my fourteen-year old girlfriend and the love of my life, an extraordinary human being. And so, when we were recording the drumtracks for "Karma", we were taking a break and I sat down at the piano in the studio and I was just doodling, and at one point Kip came up and said "What is that?". And I told him and he put it on the record. So I said" well, that's wonderful!".

Fab: So now, you're the new Jordan Rudess? (refering to his work with the Dream Theater keyboardist with the Rudess/Morgenstein project).
Rod : (laughter) That's very funny! You know, when Jordan and I do our recordings, the things that I write on piano, I bring them in to him and then he'll say "Rod, play it to finale", and I'll do it but, you know, I play keyboard slowly and then he'll look and he goes (singing and miming fast keyboard playing) (laughter). He's extraordinary.

Fab: So now it's gonna be the Morgenstein/Morgenstein project?
Rod : (laughter) No! You know, just before I left for this tour last week, I spoke to both Jordan and John Myung (Dream Theater bass player) because Jordan wants us to get our next Rudess/Morgenstein record done. It's been twelve years since the last one. So, we gotta try to figure out how to do that, you know, in the coming months. And then John Myung called the next day and said "Rod, I spoke to Ty Tabor (from KING'S X), we wanna do another Jelly Jam record". So it's like "what's April looks like to you?" (laughter). But WINGER is gonna be back in the U.K. and in Germany in March & April, so I said "John, as soon as I get back from this European WINGER trip, I'll be in touch with you so that we can figure out how can we do that".

Fab : A word about the participation of Michael Chapdelaine (he is the only guitarist ever to win First Prize in the world's top competitions in both the Classical and Fingerstyle genres) on "First Ending"?
Rod : It's somebody that Kip knows. He just basically gave my piano performance to him and said "try to just play along, or create some of your own little lines around it". So that's how that came together.

Fab : After all these years, you still have the same line-up (with the exception of Paul Taylor), but a lot of bands nowadays are trying sometimes to change the " teaming " of the band, to put new blood into the creative pool. So, your friendship is stronger than all ?
Rod : Yes, yes.

Fab: And anyway the result is still good.
Rod : Thanks. And you know, "After all this time" is the first time that we really did a bluesy kind of tune, in WINGER's career. And Johnny Roth does all the guitar riffs on that one. This album a lot of variations, is taking some chances.

Fab: News about the DIXIE DREGGS?
Rod : You know, we try to tour every year, like 20, 25 shows. We now know that there are so many scenes about Europe that we can play, it's just a question of us figuring out when all of our schedules can line up. It's the problem with all these line-ups: Jordan & John are in Dream Theater, Steve Morse is in Deep Purple, I'm in Winger…

Fab: Reb (Beach, guitar in Winger) is playing with Whitesnake…
Rod : Yeah, I mean, every time we look for a window of opportunity, it's like "oohhh, Reb has a Whitesnake tour…and then Reb's available but I'm with the Dixie Dreggs…etc…". It's the nature of the beast. It's sometimes nice to have all these different things to do, but it's not always the easiest thing, logistically scheduling tours.

Fab: As you're friends with members from Dream Theater, will you play sometimes as a support act for them?
Rod : You know what, Jordan & I supported Dream Theater in 1998, when Derek Sherinian was their keyboard player. But never say never, it's a possibility. In 2000, the Dixie Dreggs toured with Dream Theater for a month and a half. The manager of Dream Theater is the manager of the Dixie Dreggs! (laughter).

Fab: A word about the set-list for tonight?
Rod : Probably 3 tunes from the new album "Karma", one or two from "IV", and the rest will be several from the first three albums. Of course, we do the songs that people, you know…but a little now and then we have different arrangements of the songs, to make them more exciting.

Fab: I know you already released a live dvd from the previous tour, but is there one planned for this "Karma" tour?
Rod : Not at the moment. Not right now.

Fab: Do you have a ritual before going on stage?
Rod : No, I just like to warm up, maybe do a little stretching…have the sticks in my hands…

Fab: With all the experience you have, what do you think about the music scene today?
Rod : I don't know how bands make it today because there are so many bands. The record labels are shrinking, and it seems like you have to be, you know, an information technology genious to move ahead. It seems like bands kinda get the word out through the internet, more so than any other way.. .When I was coming up, there was a smaller scene than it is now. So many more musicians, so many people that are vying for the few open slots. There's so many things interesting going on, in music…there's no shortage of…you know, I'm a teacher at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and my students are always coming in and playing me new things from bands that I've never heard of. And a lot of it is very interesting, there's a lot of talents out there.

Fab: There's also a big revival wave of the old bands, like Judas Priest, Whitesnake…
Rod : Yeah, because there's power in the name, it doesn't even matter if some of the members are in it anymore, it's the name…when you say Judas Priest, people know that they gonna have a certain thing, it's a very powerful thing. You know, twenty years from now, when Winger are old men, still the name Winger… some of the fans will find their way to it.

Fab: In retrospect, what look do you have on the WINGER career?
Rod : Just looking back on it? Well, we experienced a lot of interesting things. It's wonderful to see what happens when different things line up and the record starts selling, it's amazing to see what a record label… how powerful they can be when they really want to bring your band to the world. They can expose you in incredible ways, if you are on a big label, and we were with Atlantic Records. We experienced playing around the world in like twenty some odd countries, which is something that I've never done before. Meeting people from so many different cultures…But also for me it was an incredible experience because everything that I've done, to that point, was more in the musician "fusion" world, and so, suddenly, here I was, you know, in a metal rock band. But I was specifically brought into Winger to bring some of the thing that I do in "fusion" music. For instance, at the end of the song "Headed for a heartbreak" (ndlr: one of the most famous Winger masterpiece), we wanna hear things that rock drummers usually don't do, or at the end of "Rainbow in a rose"… so in that way, we think that it made us a little bit different than everybody else. And Kip himself, he wears so many hats, with his background in classical music, he brings that element and his musical abilities. But the bottom line, it's a rock band, and we add this little sparkling elements to it.

Fab: A last word for the Winger fans that were waiting for you?
Rod : We're so happy to be back here, sorry it has taken us so many years. The plan is to not let nearly this much time pass before we show our faces here again, because we're so appreciative of the support that you are giving us.