James Hetfield Apologizes for Metallica Destroying Winger’s Career

It may seem like an exaggeration, but a cartoon and a scene from a music video are credited with helping to destroy the career of the winger, one of the most successful American hard rock bands of the late 1980s.

The aforementioned animation is Beavis and Butt-Head, cultural phenomenon of MTV at the beginning of the following decade. And the video quoted is the one made for “Nothing Else Matters”, song provided by metallica in 1991.

First, the cartoon: originally shown between 1993 and 1997, Beavis and Butt-Head it chronicled the lives of two teenagers with the same names as the TV show. Among the other characters that made up the plot, there was Stewart Stevenson, a boy who was the target of bullying by the protagonists. While the main duo wore T-shirts from bands like AC DC and Metallica itself, examples of “cool” artists, the mocked boy was wearing a piece of clothing from winger, which turned real-life fans of the group into a laughing stock.

Now, the music video: in a brief snippet of the footage of “Nothing Else Matters” which rotated a lot in the MTV between 1992 and 1993, drummer Lars Ulrich throws a dart towards a poster of Kip Winger, vocalist and bassist of the band named after him. There was no apparent reason for this; it was just a mockery.

Obviously, the downfall of winger – who never again released a successful work after the eponymous debut album (1988) and In the Heart of the Young (1990) – is not justified by these two episodes alone. The mainstream rock scene, especially in the US, changed a lot in the early 1990s, with grunge and other subgenres of alternative rock taking the spotlight away from hard rock and heavy metal. However, the situations mentioned helped bury the group’s name even more.

apology

What perhaps many fans did not expect is that a member of metallica came to apologize to Kip Winger for the scene in the music video of “Nothing Else Matters”. This is vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield, who was not even responsible for throwing the javelin in the footage.

Himself kip made the revelation in a recent interview with yahoo! Entertainment. The musician also said he had received a retraction from Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butt-Head.

Initially, about Hetfield, he commented:

“James Hetfield called me to apologize about a year and a half ago. He was really sorry and said, ‘you know what… that wasn’t nice and I’m sorry we did that’. It was a really cool conversation. It seemed like the guy is amazing and that I could be friends with him. But, you know… it was actually Lars (who threw the javelin).”

Concerning Judgethe contact was not by phone, but via email.

“I exchanged emails with Mike Judge when they decided to remake Beavis & Butt-Head (in the 2022 remake). They wanted permission (to use the name and logo of the winger) this time, which was ironic because they didn’t ask permission the first time – which was sort of an admission of guilt. But I’m not vindictive. I found his profile on Facebook and I sent him a private message saying, ‘I received a notice from MTV that you want to do this, but I’d like to talk to you’. So he was kind enough to send me an email and we just talked. I gave them permission – and they paid me! I thought, ‘well, what the fuck… it would be weird for the name not to be there now, after all this time’.”

Kip Winger Reflections

Although I don’t hold grudges, Kip Winger has very strong opinions about everything that happened with his band. First, regarding the success achieved in the 1980s to the point of drawing attention to the talent of his group, he says:

“That was the irony of my entire existence, because my focus was always on music and being a good musician. One thing I say about ‘Seventeen’ (Winger’s biggest hit) is that if you take the lyrics away, it’s a very, very difficult song to play. There’s a lot of complicated things going on musically. A lot of cover bands try but fail to play it properly.”

Such reflection also extends to jokes made with his band in the 1990s. Kip couldn’t understand how he had gotten to this point.

“It was tragic, like: wow, how could I end up in this position, being the only one of all these (80s hard rock) guys who can even conduct an orchestra?’ It was bad, really bad.”

Still during the interview, the vocalist and bassist admitted that he liked the metallicaeven at the time he was made into a laughing stock.

“I liked many songs that the metallica he did. ‘Enter Sandman’ it’s a great song. The irony is that before anything happened, they released the Black Album, I called my drummer (Rod Morgenstein) and I said, ‘Man, you should check out the drums on this record, it’s really awesome’. i love the battery Black Album. And then the next thing I know is that Lars stuck a dart in my forehead.”