Metallica famously dissed singer Kip Winger in their “Nothing Else Matters” video in a scene that saw drummer Lars Ulrich throw darts at a poster of the melodic rock frontman.
Winger has harbored bad feelings about the scene over the years. That, along with a changing musical climate and ridicule from the original run of “Beavis And Butt-Head,” eventually helped lead to Winger going on hiatus in 1994. Beavis and Butt-Head wore Metallica and AC/DC shirts respectively, while their often annoying classmate, Stewart, wore a Winger shirt.
In a new episode of the “Appetite For Distortion” podcast, Winger talked about both the “Nothing Else Matters” video and “Beavis And Butt-Head.”
When asked if he knew why Lars threw darts at his poster, Winger responded: “Nah, man, you can see a video on ‘Howard Stern’ where he’s going, ‘Man, I threw darts at Kip, but it was nothing personal.’ He’s never apologized, but James Hetfield called me about a year and a half ago and apologized for the incident. James was really cool. James is the kind of guy I can totally be friends with. And he was very sincere; it wasn’t like he just called to apologize and then blow me off. He’s actually texted me a few times; we text every now and then. I don’t think Lars would ever call me to apologize.”
Winger continued: “I think everybody was just young kids, and they were thinking it was funny. To me, it’s not funny to slag off a fellow musician. But who knows? They were just doing what they were doing. I don’t know. I can’t answer to that.”
In regards to “Beavis And Butt-Head,” Winger said: “‘Beavis And Butt-Head’ was hysterical; it was really funny. I ended up on the wrong end of it.”
“I think that’s just gang mentality,” he added. “Gang mentality — people wanna hide behind… And especially on the Internet, they can hide behind their keyboard and go, ‘That guy sucks.’ But if I was in the room with the guy, he’d be, like, ‘Hey, man, how’s it going?'”
Winger recently released a new song, “Proud Desperado,” which comes from their forthcoming album, “Seven,” due out May 5.
