WINGER Guitarist REB BEACH On Debut Album's "Controversial" 1989 Hit Single "Seventeen" - "It's Just An '80s Rock Song, For God's Sake"

Winger guitarist Reb Beach recently sat down with Guitar Player and looked back on the band's 1989 hit, "Seventeen", taken from their 1988 self-titled debut album. Following is an excerpt from the story.

Beach "It just kind of got put on the shelf with the other hundreds of albums that Atlantic was releasing. If a record didn’t stick within a few weeks, it was over as far as they were concerned. We got one play (for 'Seventeen') on MTV at 1:55am - on a Sunday morning, no less - and then, from there, everything just lit up."

On the "controversial" subject matter of "Seventeen"

Beach: "It’s really just the one line: 'Daddy says she’s too young / But she’s old enough for me'. We didn’t even write that; it was something Beau Hill, our producer, came up with. But think of The Beatles with 'I Saw Her Standing There'. We’re not pedophiles. It’s just an '80s rock song, for god’s sake."

Read the complete story here.

Winger's new album, Seven, was produced by Kip Winger and recorded in Nashville, distributed worldwide by Frontiers Records. Order on CD/LP/Digital here.

Seven tracklisting:

"Proud Desperado"
"Heaven’s Falling"
"Tears Of Blood"
"Resurrect Me"
"Voodoo Fire"
"Broken Glass"
"It’s Okay"
"Stick The Knife In And Twist"
"One Light To Burn"
"Do Or Die"
"Time Bomb"
"It All Comes Back Around"

"Tears Of Blood" video:

"It All Comes Back Around" video:

"Proud Desperado" video: