When Oklahoma quintet Hinder emerged in 2005 with their hard-rocking debut album Extreme Behavior, they quickly won over the masses with the high-minded anthem “Get Stoned.” But just like the decadent ‘80s rockers who were among their musical influences, the group broke big with a ballad. In this case, it was “Lips of an Angel,” a song that is not actually about infidelity but temptation and the thoughts that come with it.
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The hit track was inspired by a phone call frontman Austin Winkler received from his ex while his current girlfriend was in the adjacent room. In the lyrics, he relates the tale of a man having a flirtatious phone dalliance while his own girlfriend was sleeping nearby. It all came about while Hinder were working on material for their debut album. Winkler thought the scenario would make for a compelling song. Drummer Cody Hanson conjured the chord progressions and the song progressed naturally.
Winkler was proven right about his instincts—while “Get Stoned” put them on the map, “Lips of an Angel” took their success to a higher elevation due to its highly personal and relatable nature.
Well, my girl’s in the next room / Sometimes I wish she was you / I guess we never really moved on / It’s really good to hear your voice saying my name / It sounds so sweet / Coming from the lips of an angel / Hearing those words, it makes me weak / And I never wanna say goodbye / But, girl, you make it hard to be faithful / With the lips of an angel
Anyone who saw Hinder on that tour will recall the audience singing aloud to “Lips of an Angel.” There’s no denying the staying power the ballad has had over the years—so much so that a decade after departing Hinder, Winkler teamed up with country singer Shaylen to rerecord the song last year in a country-rock format. She took the role of the woman on the phone.
In an interview with ABC Audio in November, Winkler explained of the new version: “I thought that it would be a really cool thing to actually really go in and lay to down a female perspective to tie the whole story in together.” It turns out some female singers on TikTok and YouTube have also offered the woman’s perspective take (with new lyrics) on the ballad but from the point of view of the current girlfriend.
“It’s more of a love song than it is a cheating song,” Winkler said. “And I can tell you that because I wrote it. I think having [women] wanting to have their side of the story be told was kinda solidification that the song’s for everybody. It’s not just a one-sided thing.”
Beyond “Lips of an Angel”
Extreme Behavior was released in July 2005 and the first single “Get Stoned,” while not even hitting Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, sold half a million copies by February 2006. “Lips of an Angel” was released as the second single in April 2006, and by that December was already certified Platinum. Seven years later it hit the quadruple-Platinum mark. The album itself would hit the triple-Platinum mark by January 2008. “Lips of an Angel” remains very popular with 323 million YouTube views and 338 million Spotify listens.
Fun bonus: The deluxe edition of Extreme Behavior includes a fired-up cover of Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild.”
Something else to note about Hinder is their second album released in 2008, Take It to the Limit—the raucous title track that included a guest solo from Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars—was a better album than their debut. However, it only sold 500,000 copies. They more openly embraced their retro influences and produced great singalong anthems like “Use Me” and “Up All Night,” along with the melancholic biography “Loaded and Alone,” which was inspired by meeting a famous rock star who was isolated and inebriated. In fact, many of the romantic sentiments on the album leaned on the melancholic side, but were balanced out by the hard-rocking energy of the album as a whole.
Winkler left Hinder in 2013 as he struggled with drugs and alcohol, and was succeeded by singer Marshall Dutton. Original rhythm guitarist Mark King departed in 2021. Both Winkler and Hinder have released new music since then, although it has been nearly seven years since Hinder put out a new release. It would be interesting to have the original lineup reunite now that the singer is sober. They could return to the anthemic and occasionally introspective rock ‘n’ roll that they excelled at—but without the excessive partying in real life.
While “Lips of an Angel” is a popular ballad that continues to live on in the hearts of fans, Hinder certainly has more to offer.
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Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for IEBA
