I was relieved to hear he came through all that successfully, but there's a huge recovery period for that, and he's just gotten back to the touring." That's a real nasty one-two punch for anyone, and I wish him well.
"I do keep tabs however, and I was certainly aware that Mick was ill last year, with a throat tumor and bypass surgery. "It's been almost ten years now since I left Foreigner, and I don't even think about it anymore," said Gramm on the phone from his Rochester, New York home. Jones returned to the band at the end of August, where he is the only remaining original member. Mick Jones, meanwhile, had to step away from fronting the current Foreigner last year, when he took ill and eventually had aortic bypass surgery in February 2012. In 2009 he released "Baptism by Fire," an album of all original Christian rock songs.
Gramm has continued writing and performing new music of his own, but also kept singing those classic Foreigner hits his fans wanted to hear. Gramm returned to Foreigner when he recovered, but left for good at the beginning of 2003. That also served to increase his interest in spiritual matters, and concurrent dissatisfaction with some parts of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Gramm was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor in 1997, necessitating some time off the road. But fans didn't really cotton to his replacement in Foreigner, and by '92 he was back. Gramm and Jones had released their own solo records during the late 1980s, and by 1990 Gramm decided to leave Foreigner for a solo career, founding the band Shadow King. 1978 brought the tunes "Hot Blooded" and "Double Vision," while '79 yielded "Head Games," and "Dirty White Boy." Lineup changes and shitfing down to a quartet didn't slow their momentum, as '81 brought us "Urgent" and "Waiting for a Girl Like You." The band's biggest single hit was 1985's "I Want to Know What Love Is," and they were such a big deal that Atlantic Records chose themm to be the headliners for the 1988 Madison Square Garden concert celebrating that label's 40th anniversary.
As is so often, regrettably, the case, the singer's leaving Foreigner was not a smooth breakup.įoreigner burst onto the rock scene back in 1976, and by '77 they had a debut album out with a couple of mega-hits, including "Cold As Ice," and "Feels Likes the First Time." That kicked off a skein of almost annual albums, each with more chartbusting singles. His fellow founding member of Foreigner, lead guitarist Mick Jones, owns the rights to the band's name, and continues to tour with a lineup of younger musicians, which include no other original members. Gramm, who appears at Showcase Live in Foxboro this Friday night (December 21), now bills himself as 'Lou Gramm, the voice of Foreigner.' Previously he had tried the monicker "formerly of Foreigner," and run into legal trouble. That would seem to be absurdly self-evident, since Gramm was the rock group's lead singer through almost all of their glory years, from 1976-90, and again from 1992-2003.īut sometimes these things aren't as easy as they appear. As the years have gone by, music fans have seemed to agree on one thing-nobody sings Foreigner's signature hits better than Lou Gramm.
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