Ex-Foreigner singer looking forward to Wayne Co. Fair
Owner of one of the most famous voices in rock history, Lou Gramm, formerly of Foreigner, will take the grandstand stage on Tuesday, Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. at the Wayne County Fair.
Lou Gramm was a ’70s rocker. He and his band Foreigner, which debuted in 1977, took the arena rock genre by storm, putting together a string of five consecutive top five albums that over a decade spawned 14 top 40 hits, half of which wound up on the top 10.
Now Gramm is a ‘70s rocker, as in he’s 73 years old. The singer still has plenty of rocking left to do, and he’s happy to do it as long as there are people who still want to listen.
“I enjoy writing and recording, and I like performing the songs in front of appreciative audiences,” Gramm said by phone recently.
Owner of one of the most famous voices in rock history, Gramm will take the grandstand stage on Tuesday, Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. at the Wayne County Fair, where he’ll perform a dozen or so Foreigner hits and a couple of his own.
So how does a pop/rock superstar from four decades ago become a headliner at the Wayne County Fair, which if anything is known for having a more country audience?
“We are trying to appeal to more genres of music than in the past,” fair spokesman Matt Martin said. “We know country will always be popular. This year we added a more ‘rock’ band. We are trying to appeal to all crowds.”
Gramm will play to anyone who will listen. He said he’ll still occasionally be in front of audiences of thousands, but a few hundred is good enough too.
He loves looking out into a crowd and seeing a teenager singing along with the songs the older audience members have sung for 56 years.
“It takes me right back to those earlier times when those songs were brand new,” he said. “It was wonderful back then. It was a responsibility for us. We felt that on our shoulders. We wanted to have the best night possible on that stage.”
Even after nearly five decades since Foreigner kicked things off with “Feels Like the First Time,”Gramm said he still gets a kick out of hearing one pop on the radio.
“I don’t change the channel; that’s for sure,” he said. “I listen along. I like to hear how those songs sound on different radio formats.”
Despite record sales nearing 100 million, a string of hits that lasted more than 10 years and sold-out arenas throughout the stretch, Foreigner has not gotten so much as a nomination from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s an honor Gramm wouldn’t mind having, but he’s not holding his breath.
While late-’70s/early-’80s contemporary Journey has been inducted, Foreigner remains on the outside with the likes of Styx and REO Speedwagon, who had similar careers. None of those bands were critic darlings, and all were scorned by Rolling Stone executive Jann Wenner, who has played a role over the lifetime of the hall as far as who gets in.
“I used to think about it when we were first snubbed,” Gramm said. “I know the reasons, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. Ultimately, it makes them look bad. It’s a personal thing between Jann Wenner and Mick (Jones, Foreigner’s founder). They used to be close, close friends. They had a personal falling out. Because of that falling out, we were unable to make it, and that’s the way it’s been. We had all the credentials.”
In 1985 Gramm and Foreigner reached a pinnacle. With the power ballad “I Want To Know What Love Is,”the band finally hit the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100. They twice had songs reach No. 2 including in 1982 with “Waiting For a Girl Like You,” which had the bizarre distinction of being the song to spend the most weeks at No. 2 without getting to No. 1, stuck behind Olivia Newton John’s “Physical.”
Though Gramm received a writing credit for “I Want To Know What Love Is,”Jones strayed from the pair’s typical arrangement and only offered him a small piece of the financial credit.
“Mick and I were a very, very good songwriting team,” Gramm said. “We wrote I’d say 90% of the Foreigner hit catalog or whatever you want to call it. I worked on that song with him for months and months to get it right. I have no share of that song. For “Hot Blooded,” all those other things, we just said 50/50 or 60/40 for those songs. All of a sudden Mick says 95/5.
“It was grossly unfair and unrealistic. He says it’s either that or nothing. So I chose nothing. My anger said that. Even 5% would have been a lot of dollars over the long run.”
The relationship between Gramm and Jones, the only remaining original member of Foreigner in the band, has been contentious for two decades since the singer left for good. Jones has continued to tour with Foreigner, which consists of an ever-changing list of musicians — numbering upward of 50 throughout the band’s history — a list that on many nights does not even include Jones.
Gramm’s current band, billed as Lou Gramm’s All-Stars, is a talented bunch. It features his brother Ben on drums, lead guitarist Benito Dibartoli, sax player/guitarist Scott Gilman, bassist Tony Franklin, keyboardist Jeff Jacobs and backing vocalist Carol-Lyn Liddle.
Franklin in the past played with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour on Kate Bush’s hit “Running Up That Hill,”which had a resurgence last year thanks to an appearance on “Stranger Things.” Jacobs toured with Foreigner in the past, as well as the likes of Billy Joel and Paul Simon. Liddle has her own stage show and has worked with the likes of Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Steve Walsh (Kansas) and Kelly Kaegy (Night Ranger), as well as Gramm and many others. Gilman toured with Foreigner in the mid-1990s.
Gramm is happy to have that group with him. And performing for aging fans who were teens or even younger when they first heard him isn’t a bad thing at all.
“I think it’s pretty awesome,” he said. “I suppose it makes me feel like I’ve got some miles on me. But you know? I can still deliver.”