Ex-Foreigner Singer Lou Gramm Slams Band’s ‘Misleading’ Lineup

Wednesday Night, Fans at Darien Lake were treated to a classic night of Journey, Foreigner and Night Ranger music. As you may have learned, the front-men for at least two of those bands weren't exactly Steve Perry and Lou Gramm. With a little help from YouTube, Journey discovered current frontman Arnel Pineda, a dead ringer vocal-wise for former lead singer Steve Perry.

Well, it looks as though Foreigner has found a spot-on replacement for original singer Lou Gramm in Kelly Hansen. Many concert-goers even told Jack FM that Foreigner stole the show. But Gramm is a little hot blooded about the Hansen-fronted lineup, which he calls “misleading” and also likens to “false advertising.”

“As I’ve learned talking to people who see those shows,” Gramm says, “is that in many cases the audience, especially if they’re younger, [doesn't] even know it’s not the original lead singer. In Foreigner’s case, as I understand it, the singer was actually trained to deliver pretty much exactly everything as I did it, note for note. If I were in the audience and learned that while I was there, I’d get up and leave.”

Gramm’s once-powerful pipes were featured on such signature Foreigner hits as ‘Cold As Ice,’ ‘Hot Blooded,’ ‘Double Vision,’ ‘Urgent,’ ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ and ‘Say You Will.’ From about 1990 to the early 2000s, Gramm was in and out of the band, and during that time he underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor.

Despite his acrimonious departure from the band around 2003, Gramm, a Rochester native, hasn’t shied away from singing Foreigner hits at his solo concerts including one last summer in Lockport.

“I never get tired of any of them … ‘Juke Box Hero’ and ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ are always fun,” he says. “Even ‘Hot Blooded,’ which I’ve done thousands of times, I think, is still fun because we find new ways to freshen it up each night.”

So the question is...if you really cared about the integretity of Foreigner, why not just rejoin the band? Why deny a career to the other guys that also were a big part of the music you created. I never understood why they can't just make amends and make millions. Just ask Sting, David Lee Roth and Phil Collins...maybe the paycheck will make it "Feel Like the First Time" again.

[Ultimate Classic Rock]