The Lou Gramm Interview (2013)

Lou Gramm is the iconic voice of Foreigner as well as co-writer to some of the band’s biggest hits, including “Waiting For A Girl Like You,” “Juke Box Hero,” and “Cold As Ice.” The singer, who battled brain cancer in the 90s, left Foreigner in 2002 and re-established his solo career with a focus on the Christian Rock market.

Touring with his own band while making a life for himself and his family in his native Rochester, NY, Gramm has written his autobiography, a fun read called Juke Box Hero: My Five Decades In Rock ‘n’ Roll, co-authored with Scott Pitoniak, a newspaper columnist and the best-selling author of 16 books.

Vintage Rock recently spoke with Gramm about the book, Foreigner and his current life — in and out of the music world.

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Tell me how Juke Box Hero: My Five Decades In Rock ‘n’ Roll came about. Did you sit down to write the story out long hand or just free associate and give forth your anecdotes?

The latter, that’s exactly the way we did it. I wrote the book with Scott (Pitoniak), he’s an accomplished writer, he’s written books on Jim Boeheim, Johnny Antonelli, among others. He’d ask me questions and then record the answers, it would be about anything actually, then he’d put it in chronological order.

Why write a book now?

I thought it was as good a time as any. There’s been enough struggles, enough interesting times, enough good times to start to recall and put it down so somebody else could appreciate it before too much time goes by and it wouldn’t mean anything, you know?

I know you can’t truly encapsulate it here and you certainly go through lots of your feelings about the band in the book, but looking back on it and where things are now even, what’s your overall read on Foreigner?

It think the first 15 or 20 years or so were good I enjoyed playing with guys like Ian McDonald and Al Greenwood, but there was a point it was time to move on, so the band changed. I enjoyed my time with those guys though. Ian and Al are great people, good hearts, good musicians. As far as the band they are now calling Foreigner, I really have no thoughts about it at all. I don’t know what it is, but it is an abomination.

I found the Black Sheep story (the band Gramm was in prior to Foreigner) really poignant, especially when that band was stuck and the guys prompted you to pursue the audition with Mick Jones and Foreigner.

We were close to making it. We had two albums on Capital and were fortunate to get the opening slot on the KISS tour. Our first show with KISS we got a standing ovation and their tour manager told us to play one more song, unheard of for an opening act. So we hung around, saw Kiss play and they brought the house down and we thought we were in for an exciting tour with them, that’s when our crew on the way back to Rochester that night-it was Christmas Eve-hit a patch of black ice and slid off the New York State Thruway, and the truck tipped over. So that’s Christmas of ’75, the insurance doesn’t settle until April, our record company won’t support us, our parents can’t help out (this is during the recession), people are waiting in line for gas. So we are a band with no equipment, we can’t get back to that tour and that great opportunity with KISS, the life was snuffed out of the band. So when that call came the guys in the band definitely encouraged me to take the shot.

Can you talk a bit about “I Want To Know What Love Is” and how it was not exactly the kind of song you wanted at that moment for the band? I thought that story was very interesting and ironic, seeing what a big hit it was.

4 (Foreigner’s fourth album) was a great album, bunch of killer songs, rock songs, “Juke Box Hero,” “Urgent,” things like that and “Waiting For A Girl Like You” had a good place in there. It was a rock ballad and it fit right in there, I had no problem with it at all. But then to start the next album with a ballad, “Waiting” was the last single then first song of the next alum was a ballad? I just didn’t think “I Want To Know What Love Is” was the right choice.

How about what you’re doing now musically? Are you writing? Planning on releasing anything new?

Here’s the problem Ralph, we could out something out but we won’t get any airplay, because radio is so messed up. Radio will play songs from new groups, but from people who have been around 25 years they won’t play anything new. We’re stuck on the vintage rock rotation with all the big hits we had but nothing new. If you have written a great song, produced good albums, you don’t suddenly forget how, but the problem is that powers that be, the corporations that now own the radio stations have an agenda of who gets played and who doesn’t, and bands that have been around 25-30 years, they don’t their new material played. You don’t even hear new songs from the Eagles.

They had a double CD out recently they sold exclusively through Walmart and it did record a number of sales.

Yeah and nobody heard it. All I really have are the songs that were hits before and I still enjoy playing them. We do live dates, we play out, but you know how it is when the economy is bad the first thing to go is entertainment, so were not playing a lot of shows. It’s kind of frustrating that the creative side of me is snuffed out. I still enjoy writing songs though I’m not sure I see any point in doing anything with them.

So what does your daily routine entail?

I work out. I go to the studio. I work on my muscle cars.

What cars do you presently have?

I have a ‘65 “442,” a ‘67 Chevelle ‘Super Sport’ and a ‘68 Camaro Super Sport. When I’m around, I enjoy taking my 13-year-old twins, hopping in a muscle car with them, hitting a cruise night where we go look at the other cars and grab something to eat.