Remember When Lou Gramm Left Foreigner for the First Time in 1990?

Many of the arena rock bands who enjoyed their heyday in the late 70s and early 80s struggled to maintain that level of success into the middle and late 80s. Foreigner mostly escaped that problem. For them, the hits kept coming.

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But the band still frayed at the seams. The tension between guitarist Mick Jones and singer Lou Gramm took its toll. When Gramm left the group in 1990, it essentially ended the band’s halcyon days.

On the Way to ‘4’

Mick Jones founded Foreigner, so named because of the mix of American and British musicians in the band, in 1976. Jones’ best personnel decision when putting the band together was hiring Lou Gramm, formerly of Black Sheep, to be the lead singer.

Foreigner’s sound proved an intoxicating blend for both hard rock fans and Top 40 enthusiasts right off the bat. The band could bring serious thunder, and Gramm’s sweaty vocals put him in the ranks of all the best hard-rock belters. Meanwhile, the songs were jam-packed with gleaming hooks to give them a strong foundation on the radio.

In 1981, the band’s fourth album (fittingly named 4) took them to a new level of popularity. Included among the hits was a ballad called “Waiting For A Girl Like You”. That was the first time that the band had gone with a slow one as a single, and they triumphed with it. But it also led to a schism between the band’s two artistic poles.

Barnburners Vs. Ballads

With “Waiting For A Girl Like You”, Jones, who wrote the majority of the material but often received help from Lou Gramm, realized that there was a strong market for soulful ballads. And Gramm proved how adept he was at singing them. But he also preferred the band in its bluesier, tougher mode.

Three years later, another ballad, “I Want To Know What Love Is”, demonstrated that Jones was right to foreground the band’s softer side when it gave the band their first No. 1 hit. But Gramm was frustrated that he didn’t get any songwriting credit for the track, claiming Jones denied it to him even though he’d contributed a good deal to its creation.

In 1987, Gramm released his first solo album, which included the Top 5 hit “Midnight Blue”. When he returned to the Foreigner fold, many of his old frustrations surfaced. He thought that his artistic suggestions were being sidelined, and he openly disdained the soft single “I Don’t Want To Live Without You” to the point where you can hear it dripping from his vocals.

Gramm Goes

The damage had been done to the relationship between Lou Gramm and Mick Jones. All it took was one final frustration to sever it. When Gramm wanted to tour in 1990 behind his 1989 solo album Long Hard Look, and Jones wanted to go full steam ahead into a new Foreigner record, Gramm left the group.

Johnny Edwards replaced Gramm as lead singer of Foreigner for the 1991 album Unusual Heat. Gramm made amends with Jones in time for the 1994 album Mr. Moonlight. He left more permanently in 2003. More recently, he has returned to sing with the current version of Foreigner, although Mick Jones is no longer active for health reasons.

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