Spending a few decades with the legendary Foreigner, Lou Gramm not only gained stardom but a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thanks to his writing partnership with Mick Jones, both Gramm and Jones ended up in the Songwriters Hall of Fame back in 2013. While thrilled about what he accomplished with the band, recently, Gramm opened up about the last time he took the stage with Foreigner and the reason he decided to leave.
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Speaking with Tommy London on SiriusXM’s Classic Rewind, Gramm took fans on a journey back to October 2002 when the band took the stage for the Night of The Proms. “We were playing something called ‘Night Of The Proms’. It was done in Brussels, Belgium, and they had a huge indoor tennis arena where there could be four games of tennis going on at once. It held 80,000 people. And after that series of shows, I left the band…. I just had enough.”
Lou Gramm Felt His Creativity Being Stifled
While only one performance, Gramm didn’t leave Foreigner over the Night of The Proms, but how he felt his creativity was being stifled. “[Mick is] the founder of the band, he’s the leader of the band, but he wasn’t necessarily doing the job the way he used to do it, and he was suppressing a lot of my creativity. ‘Just sing your parts, Lou.’ And after contributing to just about every hit song that the band had released in 20-some years, to be reduced to just a non-creative part, just the singer, didn’t sit well with me.”
With Gramm already making his decision, the songwriter waited until he got back to the States to drop the news about his departure. And according to Gramm, he had no regrets. “I informed the management that I was leaving the band. [They said], ‘Why? What could be wrong? Everything’s going so good.’ I said, ‘It’s not going good.’ I said, ‘I’m being shut out creatively, which is extremely important to me.’ I said, ‘I’m not just a singer. I’m a songwriter.’ I said, ‘And I always have been, even before FOREIGNER.’ So I left the band. And I’ve never had any regrets about it since.”
(Photo by Scott Legato/Getty Images)
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