Lou Gramm accused the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame of pulling a “fast one” on Foreigner ahead of their induction ceremony last month.
The original singer said he, along with fellow co-founders keyboardist Al Greenwood and bassist Rick Wills, had believed they were going to be a major part of the performance on the night.
But he claimed they only discovered hours before the event that others would be leading a set of cut-down Foreigner classics instead, including current band members and guests Sammy Hagar, Slash, Chad Smith, Demi Lovato and Kelly Clarkson.
READ MORE: How One Person Saved Foreigner From Obscurity
The induction went ahead in the absence of two surviving originals: band leader Mick Jones, due to his ongoing illness, and drummer Dennis Elliott, who, Gramm said, refused to take part on having heard earlier that he wouldn’t be allowed to perform.
“The thing for me is I am first and foremost a rock singer, and it’s the Rock Hall of Fame,” Gramm told Eddie Trunk in a recent interview on SiriusXM. “And somehow I couldn’t sing a rock song at the Rock Hall of Fame when I’m being inducted? It doesn’t make any sense to me, and it sticks in my craw.”
He said he’d been told “time restraints” were the reason behind the organizers’ decision, to which Trunk pointed out that “if someone else is singing” the same time was still being used.
“I don’t think anybody else sang ‘Juke Box Hero,’” Gramm added. “But I know they did ‘Hot Blooded’ and ‘Feels Like the First Time.’ … I thought an edited version of ‘I Wanna Know What Love Is’ into an edited version of ‘Juke Box Hero’ would have been okay… but he didn’t explain to me. He just said, ‘No, it’s not gonna work.’”
Turning to Elliott’s no-show, the singer explained: “The reason Dennis didn’t come was because he found out from management a number of days before Rick, Al and I… that we weren’t gonna play.”
Lou Gramm Questions His Own Rock Hall Attendance
“As soon as Dennis found out that we weren’t performing on our night, he decided he wasn’t gonna come,” Gramm continued. “And we’re just going, ‘Dennis, come on… We’re gonna play.’ … And then we found out the afternoon of the show that we weren’t performing.
“We thought we were gonna be performing, and Dennis was gonna be there, and we’d have the guitar player from the new Foreigner play mixed parts and play a couple songs. And then we found out at the last minute that it was the new Foreigner who was gonna be playing and Rick and Al would be standing there singing background vocals.”
Asked if he’d have attended if he’d known about the performance plans, Gramm replied: “I don’t know. I didn’t know sooner… and when I found out that that’s why [Elliott] didn’t come, I even got more angrier – but not at him. It was almost like there was a fast one being played.”
Listen to Lou Gamm on SiriusXM
Foreigner Albums Ranked
It’s hard to imagine rock radio without the string of hit singles Foreigner peeled off in the ’70s and ’80s.
Gallery Credit: Jeff Giles
