Lou Gramm talks about solo career away from Foreigner in June 1990

There were no head games when Mick Jones split from the Buffalo singer and jukebox hero. Nestor went into the midnight blue with no regrets before a Merriweather Post Pavilion show when Gramm opened for Steve Miller.

Lou Gramm discussed his current tour, which started on June 1 in Minneapolis and ends on August 12 in Seattle, supporting Steve Miller. The tour includes 50-minute sets with songs from “Ready or Not,” “Long Hard Look,” and some Foreigner hits. Gramm’s band features Bruce Turkin on bass, Ben Graham on drums, Larry Oakes on keyboards, and Scott McKinstry on guitar. He expressed satisfaction with his solo career, noting the challenges faced with Foreigner’s direction and scheduling conflicts. Gramm plans to release a new album early next year and continue touring, focusing on a heavier rock sound.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Baltimore Skip Jacks, playoff games, season ticket holder, tour duration, Steve Miller, special guest, band members, rehearsal time, Rochester community, ticket sales, solo career, new album, foreigner songs, audience demographics, music direction

SPEAKERS

Lou Gramm, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

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You’re calling from regular phone. Yep, yeah, last time I had a lot of static, and I was hoping I wasn’t going to get it this time. No, I just, it’s just real funny that our past thing crossed, because I’m the Baltimore skip Jacks beat writer here is that right? And my paper me to Rochester to cover the playoffs, and everybody kept saying Lou Graham was in the press box. He had to be there anyway. Anyway. We had a great time. What happened in the last Well, the last game wasn’t it was in Springfield, right? Yeah, yeah. Game Six was in Springfield, right? Because my girlfriend at the time is from Rochester, and one of her Buddies is from Rochester, and he was in town, and he was like, You got to call the paper and find out if they won or lost. And one in the morning, he found that they lost, and he had a heart attack because he’s a season ticket holder. But I guess you guys had a better season. You thought you were going to have at least, oh

Lou Gramm  00:48

yeah, they didn’t even expect us to be there.

Nestor Aparicio  00:50

How many games did you go to? I

Lou Gramm  00:52

think I caught about the last out of the playoff games. I think I caught about three or four playoff games. Brought my dad, my kids and bunch of friends, and we got rowdy. We had a very good time. I love the

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Nestor Aparicio  01:04

guy that stand at the one in the olds hockey, hockey, hockey. He’s the best. I’ve only been to one Amherst game, and that was two years ago when I was dating the school from Rochester, and we went up. But I love it. It’s great. So do you go to see sabers games too? Or

Lou Gramm  01:18

I’ve been to a couple, you know, but if I can, it’s only like 50 minutes away from me, so it’s nothing but a Congo. We haven’t been to a bills game yet, which I’m dying to go in

Nestor Aparicio  01:29

your life. No, I won’t print that. Let’s talk about your music, I guess. How long’s the tour and what exactly is going on, because we

Lou Gramm  01:39

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started June 1 in Minneapolis, and we’re going right through August 12. I think we end up in Seattle. I think so.

Nestor Aparicio  01:49

Are you opening for Steve Miller? Okay, I wasn’t sure, because it’s sort of like CO bills well, but you’re doing the early part.

Lou Gramm  01:56

He gives us special guest kind of billing, but yeah, we start to show

Nestor Aparicio  02:02

how much time are you getting? We get 50 minutes. 50 minutes, and you’re doing most of your own stuff, or doing

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Lou Gramm  02:09

two or three things from Ready or not, two or three things from our long, hard look, I got through a few foreigner songs thrown in there. And we, we build a set pretty, pretty heavily,

Nestor Aparicio  02:18

who is in the band, which? That’s one thing that I can never figure out when people like you come up because they only send me, it’s like this album thing, which is a very pretty press packet, by the way, but it just doesn’t say who’s on it, because you have five guitars playing on your album, or something, one

Lou Gramm  02:33

guitar stuff. Bruce Turkin on bass, who’s been with me for years, my brother, Ben Graham on drums, Larry Oakes on keyboards, who toured with bad company and did the last foreigner Far East tour. He moved up to the Rogers area. So you know, he’s great, great guy and a great player. So he’s with me now, and guitar player Scott McKinstry from Sacramento, who hasn’t done a heck of a lot, but McKinstry t r y, that’s a good guess, but he’s a great player. So I mean, I’m sure you’ll be hearing more.

Nestor Aparicio  03:16

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Was he like a second choice for vivid or for Nils or vivid,

Lou Gramm  03:22

but he had river dogs right coming out, so that kind of just got that in the middle yesterday, as we switch back on that. But other than that, I went right to Scott because I knew he was every bit a good player. Did

Nestor Aparicio  03:33

you talk to Nils at all?

Lou Gramm  03:35

I did talk to Nils. I asked him if he was interested in and he was putting together a thing with Ringo

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Nestor Aparicio  03:40

stars, all stars, that’s right, they’re gonna go back out this summer, and

Lou Gramm  03:44

then they were gonna do an album together by time Nils called we were already hitting the road. So

Nestor Aparicio  03:50

how much rehearsal did you do and stuff? Because I got your album, so, I mean, I wore it out. I got it back in November, I think,

Lou Gramm  03:57

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yeah, it’s been out a while now. We actually only rehearsed about two and a half weeks for this tour because we didn’t have to put that many songs together. We warmed up at a few local clubs in Rochester, and then we hit the road immediately in front of like 18,000 people in Minneapolis. You say

Nestor Aparicio  04:17

it like you’re from Rochester Rochester, and you say, Rochester? Why do you, why do you still live there?

Lou Gramm  04:26

I mean, that’s where I grew up. That’s the only place that has really felt like home to me. I love, you know, the community feel there’s a great there’s a great music scene going on here, and it’s a very, very cool place to live. Where exactly do you live?

Nestor Aparicio  04:41

The microphone went to Geneseo. Geneseo, I

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Lou Gramm  04:45

think, is a little bit south. It’s a lot south. It’s

Nestor Aparicio  04:47

like 30 miles. But you live east or west. I’m slightly east of Rochester. It’s one of those funky Indian name places,

Lou Gramm  04:57

yeah, along the lines of that, you know the Ontario. Webster, whatever area it’s great. It’s the greater Rochester area.

Nestor Aparicio  05:05

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So why didn’t you go out on the last album?

Lou Gramm  05:07

We actually did go out. We we went out for about five or six shows, and we were in there was such heavy competition with Dylan and Patty, and I forgot who the hot office was out. We really got buried. Ticket wise, every, every place we went to, we just,

Nestor Aparicio  05:25

I heard that was a problem, but I didn’t even know you put the thing together. I was

Lou Gramm  05:30

together. We had Patty Smythe opening for us, okay? And it was, it was, we had a terrific package. And we the people who we did play for. You know, the few shows we did play, we kicked butt, but ticket sales were such were where the promoters were backing off, so we just packed it in. I

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Nestor Aparicio  05:47

mean, how disappointed did that leave you? Man, I was

Lou Gramm  05:52

certainly we weren’t doing arenas, and I wasn’t expecting to put, you know, 1000s and 1000s of kids, but I expected some sort of reasonable turnout. And I think it would have been, but we were sent. We were always sandwiched in with, you know, these name acts that had smash out, and it just seemed like the interest and the promotion wasn’t quite there to to put, put

Nestor Aparicio  06:21

people in the seats, not to discourage you. But this summer is even worse. I mean, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen. I mean, as far as bands coming around, I’ll

Lou Gramm  06:28

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tell you what. I’m not discouraged because I’m only the special guest. Steve Miller is selling out. You know, he’s selling out 80% of the places he plays at. So I’m better off in an opening act position where I can plant in front of, you know, a lot of people, and I’m really enjoying it. I play 50 minutes of my my favorite stuff, it’s non stop rock and, you know, we just blow the place away and leave. Is

Nestor Aparicio  06:54

there going to come a point where you’re going to come around and do some theaters in the fall with the two hour show?

Lou Gramm  06:58

I don’t know. I think about it. But do you want to do that personally? Do I want to? Yeah, yeah. I do want to. But I’m also, I’m also concerned about a producer for my next album, kind of a timetable that I’ve got to set for myself so I can get some new music and build up my repertoire of songs. So at some point that I can, so is foreigner dead at this point? No, they still live. They’ve got a new singer. They live without you. Oh, yes, I don’t know who it is, but they’re, you know, they their concern was getting an album out, like right away, and then a huge tour in 1991 and I was like,

Nestor Aparicio  07:37

Do you have time to talk now? Are we? Are we on sort of like a time frame here? I’m fine. Okay, good. I got a million questions. I

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Lou Gramm  07:43

mean, hang on a second. Okay, sure, hang on a minute. Nestor, hang on, take it.

Nestor Aparicio  07:49

Okay, yeah. I just got a million questions that I’ve always I get you on the phone and I’ll go crazy. I sort of did this on other people, like Billy Joel once too. Now, foreigner is dead. From your standpoint, you were not invited back. Or you Oh, no,

Lou Gramm  08:03

we were working on songs. There was no, you know, invitation. I was still part of the band. It was we were working on songs, you’re starting to rehearse. The problem was we couldn’t reconcile our time schedules, you know, they wanted to enter the studio immediately and start recording and have a big world tour in 1991 and I mean, that’s like pressure on me to stop promoting my album, cancel my tour, and concentrate on foreigner I, you know, I do one thing at a time. I give it all my attention and the best that I have in me. If it ended up being a conflict. It was like we would talk about priorities. And while my album is out in current and I’m promoting it and touring on it, it is my priority.

Nestor Aparicio  08:53

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But did you do you have their permission to do this last year when you went and did your own Did you say I’m taking two years and I’m going to do this. I

Lou Gramm  09:01

didn’t, I don’t need anybody’s permission. Really, there is no, you know, we were all big boys. And when Mick goes off and produces Billy Joel or Eddie Van Halen, whoever, know, no one asks. Is this all right? Everybody just kind of goes about their business. When you, when you do an album, you know your professional obligation and your instinct is to talk to tabloids and press and radio stations and promote it and and do a short tour and give it its best shot, which is what I’m doing. I can’t, you know, I would not drop everything, because everybody says, Come on, we’re going in the studio tomorrow. I just can’t do that today, and it was an increasing amount of pressure on me to stop what I was doing so we could make a new foreigner out. When did this come about? This is. Two months ago. Now, we already had some songs written and stuff, but,

Nestor Aparicio  10:03

and they’re going to use them with the other people. Were these not your songs? Yeah,

Lou Gramm  10:09

I think so. I think so. You know, basically, we just parted ways. Is

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Nestor Aparicio  10:13

it fair to say you and Mick don’t get along?

Lou Gramm  10:16

I don’t think that’s fair to say. I think we do get along. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  10:19

I just remember there was a point about two and a half years ago before inside information, when you were quoted, and I don’t know if correctly or incorrectly by, I think Ken talk or somebody said that you guys were done, that you had said that foreigner no longer exists,

Lou Gramm  10:33

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yeah. Well, there was that point, yeah. And it was, we actually was reconciled in you know, just as a one more time type of situation

Nestor Aparicio  10:47

and see if it worked. And that was inside information,

Lou Gramm  10:50

was that one time from information which, which is my least involvement in a foreigner realm, my least favorite foreign realm. I really didn’t consider it, you know, was

Nestor Aparicio  10:59

your heart not in this. I mean, that’s kind of what I got after three listens. You

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Lou Gramm  11:03

know, I did my professional best, but, but, but was I moved and inspired?

Nestor Aparicio  11:10

Was there ever a tour on that?

Lou Gramm  11:12

Because I didn’t see one. We actually did Japan and Australia, and we had a good time, you know? We, we toured Japan and Australia on inside information, and that was fun.

Nestor Aparicio  11:23

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Well, say you will your song or mix song that’s a collaboration. Was most of the stuff on their mixed stuff, or was it, it

Lou Gramm  11:30

was mostly, mostly mixed stuff. That’s the least input I

Nestor Aparicio  11:34

ever had. It sounds a whole lot more like his soul album than it does your soul albums. Yeah. Mick

Lou Gramm  11:38

is, I mean, you know, I’m not saying I think his taste in music is mellowing, and if he’s the driving force behind foreigner then, then that’s the way foreigners gonna go. That’s not the band I want to be in. You know,

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Nestor Aparicio  11:53

is that pretty much how you felt before? Inside information that absolutely, I mean, was Mick running the show back with I could

Lou Gramm  11:59

feel that happening during agent provocateur. All the attention is going towards the love songs and our great the hot, blooded touch singles. They either weren’t there or no one was paying any attention to them. You know, the things like stuff. It’s like, come on. But no, it’s the ballots that we’re getting

Nestor Aparicio  12:20

all the attention with agent provocateur, is that one of your favorite albums? No, it’s not. I see I really like that album. I thought that was the fine album. Your best stuff.

Lou Gramm  12:29

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I mean, it’s great stuff, but it’s not my favorite stuff. If you back up one more album, you’ll be talking about my favorite

Nestor Aparicio  12:38

stuff. You like four Yeah, and now, like, off agent provocateur stuff, like reaction action was that. I love that stuff, but tooth and nail, and does anybody

Lou Gramm  12:50

know it beside you and me?

Nestor Aparicio  12:53

I don’t know, but I certainly have turned my friends onto it. We were at the beach last week, and I listened to that album. And six years gone. Now I listen to how more than listen to anything

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Lou Gramm  13:02

to me that could have been a smashed single, but it wasn’t. It didn’t even get any attention. So all I’m saying is, as the band started heading towards a softer direction, that’s when I was feeling less satisfied with being a part of it. What

Nestor Aparicio  13:19

was the music like from your band before black sheep?

Lou Gramm  13:22

Oh, it’s very rocky stuff. It was like, humble pie. It was like, free. It was very,

Nestor Aparicio  13:29

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I’ve never heard it. I’ve seen in the record store one time, but it’s, like, completely overpriced because it’s rare now

Lou Gramm  13:34

oriented, very raw stuff.

Nestor Aparicio  13:40

So what direction are you going in with the next album? You just going to keep going with this sound that you got on this one

Lou Gramm  13:46

not necessarily. I think, I think the second album sounds pretty different than the first album. And I think, I think that this new, this new album, I’m not sure I’m looking for a real rash, kind of heavy rock oriented producer right now, I think, I think long hard look is a great album. It’s a little bit Poppy, and I don’t know which way I’m going to go, but, but I know that I’m going to bite down real hard again.

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Nestor Aparicio  14:14

Why haven’t you gotten a second hit off of this album? I mean, True Blue, you released.

Lou Gramm  14:18

Yeah, it was, that’s a nice song. Nobody went for it. I

Nestor Aparicio  14:20

had no idea I heard at the beach once last week, but I’ve never heard it on AOR here.

Lou Gramm  14:24

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It’s a cool song, but it was the wrong choice. Alcom writing should have been the second single. What about hanging on my hip? Hanging on my hip would be great. Hang on my hips in the movie Navy SEALs. That’s coming out. Navy SEALs, yeah, it’s a new movie with Charlie Sheen. Is

Nestor Aparicio  14:37

it going to get released?

Lou Gramm  14:39

I don’t know the movie’s gonna be released. I don’t know if it’s

Nestor Aparicio  14:44

just funny. How you know, the more people I talk to, and I talk to five rock stars a week, it’s like, you guys go in and you put this album out, and you just don’t know what the hell is gonna happen to it. You know,

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Lou Gramm  14:54

you know it’s for a large a large part of it at that point is out of our hands. But. But, you know, people say what, you know, radio wants this. Everybody says, this is a hit, and then they put it out, and nothing happens. And the one that you the one that I might instinctively feel is gangbusters will never see the light of day. Yeah, yeah. Like reaction

Nestor Aparicio  15:13

action or two scenario,

Lou Gramm  15:15

I thought reaction to action, if that would have been put out as a single would have been number one for would have been made at least the top 10 and stayed there for weeks. It was such a smash, no one knows what that song is. You know, I think

Nestor Aparicio  15:28

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there was a lot of stuff on the second side of that album.

Lou Gramm  15:32

Get me wrong. It’s not that. Don’t like agent provocateur, but that’s, that’s when I can I started to feel the band softening up and going more for that kind of Adult Contemporary vibe. And I was going, Oh, no,

Nestor Aparicio  15:47

how into inside information? Was Mick? I mean, how into it were you guys as a unit? I think he was basically,

Lou Gramm  15:54

he was trying to do it all himself. I was there. I co wrote some songs. I sang you were

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Nestor Aparicio  16:00

being hoard for your voice.

Lou Gramm  16:04

I would never say that, and I would never own up to it. But, you know, actually, the involvement, I didn’t know if I wanted to be more involved in that, because stuff that I was bringing in wasn’t, wasn’t getting much attention. I knew we were end up going to, we’re gonna end up doing, you know, most of mixed songs again. So, so basically, I just, I played my, my team, part,

Nestor Aparicio  16:24

you know, part of the team. But if it were inevitable, as, like, I guess you see it now, why? Why didn’t, you know, then the first time you guys broke out, I was, I

Lou Gramm  16:34

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was asked by the record company and by the guys in the band, please, will you do this album with us? And I said, Yeah, I will, because I like them all. I still like them, you know, I’ve worked with them so long. I still, I still felt that the band had something to say musically. I was trying to reconcile our differences. If they could accept the fact that I also have a solo career. They led me to believe that that it was, it was fine, you know, that I had a solo career, you know, as long as I could still give attention to foreigner. And that’s how it works for the next two or three years, until just this last couple months, when, once again, my my solo career seemed to be getting in the way of foreigners plans. And so why should we go through years and years of antagonizing each other when the simple solution is you either do one or the other? And basically, I decided to do this, and they’ve got a new singer, so I think it’s going to work out the best for everybody. Realistically, you could

Nestor Aparicio  17:36

have gone the studio in September with them, or they wouldn’t, just weren’t going to wait through

Lou Gramm  17:39

the summer. Realistically, I would have been ready to do that, but, but they were impatient and wanted to do it. Now, you know that put they threw the ball back to me. It’s like, you know, make a choice, and I did. Are

Nestor Aparicio  17:54

you happy with this choice? So

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Lou Gramm  17:55

far, I’m thrilled with I feel a tremendous weight off my shoulders. I mean, I’m very proud of everything I’ve done with foreigner but, you know, I feel rediscovered. I’m discovering who I am, who I’m all about, what I want to do musically, how I want to present myself on stage. I got I got players around me that are terrific players, and we sound like a hot rock and roll band, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Nestor Aparicio  18:20

So which foreigner songs are you doing in your show? Just hits. Doing dirty white,

Lou Gramm  18:25

dirty white. Boy, we’re doing jukebox Herod.

Nestor Aparicio  18:29

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You’re not going to do reaction, action,

Lou Gramm  18:32

no, because I don’t think anybody would know that song, right? You’re

Nestor Aparicio  18:35

just going

Lou Gramm  18:36

to do hits then do a couple hits, mix them in with with some of my hits, a couple classic rock songs and leave everybody knowing where Lou Graham is headed musically.

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Nestor Aparicio  18:47

So you are going to go straight to the studio in the fall, and I

Lou Gramm  18:51

should have something new out sometime early next year. And then I’m going to, I’m going to pound the road again. So you don’t feel like

Nestor Aparicio  18:59

this, this album is going to take off at all. You feel like it’s on the dying edge after between you and me.

Lou Gramm  19:05

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Actually, it’s, you know, it’s been out since October, so it’s talking about my eight months already, right? Yeah, that’s a long time for now. It got a lot of airplay. Andrew was a dirty face. Got a lot of airplane True Blue, even though it wasn’t a hit, a big hit, you know, with a semi hit, just between you and me, did fantastic, I think hanging on my hip, once that movie comes out, that’s going to be on a soundtrack. So it is getting a lot of attention. Tin Soldier got a tremendous amount of airplane. So, you know, there’s no, there’s not an abundance of big top 10 hits on it, but overall, radio saturation. People really love that album. I mean, I’m playing stuff on this album that people are not familiar with, and they’re still going nuts over. It makes me feel great. They’re digging it.

Nestor Aparicio  19:54

Are you getting a foreigner crowd or Steve Miller crowd?

Lou Gramm  19:56

I think it’s hard to say, because. Is, you know, I stayed and watched Steve. And, you know, people are all singing along and stuff like that. But it’s not an old hippie car. It’s a very young car. I would say that the the average age of these guys is late teens, early 20s. In the

Nestor Aparicio  20:11

audience, what Steve don’t is he doing his hits. Because last year, a couple buddies of mine went solid. He

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Lou Gramm  20:16

did all his blue stuff. No, all hits,

Nestor Aparicio  20:19

all hits. He’s doing all hits because he did that all born to be blue, that album, great album, by the way, cool, great, low light, you know, soft music, but he lands

Lou Gramm  20:27

a little bit in there. But he gives everybody the hits, and everybody knows, knows all the words. But I mean, when we hit stage two, they’re ready for it. They’re singing along with Midnight Blue. They know the worst. Just between you and me, I treat them too dirty. White Boy, they go crazy. No jukebox. Hero, they’re all shaking their fist. I feel good at this point. You know? I mean, foreigner was a big part of me too, and I’ve got my own career. So I’m doing, I’m doing terrific. What about some

Nestor Aparicio  20:54

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of the older songs that that you’re not doing, um, hot blooded. You’re not doing right double vision. I’m

Lou Gramm  21:00

doing, I’m doing hop life,

Nestor Aparicio  21:03

well, like double vision, some of the stuff that you might consider UVA hits like, I want to know what love is. And I would never

Lou Gramm  21:09

do I want to know what love is because I didn’t write it. I think that would be an insult to Nick I’m doing stuff that that I had big input in. Dirty white boy was, was kind of my conception. Jukebox hero, you know, came from me. He helped me with that song,

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Nestor Aparicio  21:27

urgent, no,

Lou Gramm  21:28

no, urgent, that’s mixed. I wouldn’t do that even, you know, it’s a classic foreign song, and I would love to shit out of it. I wouldn’t do it because that’s his that’s his song, and I’d be slighting him. You know what I mean for me to do. I want to know what love is. That’s mercenary. I would never insult him by doing that. You know, that’s his stuff. What

Nestor Aparicio  21:48

about that? Was yesterday, his so you get co titles in a lot of these songs and, and no one knows whose song it is that’s,

Lou Gramm  21:55

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that’s more of his song than my I put in a lot on that was yesterday. And I like that song a lot, but, but that’s really mixed conception. See, it’s

Nestor Aparicio  22:03

sort of like the Lennon McCartney thing, where you go back and listen to 50 songs and you have no clue, except for Lennon McCartney and it sells.

Lou Gramm  22:10

Whose song was. I could do that. I might do that. That’s, that’s, that’s more mine. What

Nestor Aparicio  22:16

about the other stuff? Off of four was the first song on the album? On for not urge. I’m thinking maybe night life. Night

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Lou Gramm  22:23

life. Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t really put much thought into that. That’s a cool one, though that’s a cool one.

Nestor Aparicio  22:30

We got a lot of cool ones. And I’ll let you go, because you’re probably born you to death. All right. Well, I’ll find you. Sounds good. Thanks, Lou. Alright. Take care. Bye. You.