Why Lou Gramm Left Foreigner

11-10-2024

Original Foreigner frontman Lou Gramm has explained the reasons why he decided to walk away from the band back in 2003, saying that he felt like he was being "shut out creatively" and revealed the moment he knew he "just had enough".

Gramm, who was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame along with his bandmates including co-founder Mick Jones. The vocalist recounted his departure from the group during a recent interview on SiriusXM's Classic Rewind.

According to online transcripts, Gramm explained, "In the late '90s, early 2000s, Mick and I began writing. And we put some really, really good ideas together. I think we had about seven songs complete. And we were hoping to finish with about three or four more songs and put out a new Foreigner album."

That would have marked the first original album from the band in almost a decade, but it never came to be. Gramm explained the creative environment within the group that led to his departure, "[Mick Jones 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."

The singer shared that it was during a concert in Belgium in October of 2002 that he made his decision to leave. "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."

He officially left the group a few months later and he said that when he was asked about the reasons, he explained at the time, "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."