Juke Box Heroes: Family, Friends, Fans & A Whole Lot Of Hits Propel Foreigner To The Rock Hall

Foreigner was almost over before it even began.

When English musician Mick Jones found himself stuck in New York City and without a gig, his manager encouraged him to continue writing songs and to put his own group together. His first recruit was keyboard player Al Greenwood. The pair jammed and wrote for two weeks, but Greenwood became impatient and had decided to tell Jones this new group wasn’t for him, that he’d stick with his old band.

And then Jones played him the opening riff to “Cold As Ice.”

And that was all the impetus they’d need. The two men called friends, old bandmates, guys they respected, bringing on former King Crimson multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, bassist Dan Gagliardi and drummer Dennis Elliott. And they began an exhaustive search for a lead singer, auditioning as many as 50 vocalists. Jones dug out a copy of an album from the by-then-defunct band Black Sheep. That band’s lead singer, Lou Gramm, was home in Rochester and soon enough, he’d be on a plane to New York City. And then he’d be in the band. 

They settled on the name Trigger, but discovered it was taken. With three British band members and three Americans, the sextet realized no matter where they played, they’d be foreigners.

It was settled.

And then it was a rocket. 

Their self-titled 1977 debut spawned three hits — the aforementioned “Cold As Ice,” “Feels Like The First Time” and “Long, Long Way From Home.” The follow-up the next year, Double Vision, gave the world its title track and “Hot Blooded.”

Foreigner is one of those bands that evokes a very specific era: those five songs in the last paragraph are as emblematic of the late 1970s as stagflation and Reggie Jackson in the Bronx, and there’s no more 1980s soft-rock swooner than 1984’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

But Foreigner also had such a long run of radio hits that the band still belongs in every generation. “Hot Blooded” would be the appropriate soundtrack for a summer drive through a suburban downtown in a Prius in 2024 just as it was in a Firebird Trans Am in 1978.

And the thing with Foreigner is once you think you’ve named all their hits, there’s always more: “Urgent,” “Dirty White Boy,” “Head Games,” “Juke Box Hero,” “Waiting For A Girl Like You.”

It’s a testament to their musicianship that the same band who struck gold with an arena bop like “Hot Blooded” was also able to hit it big with the durably popular prom-and-wedding slow dance “I Want To Know What Love Is” (which continued to chart in various ways in the early 21st century). But it’s also a testament to that most reliable of ’70s band tropes: personnel turnover. Twenty-seven men have been credited as members on Foreigner recording work, with Jones the only mainstay. Another dozen have been part of the touring operation. Which is still going strong, by the way. A summer amphitheater tour this year included a $679,414 gross on 14,804 tickets at the Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre in the Chicago exurb of Tinley Park, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports.

Foreigner, like many radio-loved legacy acts of their era, were overlooked for Rock Hall induction for years. It’s a trend that’s reversed recently. For this year’s push  — their first nomination despite being eligible since 2002  — the band had a not-so-secret weapon: Jones’s stepson is the well-respected (and well-connected) producer Mark Ronson, who produced, among other acclaimed discs, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black and won an Oscar for co-writing “Shallow” from 2018’s “A Star Is Born.”  

“Everything that made me want to be a record producer came from being in the studio watching Foreigner make records,” he wrote on Instagram “I’m still completely in awe of the sound of those first five albums. Guitars with swagger and bite. Heavy drums that groove like a mutha with the bass. Wide layers of synths. And then there’s that voice. And those songs. It’s really crazy.”

In a video on the post, he included urgent (ahem) pleas for fans’ votes from Dave Grohl, Slash, Jack Black, Josh Homme and Chad Smith. 

And then he got a campaign video from Paul McCartney.

“Foreigner not in the Hall of Fame? What the fuck?” Sir Paul said succinctly.

The fans listened and though the fan vote only makes up a small portion of the total count that determines inductees, Foreigner’s overwhelming popularity pushed them over the top.

And the band that almost disappeared before its birth proved once again it’ll be part of our lives forever.