Lou Gramm talks final solo album 'Released' and Foreigner's future.
Lou Gramm is adamant that he’ll be “hanging up the microphone at the end of the year.” But the originalis a self-produced collection of 10 songs from his vaults, which were in various stages of completion before they were worked on for this set.
He’ll be doing dates with his own band to support it as well as some special guest appearances with Foreigner. And then, he says, he’ll be a juke box hero no more.Weezer Enlist The Shins & Silversun Pickups for 2026 'The Gathering' Arena Tour“I do mean it, yes,” Gramm — who will nevertheless join Foreigner as a special guest on the Rock Legends Cruise XIV next February — tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in Bradenton, Fla. “I’ll miss it. I’ve got a lot more things that I’m wanting to do, such as playing with my cars and be a full-time dad to my kids. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I wanted to put out one last solo album for myself, one that I’m thrilled with. This is it.” Gramm, 75 — who joined Foreigner during its formation in 1976 after a tenure with the band Black Sheep — sayscame from realizations that “it’s been a while since I put out anything,” and also, “I had some gems sitting in the vault.” Everything, he says, was intended for his solo albums —in 1989 — or for the lone 1991 album by Shadow King, the group he formed with post-Dio/pre-Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell and Black Sheep mate Bruce Turgon, who’d been part of the solo albums and played with Foreigner during the ‘90s. Turgon also co-wrote nine of the tracks on“These weren’t on the album because they weren’t good enough,” says Gramm, whose son Matthew Gramm served as‘s associate producer. “A lot of it was because we had a timeline to turn in 10 songs for an album, and some of those really good ideas I had weren’t quite finished. But years later I went back and listened to the songs that there three-quarters finished or whatever, and there were some awesome songs.”fell into two categories: those that were “mostly complete” and others that were “rough.” Of the former, “Heart and Soul,” “Lightning Strikes” and “World Gets Around” hail from thesessions, while “Young Love,” “Walk the Walk” and “Time Heals the Pain” came after that and before thealbum. Meanwhile, “Long Gone” and “Deeper Side of Love” “were written sometime during the first two albums and forgotten,” and both needed more work, including new instrumentation and vocals. The track “Long Hard Look” was “a complete concept,” but Gramm “decided to retrack much of the song.” And “True Blue Love” was on the“We mostly kept the basis of the songs,” says Gramm. “I think my songs always have great guitar progressions in the intro, in the choruses. It’s very exciting to perform against guitar chords that are very uplifting like that.” Gramm did record at least some new vocals for nearly every track — and, he adds, didn’t have any trouble blending with the younger version of himself. “For the last 15 or so years I’ve been taking care of my voice — no drugs, no alcohol,” he says. “I take vocal lessons once a week from a great guy who lives in New York City and did opera, so he’s doing scales with me and showing me how to control my breath, how to stand when I’m singing and stuff. So I bring something to these songs now, although I still hear soulfulness in those recordings.”songs aren’t the only material to come from Gramm’s past, however. Foreigner has also been digging into its vaults, releasing two songs so far: “Turning Back the Time,” an unreleased 1996 track, for the 2024 compilation of the same name; and the outtake “Fool If You Love Him” for last year’s reissue of the 1981’salbum. Band founder Mick Jones, who stopped touring in 2022 due to Parkinson’s disease, and manager Phil Carson have said more will be coming. Gramm confirms there’s quite a bit more where those songs came from, including a batch of nine tunes he and Jones began writing during the early 2000s. “I think Mick is not in a place to sit down and listen through hours and hours to find a good song…but there’s stuff there,” says Gramm, who left Foreigner acrimoniously in 2003 but patched things up with Jones a decade ago and began taking part in reunion shows during 2017 and has been making special guest appearances with the band during the past couple of years. Gramm even foresees a potential collaboration between Foreigner’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame-inducted members and the current lineup on some of those records. “The would need some finishing up, some lead guitar, to go from a drum machine to some real drums, but the vocal and guitar performances are great,” Gramm says. “We could build off those and have the new Foreigner guys fill in the rest of the parts, or maybe even have Dennis on drums and Rick on bass and Al play keyboards, then let the new Foreigner guys fill in the spaces there. That could be a good juxtaposition.”‘s release comes on the heels of Gramm’s performances on the 70s Rock & Romance Cruise. He’ll be announcing shows with his own band soon, and he’ll appear with Foreigner on “select” dates during its upcoming Double Trouble Double Vision Tour with Lynyrd Skynyrd this summer in addition to next year’s Rock Legends Cruise. “I really like singing with those guys,” Gramm notes. “They’re a very good band. They’re very particular about how the songs are played, they’re good performers and they’re good ball-busters off stage. I hope they go as long as they want to…and I’m glad to do with them. It was sad the way Mick and my relationship ended back in ; it never sat right with me to be dissociated from Foreigner. So it’s good to be able to do what I do with them, and then do shows with my band and finish up on a high note this year.” Taylor Swift Wins Artist of the Year at 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards, Admitting ‘I Didn’t Think I Was an Artist When I First Started’Ask Billboard: Ella Langley Stops the Revolving Door at No. 1 on the Hot 100. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google
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