North American syndicated rock radio show and website, InTheStudio With Redbeard: The Stories Behind History’s Greatest Rock Bands, visits with Lou Gramm and Mick Jones for the 35th anniversary of Foreigner’s most significant album, Foreigner 4. The “Album Of The Year” in 1981, it was #1 seller on the American charts for 10 weeks, producing the hits “Waiting For A Girl Like You”, “Urgent”, the rocker “Night Life”, and the classic “Jukebox Hero”.

In the late1970s the band Foreigner seemed destined to become a classic case of too much, too soon. The band’s first, 1977’s Foreigner and then Double Vision in 1978, were multi-platinum hits of unprecedented proportions and Foreigner entered the rock and roll arena as a full blown star. It was heady stuff, to be sure, but that kind of rapid success is often a recipe for quick decline as well.

For Foreigner the critical point came after their third album Head Games which was released in 1979. Head Games didn’t do as well as the first two albums, and the six Foreigner band members started to blame each other, resulting in departure of two of Foreigner’s original members. There were serious questions as to whether the remaining four should continue as the band Foreigner. In the end Mick Jones, Lou Gramm, Rick Wills and Dennis Elliott decided to forge ahead, making their most successful album ever. Mick Jones, Foreigner’s founder and lead guitarist, and former singer, songwriter Lou Gramm reflect with InTheStudio host Redbeard, on the crisis and eventual vindication that marked Foreigner 4.  

“We started to rehearse for the 4 album. I was so frustrated because I felt that the direction of the band was getting so diverse, with everybody wanting to express themselves... I wasn’t hogging the writing. I was ready to be challenged by anybody else’s ideas, and as far as I was concerned the objective was to achieve a great album...and I was pretty strong minded about it.” - Mick Jones

“It was only after a week in the studio that the kind of undercurrent and dissatisfaction came to a head and the changes were made, or I think the band would have fallen apart right in the studio.” - Lou Gramm

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