He underwent a 19-hour surgery that damaged his pituitary gland, leading to weight gain and a lengthy recovery before he could fully speak and sing again. His doctor encouraged him to take a year and a half off from performing, forcing Foreigner to cancel some tour dates in 1997.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to re-learn how to talk,\u201d Gramm told \u201cRock & Roll High School\u201d host Pete Ganbarg. \u201cStrangely enough, they rescheduled the tour about three weeks after I got outta surgery. And the doctor wanted me to not perform or travel for at least a year and a half because traveling with the air pressure in an airplane and just exerting myself when I\u2019ve been through such a traumatic experience, he wanted to make sure everything was in order and running smoothly before I started performing again. But Foreigner\u2018s management had had booked the shows all over again about a month after I got outta the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gramm said he couldn\u2019t remember the words to the songs when he returned to performing just two months later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to dance around a lot on stage. I planted my mic stand in one place and had the beginnings of the first three or four words of every verse written out in a semicircle around me. And we toured the world like that,\u201d Gramm recalled.<\/p>\n
The Upstate New York native is set to release his first new solo album in 17 years<\/a>, \u201cReleased,\u201d on March 27. It features 10 previously unreleased tracks originally written for other solo albums in the 1980s or Gramm\u2019s side project Shadow King in 1991 but never finished.<\/p>\n It will be his first full-length release of original music since The Lou Gramm Band\u2019s self-titled LP in 2009. The songs feature Gramm\u2019s former Black Sheep bandmate Bruce Turgon (who also played bass in Foreigner for about a decade), Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell, his brother Ben Grammatico on drums, Jeff Jacobs on keyboards, Scott Gilman on sax, Tony Franklin on bass, and Gary Hoey on guitar..<\/p>\n \u201cThese are powerful, heartfelt songs with a great vintage sound taken right from my old multitrack tapes. This new album was a long time coming and it\u2019s a real nostalgia trip,\u201d Gramm said in a statement. \u201cWhen I pulled these songs out of the vault, I knew I had to finish them for my fans around the world so they can experience what I did when I first heard them after all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt means a lot to me to finally see this album released, to be taken back in time when I hear this music again, to remember working with all these great musicians, and to feel that my catalog is now complete.\u201d<\/p>\n Gramm was the original lead singer of Foreigner, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame<\/a> group known for 1970s and \u201880s hits like \u201cI Want to Know What Love Is,\u201d \u201cHot Blooded,\u201d \u201cFeels Like the First Time,\u201d \u201cWaiting for a Girl Like You,\u201d and \u201cCold As Ice.\u201d Gramm, a Rochester native who currently lives in Webster, N.Y., co-founded the band with guitarist Mick Jones<\/a>; they were also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame together.<\/p>\n Gramm left Foreigner in 1990 and again in 2003<\/a>, opting for a solo career. He released two solo albums, \u201cReady or Not\u201d in 1987 and \u201cLong Hard Look\u201d in 1989, featuring songs like \u201cMidnight Blue\u201d and \u201cJust Between You and Me.\u201d He also performed with Black Sheep<\/a> and Poor Heart; released albums with Shadow King (with Campbell) in 1991 and The Lou Gramm Band in 2009; and shared reissues and compilations of previously released material (like 1993\u2019s \u201cA Foreigner in a Strange Land (The Early Years)\u201d and most recently \u201cQuestions and Answers: The Atlantic Anthology 1987-1989\u2033 in 2021).<\/p>\n The 75-year-old singer has reunited with Foreigner<\/a> as a guest vocalist at some concerts over the past year, including to promote a reissue of the 1981 album \u201c4\u2033 and to celebrate the band\u2019s upcoming 50th anniversary. The current lineup features singer Luis Maldonado<\/a>, bassist Jeff Pilson, keyboardist Michael Bluestein, guitarist Bruce Watson and drummer Chris Frazier; former lead singer Kelly Hansen<\/a> stepped down in October after 20 years with Foreigner.<\/p>\n Luis Maldonado, Lou Gramm, and Jeff Pilson perform \u201cI Want to Know What Love Is\u201d during the Foreigner 4 The Deluxe Tour with Lou Gramm at The Capital Theatre on December 3, 2025 in Port Chester, New York.(Photo by Joy Malone\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Jones is the only original member that\u2019s still officially in Foreigner, though he hasn\u2019t performed live since 2022 due to his battle with Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n Gramm told Ultimate Classic Rock in October that he plans to retire next year sometime after releasing his solo album.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this over 54 years,\u201d Gramm told UCR. \u201cI just feel like there\u2019s some other things that I want to do. I want to spend more time with my children \u2014 my older children and my younger child \u2014 and spend more time playing with my cars while I\u2019m still capable of driving.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c[I\u2019d like to] just stay off the road and enjoy my home, the surroundings and my family and friends, something that I\u2019ve had to sacrifice for over 50 years,\u201d he adds. \u201cI\u2019ve done all there is to do I feel. And being in the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are huge milestones for me. You know, I think in this business, you just know when it\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A classic rock singer from Upstate New York says he had to relearn how to talk after undergoing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,187535,75,187536,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-457881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-colour-image","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-huty24100","13":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lou](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/HIJNGBMNIZDYTKVBXW7VW2FL54.jpg\")
Lou Gramm of Foreigner performs during the 39th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland. (AP Photo\/Chris Pizzello)Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n