Foreigner Founder Hints at Reunion
Foreigner’s Mick Jones says he expects new songs written with the band’s co-founder and former vocalist Lou Gramm will be released next year.
Gramm and Jones haven’t written together in 20 years, but the pair performed together in June 2013 at the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York City, playing “I Want To Know What Love Is” and “Juke Box Hero.”
Now Jones has told Classic Rock magazine that the pair are considering a new collaboration. "Lou told me a few weeks ago he's discovered a few songs we were writing in the '80s, but never quite finished,” Jones said. “We might take time next year to bring a couple of those out of the vaults… It's a question of wading through them and finding a cassette machine to play them on.”
Jones said that if a reunion with Gramm took place, the band’s current lead singer Kelly Hansen would continue to be involved. “Kelly has dedicated everything to the band,” he said. “He's phenomenal. So anything I do will be sensitive to that. If Lou and I do something, it'll be inclusive. No way will he replace Kelly.”
STYX AND FOREIGNER, WITH VERY SPECIAL GUEST DON FELDER
ANNOUNCE "THE SOUNDTRACK OF SUMMER" TOUR
SET TO LAUNCH MAY 16 IN OKLAHOMA CITY
Combined, they've sold over 250 million albums worldwide. They've had 36 #1 and Top 10 smash hit singles that are still being spun on Classic Rock radio over 500,000 times every year. They've performed thousands of concerts worldwide to countless crowds. Now it's time for three of the most legendary names in rock to come together for a massive U.S. Summer tour.
"The addition of Don Felder to 'The Soundtrack of Summer' tour means that the combined album sales of all 3 acts, as well as all the bands they were once members of, is well north of 100 million worldwide," declares STYX guitarist/singer James "JY" Young. "Certainly by this yardstick, 'The Soundtrack of Summer' has got to easily be in the Top Ten three-act concert tours to ever hit the road. 'Renegade' 'Juke Box Heroes' partying at the 'Hotel California' will be your slammin' soundtrack of a rockin' hot summer!!! What more could you ask for after this crazy cold winter we are having???"
"As longtime friends, we're happy to join STYX and DON FELDER for the ultimate soundtrack of summer," says FOREIGNER founding member and lead guitarist Mick Jones. "Our combined songs are some of America's favorite summer anthems, and we're excited to be bringing them to our fans across the country."
"This tour will have the best vocalists and guitarists on the road today," exclaims DON FELDER. "The sheer volume of our combined catalogs is massive and should satisfy any rock & roll fan, and rock them until they can't walk out of the place."
DON FELDER--former guitarist of the Eagles, New York Times best-selling author and four-time Grammy® Award winner—released his second solo album (and first since 1983), ROAD TO FOREVER, in October 9, 2012 and has been on tour throughout the U.S. ever since. Now, to coincide with the launch of "The Soundtrack of Summer," the album is being re-released with four additional songs, ROAD TO FOREVER: EXTENDED EDITION, on March 4 via INGrooves Music Group. The album's latest single, "You Don't Have Me," will be serviced to radio in April. FELDER's ROAD TO FOREVER originally debuted on Billboard's "Heatseekers" chart at #27. "Girls In Black," the album's first single, reached the Top 30 on the Mediabase Rock chart while the second single, "Wash Away," co-written by FELDER and Styx's Tommy Shaw and featuring Shaw's signature vocal sound, quickly jumped to #4 on the Mediabase Classic Rock chart. FELDER wrote or co-wrote all the songs and performs guitar and lead vocals on the album, which boasts a long list of iconic guest performers including: David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Steve Lukather, David Paich and Steve Porcaro of Toto, Randy Jackson, Styx's Tommy Shaw and others. It was produced by FELDER along with Robin DiMaggio (Posse 2.0 bandleader on the "Arsenio Hall Show," United Nations' Musical Director).
Spawned from a Chicago basement in the early '70s, STYX would eventually transform into the virtual arena rock prototype by the late '70s and early '80s, due to a fondness for big rockers and soaring power ballads. Over the course of their 38-year career they've released 15 studio albums, six best-of compilations and four live albums, garnering eight Top Ten singles. STYX has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Throughout their illustrious career, they've performed more live shows since 1999 than all of the previous years of its career combined. Two Super-Bowl appearances, Pollstar box office chart-topping tours with Def Leppard, Journey, Boston, REO Speedwagon and Bad Company (to name only a few), two more studio albums and no end in sight, STYX continues to conquer the planet, one venue at a time.
With ten multi-platinum albums and sixteen Top 30 hits, FOREIGNER is universally hailed as one of the most popular rock acts in the world with a formidable musical arsenal that continues to propel sold-out tours and album sales, now exceeding 75 million. Responsible for some of rock and roll's most enduring anthems including "Juke Box Hero," "Feels Like The First Time," "Urgent," "Head Games," "Say You Will," "Dirty White Boy," "Long, Long Way From Home," and the worldwide #1 hit, "I Want To Know What Love Is," FOREIGNER continues to rock the charts more than thirty years into the game. JUKE BOX HEROES, a new compilation of digitally recorded Foreigner hits, spent over twenty weeks on Billboard's "Top 200 Albums" chart in 2013. The 2008 NO END IN SIGHT album re-entered the Billboard "Top 200 Albums" chart, joining JUKE BOX HEROES in July 2013. Additionally, JUKE BOX HEROES spent most of 2013 in the Nielsen SoundScan "Top 200 Catalog" chart. It rose to #4 in that chart in September, an astonishing feat that allowed FOREIGNER's catalog sales that week to eclipse those of AC/DC, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Van Halen and most of their Classic Rock peers (Source: Nielsen SoundScan Top 200, September 15, 2013).
http://www.foreigneronline.com/tourdates.html
Check out "The Soundtrack of Summer" tour at any of the following stops (with more to be added in the coming weeks). DON FELDER hits the stage at 7:00pm at every stop, while STYX and FOREIGNER will alternate closing slot positions over the course of the tour.
