Foreigner -

Foreigner was an English-American melodic-rock band formed in New York by ex-Spooky Tooth guitarist Mick Jones and former Black Sheep vocalist Lou Gramm. The band released six albums on Atlantic between 1977 and 1987, scoring stateside with the radio evergreens “Feels Like the First Time,” “Double Vision,” “Hot Blooded,” “Urgent,” “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” “I Want to Know What Love Is,” and numerous other hits. Original keyboardist Ian McDonald hailed from the founding lineup of King Crimson and its follow-through McDonald and Giles.

Members: Mick Jones (lead guitar, piano, bass, keyboards, synthesizer, vocals), Dennis Elliott (drums, percussion, vocals, 1976-92), Lou Gramm (lead vocals, percussion, 1976-90, 1992-2003), Ian McDonald (guitar, keyboards, reeds, horns, saxophone, flute, vocals, 1976-80), Al Greenwood (keyboards, synthesizer, 1976-80), Ed Gagliardi (bass, vocals, 1976-79), Rick Wills (bass, vocals, 1979-92)

Background

Foreigner formed in New York City in 1976 when English guitarist–keyboardist Mick Jones assembled singer Lou Gramm, bassist Ed Gagliardi, drummer Dennis Elliott, keyboardist Al Greenwood, and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald (guitar, keyboards, saxophone, flute). They took root during sessions for the debut solo album by former Stories frontman Ian Lloyd.

Michael Leslie Jones was born on December 27, 1944, in Portsmouth, Hampshire. Jones took up guitar early and entered professional work with Nero and the Gladiators, the instrumental group behind the 1961 HMV singles “Entry of the Gladiators” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Jones moved to France for touring work with Dick Rivers and then became a guitarist–arranger for Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday. He co-wrote the 1968/69 Hallyday singles “À tout casser” and “Je suis né dans la rue.”

After his return to England, Jones joined Gary Wright in Wonderwheel, then entered the reformed Spooky Tooth for their 1973/74 albums You Broke My Heart So I Busted Your Jaw, Witness, and The Mirror, recorded with singer Mike Patto after the departure of Mike Harrison, whose guttural mid-range contrasted Wright’s high-end on prior albums. Jones also played on 1972–74 albums by Peter Frampton (Wind of Change) and George Harrison (Dark Horse). Upon his stateside relocation, he joined Mountain alumni Leslie West and Corky Laing for the 1976 album The Leslie West Band.

Dennis Leslie Elliott was born on August 18, 1950, in Peckham, London. A drummer in family bands from age five, Elliott did teenage stints in The Shevells (not the Cardiff group) and his brother’s band, The Tea Set. At eighteen, Elliott joined The Ferris Wheel, where he played behind Linda Lewis on their 1970 second album. He then joined brass-rockers If for their 1970–72 albums If, If 2, If 3, If 4 (aka Waterfall). During 1972–73, Elliott toured and recorded singles with the Roy Young Band. He played on the 1974 Tony Ashton & Jon Lord album First of the Big Bands and the 1975 solo debut by ex-Mott the Hoople frontman Ian Hunter. In April 1975, Elliott moved to the United States.

Ian Richard McDonald was born on June 25, 1946, in Osterley, Middlesex. McDonald learned clarinet as an army musician and added flute, saxophone, guitar, and piano before King Crimson. He played woodwinds, keyboards, Mellotron, and zither on their 1969 album In the Court of the Crimson King. McDonald left King Crimson with drummer Michael Giles after the group’s first American tour and made the album McDonald and Giles. He guested on King Crimson’s 1974 album Red and worked in New York session circles by the middle of the decade.

American Co-Founders

Louis Andrew Grammatico was born on May 2, 1950, in Rochester, New York; the son of singer Nikki Masetta and trumpeter/bandleader Bennie Grammatico. Gramm attended Gates-Chili High School and Monroe Community College, where he studied education and art. He played drums and sang in Rochester-area groups before he fronted Black Sheep, which made the 1974 Chrysalis single “Stick Around” and the 1975 Capitol albums Black Sheep and Encouraging Words. The band supported those records on bills with Aerosmith, Peter Frampton, Hall & Oates, Todd Rundgren, Ted Nugent, and Blue Öyster Cult. A Christmas Eve 1975 crash on the New York State Thruway destroyed Black Sheep’s equipment before a Kiss tour.

Alan Greenwood was born on October 20, 1951, in New York City. He first played keyboards in Storm, a short-lived Manhattan group with British expat singer Colin Carter and drummer Mike Hough, both late of Flash. After Storm ended, Greenwood led his own local band. Jones and Bud Prager heard Greenwood’s band at rehearsal, then brought Greenwood to Prager’s office at 1790 Broadway.

Edward John Gagliardi was born on February 13, 1952, in Brooklyn, New York. Gagliardi played bass guitar and used a left-handed Rickenbacker despite natural right-handedness. Jones completed the instrumental lineup with Gagliardi after the first Greenwood, McDonald, and Elliott rehearsals.

Formation

After the Leslie West Band ended, Prager backed Jones’s plan for a new band and gave him rehearsal space in his New York office. Jones first tried a lineup with Greenwood, drummer Stan Williams, bassist Jay Davis, and singer Ian Lloyd. Jones retained Greenwood after the first rehearsals. He met McDonald through Lloyd’s session circle and recruited Elliott after an Ian Hunter session in upstate New York. Jones added Gagliardi and kept auditioning singers under the working name Trigger.

After months of auditions, Jones — in search of a vocalist with the combined ranges of Spooky Tooth’s two singers — revisited Gramm’s Black Sheep album and traced Gramm to Rochester. Gramm came to New York and sang “Feels Like the First Time,” “At War With the World,” “Woman, Oh Woman,” and “Take Me to Your Leader” at the audition.

The new sextet recorded the audition songs for a demo under the temporary name Trigger. Bud Prager pushed the tape through Atlantic, where A&R man John Kalodner pressed president Jerry Greenberg to reconsider the rejected demo. Jones renamed the band Foreigner to mark the three English and three American members.

Foreigner

Foreigner released their self-titled debut album on March 8, 1977, on Atlantic.

The album presents guitar-led songs with electric-piano, synthesizer, flute, and saxophone inserts. Foreigner recorded the album with lead singer Lou Gramm, bassist Ed Gagliardi, drummer Dennis Elliott, guitarists Mick Jones and Ian McDonald, and keyboardist Al Greenwood. McDonald adds saxophone to “Long, Long Way from Home” and flute to “Starrider.” Ian Lloyd adds backing vocals.

“Feels Like the First Time” surges through a broad opening riff, Gramm’s high-lead urgency, and massed backing replies. “Cold As Ice” pivots from a cabaret piano figure into a taut vocal. “Starrider” floats on Jones’s lead vocal and a spacier grandiose arrangement. “Headknocker” stomps through a brawny title chant. “The Damage Is Done” creeps through an irregular tempo feel.

“Long, Long Way from Home” barrels through a city-struck riff, brisk vocal pressure, and Ian McDonald’s short saxophone break. “Woman Oh Woman” slows around a sweet vocal and exposed synth figure. “At War with the World” rattles through a hard-edged figure. “Fool for You Anyway” glides through a folk-tinged soft vocal. “I Need You” surges through low-end churn and hard-edged keyboard crossfire.

A1. “Feels Like the First Time” (3:49) – Jones; frames desire as renewal: the singer treats contact, risk, and surrender as a return to first sensation. The line “I guess it’s just the woman in you that brings out the man in me” stands as one of rock’s rawest articulations of primal human nature, with sexual identity and instinct reduced to a direct cause-and-response exchange.
A2. “Cold as Ice” (3:23) – Jones–Gramm
A3. “Starrider” (4:01) – Greenwood–Jones; casts escape as cosmic motion, with the singer leaving ordinary ground for travel through time, distance, and imagined space. “I stole a ride” makes the journey feel illicit, sudden, and untethered.
A4. “Headknocker” (2:58) – Gramm–Jones
A5. “The Damage Is Done” (4:15) – Jones–Gramm

B1. “Long, Long Way from Home” (2:53) – Jones–Gramm–McDonald; tracks a small-town departure into New York dislocation, where ambition places the singer among crowds but not inside them. “The millions of faces” sharpens the alienation: public space expands while personal contact vanishes.
B2. “Woman Oh Woman” (3:49) – Jones
B3. “At War with the World” (4:18) – Jones; turns private pressure into mock-military language, with the singer treating social friction as a siege against the self. “I got no castle” undercuts the combat pose by admitting there is no actual fortress to defend.
B4. “Fool for You Anyway” (4:15) – Jones
B5. “I Need You” (5:09) – Gramm–Jones

Sessions occurred in December 1976 at The Hit Factory and Atlantic Recording Studios in New York, where Jones and McDonald co-produced Foreigner with Enid/Nutz soundman Gary Lyons and his Fall of Hyperion cohort John Sinclair, credited on recent albums by Fox, Jet, Pilot, Lone Star, Queen (A Night at the Opera), David Essex (Out On the Street), and Be-Bop Deluxe (Futurama).

Atlantic art director Bob Defrin designed the Foreigner cover, which depicts the band trench-coated and track-sided by illustrator Alex Gnidziejko, who also created the swan-lake imagery on the 1977 second Slave album, The Hardness of the World.

On April 16, Foreigner launched their first tour with two exclusive sold-out shows at The Bayou, a storied venue under the Whitehurst Freeway in Georgetown, Washington DC, supported by Face Dancer.

Meanwhile, Atlantic lifted “Feels Like the First Time” as a March 1977 single (b/w “Woman Oh Woman”). As the album took quick hold over FM radio, the single reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and bumped Foreigner to national headliner status.

“Cold as Ice” became the second single (b/w “I Need You”) and reached No. 6, followed in November by “Long, Long Way from Home” (b/w “The Damage Is Done”), which reached No. 20 on the same chart.

Foreigner reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Double Vision

Foreigner released their second album, Double Vision, in June 1978 on Atlantic.

Double Vision retains the debut lineup and marks the final Foreigner album with Gagliardi. Jones takes lead vocals on “Back Where You Belong” and “I Have Waited So Long.” The album adds string arranger David Paich and includes “Tramontane,” an instrumental by Greenwood, McDonald, and Jones.

“Hot Blooded” revs on a chugging guitar figure, blunt low-end shove, and Gramm’s call-and-answer vocal thrust. “Blue Morning, Blue Day” shivers vocally around a lumbering music-hall piano phrase. “You’re All I Am” slows into an airy lead vocal with heavy kick accents. “Back Where You Belong” settles over transparent acoustic arpeggios and a spacey Moog trace. “Love Has Taken Its Toll” smolders from an opening swell into a tambourine-marked saxophone break.

“Double Vision” charges through an explosive riff, arpeggiated keyboard flashes, and repeated title bursts. “Tramontane” clears space as an instrumental with open, suite-like glide. “I Have Waited So Long” lingers on acoustic figures and Jones’s lead vocal.

A1. “Hot Blooded” (4:28) – Gramm–Jones
A2. “Blue Morning, Blue Day” (3:12) – Gramm–Jones; follows a sleepless aftermath, with early-morning street detail and caffeine marking a mind still trapped in the previous night. “Three cups of coffee” gives the misery a concrete domestic measure.
A3. “You’re All I Am” (3:24) – Jones
A4. “Back Where You Belong” (3:14) – Jones
A5. “Love Has Taken Its Toll” (3:29) – Gramm–McDonald

B1. “Double Vision” (3:44) – Gramm–Jones; treats excess as a sensory state: the singer moves from strain into appetite, then lets distorted perception stand for release. “My body’s in the lead” makes impulse outrun judgment.
B2. “Tramontane” (3:56) – Greenwood–McDonald–Jones
B3. “I Have Waited So Long” (4:07) – Jones
B4. “Lonely Children” (3:37) – Jones; addresses rootless people who move without protection, direction, or durable attachment. “Your destination remains unknown” gives the song its plainest image of drift.
B5. “Spellbinder” (4:45) – Gramm; describes desire as capture: the singer knows the relationship damages him, but he frames attraction as a force he cannot break. “I fell easy prey” turns romance into predation.

Sessions spanned March through May 1978 at Sound City in Van Nuys, where Jones and McDonald co-produced the album with Keith Olsen, the onetime Music Machine bassist and Millennium soundman who oversaw classic Seventies self-titled albums by Buckingham Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, and Cado Belle. Olsen co-engineered Double Vision with David DeVore, an earlier Space Opera associate who also shared credits on Fleetwood Mac and concurrent titles by the Grateful Dead and Russ Ballard.

UA art director Norman Seeff designed and photographed the Double Vision sleeve, which shows the group in front of Market Place Produce Company at 81 French Market Place in New Orleans. Seeff’s raw portraiture also graces 1977/78 covers for The Dramatics, George Duke, Isaac Hayes, Joni Mitchell, Kinsman Dazz, Rufus, Santana, and Stanley Clarke.

Atlantic lifted “Hot Blooded” as a June 1978 single (b/w “Tramontane”), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. “Double Vision” became the second single (b/w “Lonely Children”) and reached No. 2, followed in December by “Blue Morning, Blue Day” (b/w “I Have Waited So Long”), which reached No. 15 on the same chart.

Double Vision reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Between albums, Ed Gagliardi cleared out for Englishman Rick Wills, the former Cochise bassist who started in Joker’s Wild, the pre-fame beat combo of Pink Floyd frontman David Gilmour.

Head Games

Foreigner released their third album, Head Games, in September 1979 on Atlantic.

Head Games marks the arrival of Wills and the final Foreigner album with McDonald and Greenwood. Jones takes the lead vocal on “The Modern Day.”

“Dirty White Boy” strides on clenched riffing, punchy organ fills, and spare vocal replies. “Love on the Telephone” locks piano to a crisp synth figure and live-room snap. “Women” grinds through a picked single-note riff, boogie-piano jabs, and bridge breaks. “I’ll Get Even with You” flares from a bright guitar figure and synth accents. “Seventeen” hammers a hard lead vocal over thickened upper support.

“Head Games” spirals in with a searing lick that ushers dissonant chords and Gramm’s relentless lead. “The Modern Day” clips the vocal into reserved phrases and slips acoustic figures through the bridge. “Blinded by Science” lurches through minor-key piano chords, theatrical turns, and layered electronic blocks. “Do What You Like” bounds on acoustic strum, bouncing bass, and broad backing-vocal blocks. “Rev on the Red Line” sprints on dynamic vocal pushes and a late solo break.

A1. “Dirty White Boy” (3:38) – Jones–Gramm; builds a bad-reputation persona around class friction, sexual danger, and refusal of polish. “Will it ruin your reputation” places the seduction inside social risk.
A2. “Love on the Telephone” (3:18) – Jones–Gramm
A3. “Women” (3:24) – Jones
A4. “I’ll Get Even with You” (3:40) – Jones
A5. “Seventeen” (4:36) – Jones–Gramm

B1. “Head Games” (3:37) – Gramm–Jones; centers on a relationship that has exhausted speech, trust, and erotic contact. “Put an end to this game” states the demand before the chorus turns the conflict into repetition.
B2. “The Modern Day” (3:26) – Jones
B3. “Blinded by Science” (4:55) – Jones; reads modern life as confusion without moral bearings, with science standing less for knowledge than for systems that overwhelm the individual. “Where do I belong?” gives the anxiety its human scale.
B4. “Do What You Like” (3:59) – McDonald–Gramm
B5. “Rev on the Red Line” (3:35) – Greenwood–Gramm; turns street racing into release, with the car functioning as speed, status, and risk compressed into one machine. “Four hundred horses” supplies the fantasy with a measurable engine image.

Sessions occurred in June/July 1979 at Atlantic Studios in New York, with additional work at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, where Jones and McDonald co-produced the album with Queen/Gasolin’ soundman Roy Thomas Baker. His recent Starcastle assistant, Geoff Workman, engineered Head Games in sequence with Baker-produced albums by Journey and The Cars.

Sandi Young directed the sleeve art for Head Games. Chris Callis photographed the front cover, which shows a woman in a restroom beside a urinal with toilet paper in hand. David Alexander photographed the shadowy, claustrophobic back cover, where Foreigner stand tense in a narrow, sepia-tinged hallway. Alexander’s angle-lit imagery also graces late-Seventies covers for the Bar-Kays, Detective, Lady Flash, Ohio Players, Stephen Bishop, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

Atlantic lifted “Dirty White Boy” as an August 1979 single (b/w “Rev on the Red Line”), which reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. “Head Games” became the second single (b/w “Do What You Like”) and reached No. 14, followed in February 1980 by “Women” (b/w “The Modern Day”), which reached No. 41 on the same chart.

Head Games reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

4

Foreigner released their fourth album, 4, in July 1981 on Atlantic.

4 documents the reduced four-piece lineup after the departures of McDonald and Greenwood. The sessions add guest guitarist Hugh McCracken, saxophonists Mark Rivera and Junior Walker, and keyboardists Thomas Dolby, Larry Fast, Bob Mayo, and Michael Fonfara.

“Night Life” bears down on a riff-and-beat engine with late-night vocal pressure. “Juke Box Hero” rises from deep synth-bass throb to a strained high-vocal lift and massed title response. “Break It Up” jabs through choppy piano and rudimented guitar figures. “Waiting for a Girl Like You” hovers over Thomas Dolby’s glassy synth theme, slow electric-piano chords, murmured backing voices, and Gramm’s verse-to-title rise. “Luanne” bounds through a throwback bounce and compact rock-and-roll motion.

“Urgent” skews its rock footing with Thomas Dolby’s glassy synth, rubber bass, terse title calls, and Junior Walker’s raw tenor-sax break. “I’m Gonna Win” climbs through Gramm’s dynamic vocal surges. “Woman in Black” lunges through overlapping guitar figures. “Girl on the Moon” darkens around pedal-treated guitar and sudden synth motifs.

A1. “Night Life” (3:48) – Jones–Gramm
A2. “Juke Box Hero” (4:18) – Jones–Gramm
A3. “Break It Up” (4:11) – Jones
A4. “Waiting for a Girl Like You” (4:49) – Jones–Gramm
A5. “Luanne” (3:25) – Jones–Gramm

B1. “Urgent” (4:29) – Jones
B2. “I’m Gonna Win” (4:51) – Jones
B3. “Woman in Black” (4:42) – Jones
B4. “Girl on the Moon” (3:49) – Jones–Gramm
B5. “Don’t Let Go” (3:58) – Jones–Gramm

Sessions spanned September 1980 through April 1981 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, where Jones co-produced the album with Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the decorated Rhodesian soundman (Boomtown Rats, City Boy, Deaf School, Graham Parker) who handled 4 in sequence with titles by AC/DC and Def Leppard. The album credits six engineers, including NWOBHM soundman Tony Platt (Iron Maiden, Samson) and international studio hand Michel Sauvage, credited recently with French rockers Telephone and subsequently with the Canadian band Sheriff.

The English post-psych design form Hipgnosis created the 4 cover, which uses film-leader markings around a large title numeral.

Atlantic lifted “Urgent” as a June 1981 single (b/w “Girl on the Moon”), which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart. Abroad, the song reached No. 1 in Canada and South Africa.

“Waiting for a Girl Like You” became the second single (b/w “I’m Gonna Win”) and spent ten weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100, held from the top by the lengthy reign of “Physical” by Olivia Newton-John and (in the final week) “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” by Hall & Oates. The ballad also peaked at No. 2 in Canada and No. 3 in Australia. Along with the recent Kim Carnes mega-hit “Bette Davis Eyes,” the Foreigner ballad marked a watershed in US acceptance of synth-based pop.

In January 1982, Foreigner lifted “Juke Box Hero” as the album’s third (b/w “I’m Gonna Win”), which reached No. 26 on the Hot 100 and No. 3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, by now the more relevant metric for FM evergreen status.

In April, “Break It Up” reappeared as a single (b/w “Head Games (Live)”) and reached No. 26 on the Hot 100, followed in July by “Luanne,” which reached No. 75 on the same chart.

4 reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Agent Provocateur

Foreigner released their fifth album, Agent Provocateur, in December 1984 on Atlantic.

Agent Provocateur retains the four-piece lineup from 4 and expands the keyboard roster. The sessions feature saxophonist Mark Rivera, backing vocalist Ian Lloyd, and synthesizer players Wally Badarou, Tom Bailey, Larry Fast, Bob Mayo, and Jack Waldman. “I Want to Know What Love Is” adds singer Jennifer Holliday, vocal arranger Don Harper, and the New Jersey Mass Choir of the GMWA.

“Tooth and Nail” bites through a hard-driving beat, loud guitar, and rough intro accent. “That Was Yesterday” climbs from restrained vocal flow to a larger finish under a small synthesizer lick. “I Want to Know What Love Is” swells from hushed verses and restrained Gramm phrases into choir-backed lift, gospel ad libs, and counter-melody answers near the fade. “Growing Up the Hard Way” shifts from a quiet keyboard-and-bass setup to full-band chorus weight. “Reaction to Action” races through a hard-edged track with a middle keyboard break and off-angle solo.

“Stranger in My Own House” drops Gramm into an unaccompanied entry, then expands around a heavy bass figure and larger title-section bursts. “A Love in Vain” settles into mid-tempo synthesizer pressure with Gramm recessed in the mix. “Down on Love” leans on warm keyboard motion and Gramm’s restrained delivery. “She’s Too Tough” kicks back to an upbeat edge and ends on a hard stop.

A1. “Tooth and Nail” (3:54) – Jones–Gramm
A2. “That Was Yesterday” (3:46) – Jones–Gramm
A3. “I Want to Know What Love Is” (4:58) – Jones
A4. “Growing Up the Hard Way” (4:18) – Jones–Gramm
A5. “Reaction to Action” (3:57) – Jones–Gramm

B1. “Stranger in My Own House” (4:54) – Jones
B2. “A Love in Vain” (4:12) – Jones–Gramm
B3. “Down on Love” (4:08) – Jones–Gramm
B4. “Two Different Worlds” (4:28) – Gramm
B5. “She’s Too Tough” (3:07) – Jones–Gramm

Sessions ran from October 1983 through July 1984 at The Hit Factory and Right Track Recording in New York, where Jones co-produced the album with Alex Sadkin, a veteran soundman with a diverse Seventies resume (Bob Marley, Crucis, Law, Sutherland Brothers, T-Connection, Thee Image) and credits on recent new wave albums by Duran Duran, The Plastics, Talking Heads, Thompson Twins, XTC, and ex-Josef K singer Paul Haig. Frank Filipetti served as chief engineer and mixed the album.

Atlantic art director Bob Defrin returned as sleeve designer for Agent Provocateur, which shows a sideways letter F with primary colored undersides against a black background. Further examples of Defrin’s newly modernist style appear on mid-Eighties covers for Jean-Luc Ponty, Manhattan Transfer, The System, and Zot.

Atlantic lifted “I Want to Know What Love Is” as a November 1984 single (b/w “Street Thunder (Marathon Theme)”), which gained traction over the holidays as sentiments stirred over winter isolation and reunion longings. The video follows a solitary city woman through her morning commute and workday while Lou Gramm moves through dark urban and studio scenes, before Foreigner and the New Jersey Mass Choir converge for the final gospel-scaled chorus.

On the week of February 2, 1985, “I Want to Know What Love Is” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it ended the six-week reign of “Like a Virgin” by Madonna and bowed two weeks later to “Careless Whisper” by Wham.

“That Was Yesterday” became a March 1985 single (b/w “Two Different Worlds”) and reached No. 12, followed by “Reaction to Action” (b/w “She’s Too Tough”) and “Down on Love” (b/w “Growing Up the Hard Way”), which both reached No. 54 on the same chart.

Agent Provocateur reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and No. 1 on the UK Albums chart.

Ready or Not

Lou Gramm released his debut solo album, Ready or Not, in January 1987 on Atlantic. Ready or Not presents compact late-eighties rock with high-register vocal grain over gated keyboard surfaces. The front half uses chrome-edged guitar chime and a drum-forward backbeat, while “Midnight Blue” lifts the album into its radio-length mid-tempo stride. “If I Don’t Have You” widens side one with synth pads under a slower vocal climb. “Lover Come Back” gives the closing track sax punch and brass flashes without breaking the album’s compact format.

Eight titles pair Gramm with former Black Sheep bassist Bruce Turgon, who contributes bass and selected guitar/keyboard parts. Gramm wrote “She’s Got to Know” and “Lover Come Back” without Turgon. The core cast links Turgon with keyboardist Philip Ashley, guitarist Nils Lofgren, and drummer Ben Gramm. Family credits extend through guitarist Richard Grammatico and lead trumpeter Ben Grammatico Sr.; the album also credits trumpeter Ben Grammatico Jr. Black Sheep guitarist Don Mancuso appears on “Chain of Love.” Eddie Martinez adds guitar, Stanley Sheldon adds bass, and Mark Rivera joins Crispin Cioe on saxophones. Sherryl Marshall and Cookie Watkins add backing vocals.

Gramm recorded Ready or Not in November 1986 at BearTracks Recording in Suffern, New York, and The Hit Factory in New York City with co-producer Pat Moran. Moran also engineered the sessions, and Ted Jensen mastered the album at Sterling Sound.

Atlantic lifted “Midnight Blue” as a January 1987 single (b/w “Chain of Love”), which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on Mainstream Rock. “Ready or Not” followed as a May 1987 single (b/w “Lover Come Back”) and reached No. 54 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 7 on Mainstream Rock. Ready or Not reached No. 27 on the Billboard 200.

Gramm also modeled for a 1987 Chess King Blue Zone jeans advertisement. R.E.M. added “Midnight Blue” to its October 1987 Work tour encores, with performances at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Radio City Music Hall, the Patriot Center, and Palmer Auditorium in Davenport.

Inside Information

Foreigner released their sixth album, Inside Information, in December 1987 on Atlantic.

Inside Information closes the eighties Gramm–Jones–Wills–Elliott lineup. The sessions add keyboardist Peter-John Vettese, electronic percussionist Sammy Merendino, saxophonist Mark Rivera, and Synclavier programmer Kevin Jones. “The Beat of My Heart” features Spanish guitarist Hugh McCracken, and “I Don’t Want to Live Without You” adds keyboardist Tom Bailey.

“Heart Turns to Stone” revs from a firm opening riff into electronic sheen and slower vocal presence. “Can’t Wait” lingers in slow verses, then turns abruptly toward a broad chorus and solo break. “Say You Will” wraps Gramm’s high vocal push in chiming electronics and a tempered rock edge. “I Don’t Want to Live Without You” slows around a smooth lead vocal, synthesizer washes, and meditative electric-piano figures. “Counting Every Minute” drives a fast beat and lean opening riff through a straight full-track push.

“Inside Information” works odd rhythmic turns into a moderate electronic track. “The Beat of My Heart” opens on Spanish-guitar picking before a heavier riff stance. “Face to Face” tightens into gritty rock motion and gives the keyboard solo a blunt mid-song slot. “Out of the Blue” softens into a shimmering slow track with a more organic band feel. “A Night to Remember” returns to a faster pace around an opening riff and steadier rock footing.

A1. “Heart Turns to Stone” (4:29) – Jones–Gramm
A2. “Can’t Wait” (4:27) – Jones–Gramm
A3. “Say You Will” (4:12) – Jones–Gramm
A4. “I Don’t Want to Live Without You” (4:52) – Jones
A5. “Counting Every Minute” (4:11) – Jones–Gramm

B1. “Inside Information” (4:09) – Jones
B2. “The Beat of My Heart” (5:10) – Jones–Gramm
B3. “Face to Face” (3:53) – Jones–Gramm
B4. “Out of the Blue” (4:42) – Jones–Gramm–Wills–Elliott
B5. “A Night to Remember” (4:07) – Jones–Gramm

Foreigner recorded Inside Information from June to September 1987 at Right Track Recording in New York City, with Jones producing and Frank Filipetti co-producing. Filipetti recorded and mixed the album, and Billy Miranda assisted the sessions.

Bob Defrin directed the sleeve art for Inside Information. Roger Corbeau photographed the front and back covers, and E.J. Camp photographed the group.

Atlantic lifted “Say You Will” as a November 1987 single (b/w “A Night to Remember”), which reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

“I Don’t Want to Live Without You” became a March 1988 single (b/w “Face to Face”) and reached No. 5, followed in July by “Heart Turns to Stone” (b/w “Counting Every Minute”), which reached No. 56 on the same chart.

Inside Information reached No. 15 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Discography: