In Search Of Excellence - Kelly Hansen: Foreigner And The Life Of A Rock Star | E74

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Welcome to the second part of In Search of Excellence featuring Kelly Hansen, the lead singer of the legendary rock band Foreigner which has had five platinum records and sold more than 80 million albums. He was also the lead singer of the heavy metal band Hurricane, popular in the 80s. 03:46 The importance of being proactive- Kelly was frustrated with where he was- Realized he had to be proactive- You have to handle criticism- Believe in yourself enough that you can take the risk- Keep moving forward- Is fear our greatest motivator to success? 11:47 Sex, drugs & rock ’n’ roll- Learned a huge lesson in Hurricane    - They became famous rock stars    - 6 months after the label went under, no one knew who they were- What popularity projects to you is not reality    - You have to know who you are as a person- Experienced some things of a rock star life    - Never did drugs 16:05 Playing in front of 50 000 people- There are a lot of types of audiences    - You have to treat each kind differently- Responsible for converting the audience- How to keep your energy night after night?- Show hours have to be the apex of the day 23:02 Priorities in life- Re-prioritized his life- Currently on the farewell tour- Has other passions besides music- Wants to spend time with his family 26:05 Popular songs vs. “bathroom” songs- The band had 16 Top 30s- Every single song did well- Fortunate to be in a band with so many popular songs 28:28 The importance of Extreme Preparation for success- Your 100% might be somebody else's 70%- When you over-prepare, it's like muscle memory- Bands in the 70s and 80s looked rebellious and unhappy- 45 years later, not trying to prove how dark and cool they are    - Smiling is a huge part of that 34:15 The current state of the music business and where's it going?- Talked with a famous rapper about his revenue stream- Live is the only place you're making any money- Everybody's stealing and no one’s paying- A cynical view of what's going forward- AI created content- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 40:44 Giving back to others- Started working with Grammy Foundation    - To raise awareness about the lack of funding for school music programs- Did a lot of work for the Shriners Hospital    - Helping parents pay bills for their sick children 42:18 Fill in the blank for excellence- When I started my career, I wish I had known    - More about collaboration- The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is    - You are insignificant- And moreSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

I learned a really huge lesson when I was in Hurricane. We were starting to do well, selling out clubs, and I was pretty cool. You know, like, hey, you know, we're rocking it. We're rock stars. We're getting it done. And we learned a lesson about that this business and what it projects to you in your eye, in front of your eyes is not reality. I want to be thinking about what the words mean.

Are they touching me and motivating, moving me? If I can steal Frank Sinatra's voice in AI to make a TikTok clip that gets me 100,000 followers or likes or listens, and it makes me add money, what the hell? What's going on? What does Frank Sinatra's estate say about that? I could be AI tomorrow and no one would need me anymore. Thanks for listening to part two of my incredible interview with Kelly Hanson, the lead singer of the legendary rock band Foreigner, which has sold more than 80 million albums and whose hits include Hot Blooded, Jukebox Hero, and Feels Like the First Time. If you haven't yet listened to part one of my amazing interview with Kelly, be sure to check that one out first. I want to go back to something really important that you said. And I do a lot of

coaching, a lot of mentoring, but I have a saying, do it now. And you mentioned being the first to do something. You can miss something by a millisecond. In my own personal life, I like to tell the story that I'd met my wife three and a half years before going on our first date. And she was the most amazing, beautiful on the outside, more importantly, beautiful on the inside. And she loves sports and football and is laid back, just a very cool person and a great human being. And I learned on a vacation that she had made a Facebook post. I'm going on vacation with my boyfriend. And I said, oh, is this the engagement trip?

And she wrote back to me, hardly. And she was going to Hawaii. I'd been to the resort about 10 times. I said, oh, this is going to be a great, great trip for you. And the Facebook post was the first communication we had had in a couple of years. Maybe actually the first that we had had, period after the night that I had met her with a friend three years before. And I texted her, I said,

I said, how's the trip going when she got there? And she said, we broke up. So I thought, all right, this is great. I said, can I take you to dinner? She said, I'm still living with my boyfriend. There's no way. I got a lot to do. She said, maybe when my, my sister's getting married in California and in mid California, maybe, maybe we can get together then. And I hate maybes. I don't believe

in maybes. And so when she got back, I said to her, um, I'm coming out for this art fair called Freeze Art Fair this weekend. Can we go to dinner? I made it happen. And I was the only one who knew that they had broken up. And I remember being at dinner the night before with a famous movie director. It was a group of eight people, very interesting crowd. And he said, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, I'm flying to New York.

What are you there for? Work? I said, no, I'm going to take a girl out to dinner. And he said, you're a desperate guy for going to New York and you can't get a date here. And I went out and we got engaged three months later. We've been together now a little over nine years to have two beautiful kids. But I tell the story often because you can miss it by a millisecond. Had someone learned about that she was broken up, she would have gone on a date with somebody else, I'm sure, immediately, and it would have been over. There would have been no shot there. But in business, it's the same way. We chase deals on a regular basis. Sometimes it is the first person there who gets the deal. Talk to us about the importance of being proactive and the importance of being reactive. Here you

were, you're sitting there, you're producing, you're working with different musicians and bands and doing background vocals. But at some point, you said, Hey, I want to be a lead singer, you could have sat back and dreamed about it and done nothing. And so many people are sitting there today thinking, I want to do something else. I need to do something else or just not doing it. What's your advice to them in terms of proactivity versus reactivity? to this. Um, um, because I, I was frustrated where, where I was and, um, and that made me unhappy. And eventually I said, I, this has to change. I can't continue to be this way. And when I realized that I wasn't getting called for gigs that I just accepted over the course of

my life, just fell on my lap. I said exactly what you said. I had to, I have to start being proactive. That's where I said, you know, I don't say no, I don't turn anything down. I'm just going to go out there and I'm just going to gather, gather. And I'm, I know that it's going to move me forward. And, um, and, uh, I, I guess somehow I had, um, uh, just absorbed some of the philosophy that worked for me, like as far as like looking at a situation that's in front of me with the, with the call about they're coming to rehearsal. And I just, I just went to myself, oh shit, they're going to hear somebody else. And I said, well, if I get there first, they can't, you know, finding the solution.

There's always a solution if you look for it. And then once you're in there and you're doing it, let's say I got the gig. Well, then I said to myself, well, I need to make myself indispensable every day. That's what I said to myself. And, and in between those two things, right before I, I, when they called me and said, can you start rehearsing tomorrow? I had to have another discussion with myself. I said, I said, okay, not everyone's gonna like this decision and you're going to have to handle criticism. Can you do that?

And I said, yeah, I can do that. And then the second question was, do you have the ability to do this? And I think it's really important to have faith in yourself to say, I believe in myself enough that I can jump off this cliff and take this risk. It's very, very scary. But oddly enough, everything I've done in my life that's been really scary and I did it were the most successful things in my life. My stepson is getting going to college he was reviewing colleges and um i was talking to my wife i said tell them to go to the college that scares them the most um because i think it's worth it because if it's not scary then you're too comfortable in it and you're not going to be on guard to do your best. You're going to be floating because it's not so hard.

I think that's the only way as a shark in any business that is you keep moving forward. And whatever you have to do to keep moving forward is what you need to do. That's most of the times the solution to your problem is to don't get stuck and stand there and not make a decision. I was listening to Jordan Peterson and he said, if you don't know what you need to do, do something. Start walking down a path and maybe halfway down the road to that path, you might decide this is wrong for you. So, okay. So at least now you've moved forward. You know, that's not the path.

Maybe I need to shift over here and move this way. You've progressed. But if you don't do something, you don't progress. Is fear our greatest motivator to success? Huh. I'm not sure if it's fear. I think challenge might be a word I would use because challenge questions whether you have the ability to do it.

And then that translates to faith in yourself that you can. Let's go back to something everyone wants to know about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Is it really the case that you're a rock star and you're coming off of a stage? And if you're a male singer and a famous singer, there are lines of women waiting for you and you can essentially have lots of sexual experiences and have a large selection of people willing to be romantic with you that evening. And it's just endless every single night on tour. I hear stories about this. I know a couple of musicians who tell me the craziest stories about this. Is that what it was like for you? And what about the drugs and all the other things that go along with it, including the fame? Obviously, today is not the same as when I was 24. And then it's a matter of degree of how, what's your popularity level, because that's going

to directly translate to people who want to be around you. And I want to relate a story that's not necessarily but partly connected to what you said on the avenue of popularity. I learned a really huge lesson when I was in Hurricane. We were starting to do well, selling out clubs, doing little stuff on the road here and there, and people starting to know who we were. And then eventually we could get into any club. We didn't have to pay the cover fee. They would just bypass the line.

They all knew who we were. We were like one of the hot bands out. And I was pretty cool. You know, like, hey, you know, we're rocking it. We're rock stars. We're getting it done. And, you know, six months after the label went under, no one knew who I was or cared who I was. And I learned a valuable lesson about that. I learned a lesson about that this business and what it projects to you in front of your

eyes is not reality. You have to know who you are as a person and value yourself and do things artistically for yourself because everything out there is a facade. And people like you because they only know a fraction of anything about you. I used to get criticized sometimes because I'd be at an after show party and I would talk to somebody. And then after 10 seconds, my manager would tap me on the shoulder and say, you have to go talk to this person. And the person I was talking to for 10 seconds has now determined that they know me and I'm a dick because I only spent 10 seconds with them. And so all of those things related to fame and related to being a star

is all external and it's not real. And I think it's really important. I learned that lesson. I going through that kind of humiliation because I would go somewhere and all of a sudden, no one knew who the hell I was. It was kind of a humiliation lesson and it showed me, okay, you, you have to understand what's real and what's not real. This whole rockstar thing, don't ever get into your head that you're great. And it's all, you know, and all that stuff is true because it's temporary perception based on your popularity. So that's how it kind of connects to what I said. But going back to your question, when I was 24 and when to, you know, I hopped around a fair amount and did those things. But then I think you get to a point where, like, I was in Hurricane and I just, I couldn't.

One night after the show, everyone was, like, rushing to get their clothes changed and fix their hair because they were going to meet chicks. And, and I was just like, oh, I just want to have a sandwich and a Diet Coke. And that's, it just was over for me in that way, in a large part. And, and the drugs I never did because I never did cocaine ever because I was worried about messing up my voice. And in a way, having that excuse gave me an excuse to not indulge in those things that maybe I would have if I did something else. So I'm thankful for that. And I'm I'm thankful that I wanted to maintain my vocal quality at instead of doing something at the expense of that uh just to have fun or a good time or and uh so i know so i never did the drug thing but and i i never was a super late hour out all night type of guy i mean it did happen um but it also happened that i stayed up

all night in the studio times two times two working so um uh So it was there. I saw it there and I saw it with other people a lot. I saw all kinds of ridiculous things. The first tour that we did, we opened for Rick Derringer and we had a groupie backstage. And I remember her. I remember signing her underwear on the crotch while she was wearing them. That's just how it was, you know. And, you know, all the all those stories, there's a lot of real in those stories because it was a wild time. And yeah, there it was. Are you looking for your next great gift to surprise a friend, colleague, or loved one?

Bliss Beaches makes the perfect gift. This best-selling bright and beautiful coffee table book by Randall Kaplan features stunning drone photography from exotic beach locations around the world. It's the perfect housewarming gift, a great addition to any home or office, and a fun and creative alternative to bringing a bottle of wine to somebody's house for dinner. Bliss Beaches is available for purchase on Amazon, where it has glowing reviews and a five-star rating. Get your next amazing gift and order a copy of Bliss Beaches by clicking the link in our show notes. So I think so many of us, this is true for me, have rock star fantasies. I've always had, I love rock. I'm from Detroit. Rush is a Canadian band, as you know, but one of my two favorite bands, love Bob Seger. And I play the drums. I bought myself a kit when I was 35 years old. I had drumsticks in college.

I destroyed my desk where I was pounding so hard, the wood splinters were flying off the desk. But I'm a very good drummer. I've got the beat. And we have a real estate company. We own a bunch of townhomes in Nashville. And as you know, it's just one honky-tonk after the next in one venue. Right.

And there's an amazing band at Kid Rock. I don't know if you've been to Nashville or not, but it's the first big venue there. There's three floors and there's this one band that's incredible

and super crowded every night. And the band's playing at the top level and there's, you know, two levels. So I get to live out my rock star fantasy because I tip the band $100 and then let me play a song.

And the first time you hit that boom, it's it's mic'd up. It's a whole different thing than playing in your bedroom. Sure. And it's fun for me. The adrenaline is rushing. And I said, God, this is amazing. This is the closest I'm ever going to get. And it's super fun. I look forward to visiting there.

What's it like singing in front of 50,000 people? There are a lot of different types of audiences. And this is my perception of it. You have a small amphitheater or a club. You have a casino. You have state fairs. You have sh casino. You have state fairs. You have sheds. You have stadiums. And you have festivals. Right?

That's basically the ascending order of size. And you have to treat each different kind of audience differently. At least I do. I have to see them and read them in a different way. Plus, there's also the added element of what they call IMAG. IMAG is if you go to concert and you see two screens on both sides of the stage and there's live cameras on you and that camera is showing, you know, different camera angles of different musicians during the show. That's an added element of the show. Um, when we do festivals in Europe and there's 50,000 people out there, um, it's great, but there is responsibility about the performance in my mind. I'm responsible for converting this audience to loving what we're

doing. And so that's foremost in my mind. And then I have to, all of a sudden, you have to play a lot bigger than you are. It's like if you confront a grizzly bear, you have to make yourself as big as possible. Well, it's the same thing you do at a festival show. You have to be really, really big. If there's big eye mag, you can do more with your face because the eye mag is going to project that expression to the audience. When your normal face on the stage from a half a mile away is not going to even be seen. So you have to think about that, that I make that part of my puzzle when I'm going on a stage. And if you go to a casino, that's a completely different

kind of audience because people are there, they're gambling, they come from all different parts to come in one place, sometimes from all over the world. So it's a very diverse crowd. They're not the normal, like Detroit's a real rock crowd, you know, and they know how to rock out of the show. But people that are coming to a scene or from coming from everywhere, where sometimes they don't really like to stand up too much, or they're older or whatever it is. So you have to handle them a completely different way. It's a more intimate way that you have to handle them a more personal, intimate way. And so I'm always thinking about 100. I'm thinking about blocking where am I supposed to be on stage for this like you and so I don't bump into, you know, Jeff Pilsen on bass. And so I'm thinking about all

that kind of stuff. I'm thinking about, do I need to readdress how I'm handling this? Is the crowd moving in the direction that I want them to at the time I want them to? Are they responding the way I want them to? And all those things are on a minute to minute basis of readjustment for me and how I do the show. I'm always trying to sing the songs the best that I can sing them pretty much always the same every time because they're set. That's set. But my body is not always set the same way. Sometimes my voice is a little bit more tired or I'm maybe at a high altitude. So I'm constantly trying to keep my vocal in the same place like this, my hands. And even though the variables around me constantly change for me physically.

So there's a lot going on in my head at the show. I'm not just, there are moments where I could just stand there in joy and just go, wow, this is awesome. But most of the time I'm busy doing a job, you know, and entertaining, hopefully. In some years you've done 170 shows. That's every other night, and there's not a lot of breaks in between. How do you keep up the stamina and the energy night after night? Because every night is a different night.

There's different groups, like you said, and they don't care what you did the next night or the previous night. They care about this night. How do you keep it up? And do you ever say to yourself with the band members, God, we really fucked that up tonight. That was terrible. And do you ever say that was one of the best shows we've ever had? Well, that's, that's up to personal perception. I might think the show was crap, but someone else might go, wow, I've really had a great time tonight. So it's not always the same collective voice on how a show went. But as far as keeping up, it gets harder and harder every year to sing this catalog of songs because it's a very difficult rock catalog to sing. One of the most difficult commercial rock catalogs that there is and um so we have pared

down the touring and um the number of shows in a row are we're we're usually trying to do ones and twos one show day off two shows day off that kind of thing. There's once in a while, there's a three, but you know, we have to make sure it's, I have days on or off before and after that little run. And but basically for me personally, what I have to do is I have to give up a little something every year to maintain the status quo of my vocal quality. And but I also have to it's it's like it's like my voice and me are two different beings and this voice is a diva and i'm not so but i have to pay attention to what the diva voice needs so that means i have to make that show those show hours have to be the apex of my day every day. But to do that, I have to think 24 hours a day when I'm on the road for six or seven weeks at a time. I don't go to work at nine and come home

at five and I don't have to worry about anything in between. I have to do it 24 hours a day every day for all those weeks that go out. I can't smoke and tell stories late into the night at some bar over cognac and I can't yell. I can't laugh too much. I like to say there's only so much tread on the tires. And so I'm very conscious about trying to make that show time to be the apex of the day because I feel a responsibility and I know that people are spending their time and their money to come see a show and I want them to see the best foreigner show they possibly can. So I take that very, very seriously and that's also part of being indispensable every day. And it's been around 45 years. You've been in it

around 19 years now. You've done thousands of shows and you're now on your farewell tour. You've reprioritized your life at some point. What's your advice to people who want to keep going and say, I just don't want this to end and I'm going to keep going, keep going until it doesn't work versus going out while things are great and while you're on top before you do start slipping in performance or whatever you're measuring yourself by? Well, there's different types of people. There are types of people who, for whatever reason, will die on stage. They'll play until they die on stage. And there are many reasons, varied spectrum of reasons, for the motivation that causes that.

And then there's people who are more like me, who are like, I don't want to be one of those bands that we all know about. We can name them. We can whisper them into each other's ear about the bands that are out there that shouldn't be out there anymore. And they're faking it and they're on tape and they're terrible and everyone knows it, but they'll lie. Sometimes the audience will lie to themselves and go, oh, I love these guys for so long. I just had such an amazing time. It's like, yeah, but did they suck? It's like, well, they weren't really like they used to be. And that's them being kind. That's not the truth. The truth is the band sucked. And I don't like going to see a band like that and certainly don't want to be in a band like that and certainly don't want to be in a band like that.

I don't want to be singing like that. That's a horrible blow to my vocal vanity, I have to say. And I also found out early on when I was in Hurricane that you can have passions for other things besides music. I accidentally found other passions besides music. And I'm quite certain that a lot of musicians never, ever found other passions. So they're stuck with their one passion and getting older than them is now a hindrance to that because the music business doesn't usually reward older musicians or vocalists with extended talent or extended opportunity. So I feel I'm ready now to start a new chapter in my life. I got married three years ago for the first time at 59.

And I want to spend time with my wife and my family. I love to cook. I love to motorcycle and work on things and work on the house. And I want to be able to do those things while I can still do them and not have to wait until I'm so old that I've spent most of my life serving this business instead of serving my life. You know, so that's where the decision comes in for me. Ticket prices are out of control. Fans today go to concerts to hear their favorite performers. And when bands have had as many hit songs as you have, everyone wants to hear the hits. They want to make sure you play every single hit.

And when you don't, people get disappointed. What is going through a band's mind when they're playing the hits and they play what I call a bunch of bathroom songs? You must look out at the audience and you're playing a song no one really cares for or likes. You've got thousands of people streaming for the bathroom. What's the thought process there between playing everything the crowd wants to hear and while they're paying lots of money to go see you versus these other songs that, frankly, no one else cares about, but you may care about? Well, fortunately, this band has had 16 top 30s.

And every single song we know charted and did well. And there's a lot of bands that can't say that they have two songs that people know, and they've got to drudge through the set until they get to the, you know, the two songs that people know. I mean, from the very first song to the very last song, we can't, we can't even play all the hits that people know. We do two ballads in the show and we had a third ballad. I don't want to Live Without You, that was like a number four. We can't put another ballad in the show. So it's just, we're very, very, I'm very now than it was when it came out. So like, thank you. And that's really amazing.

And I think the reason that this band has been around so long is because of the catalog. These songs are so great and they were just omnipresent. They were ubiquitous when they came out and they have been for decades. They're part of people's lives and knowledge and history. I hear stories daily about meeting, marrying, deaths, breakups, and all associated with foreigner songs. So no one could be more lucky than me to sing a catalog of songs like this. One of the things that I've been teaching for years and been one of the hallmarks of my success is something I called extreme preparation. And what I'm talking about here is preparing more than anyone else has prepared for anything that

we're doing. So someone spends one hour, I may spend five. If someone spends 10, I may spend 80 on a corporate presentation that's important to our company. Can you give examples of how extreme preparation has been critical to your success? And is there a difference? Would you have been successful if you had not practiced extreme preparation versus others that did not? There's a truth in the fact that your 100% might be somebody else's 70%. And I had a problem with that working with people because I thought that they weren't putting in their 100%. And I finally learned that if I looked over to this guy, his 100% is not my 100%, but it's his 100%.

And so you have to be compassionate when you're that driven because no one's going to live up to your expectation and your dedication to being prepared to do what you do. Second thing is when you over prepare, it's like muscle memory so that when you go to do the actual thing that you prepared for, you can forget all the stuff that you prepared for and it will be in you. It's especially important in music. Like when you go into the studio, I can't think about technique and how to curl that note and be thinking about that. I want to be thinking about what the words mean and are they touching me and motivating, moving me. I want the other stuff to be second nature. So that's where being over-prepared really helps you because you can then forget it because a lot of times people don't and they're preparing in the moment when they're doing it. And that's definitely not what

you want to do. This episode of In Search of Excellence is brought to you by sandy.com. S-A-N-D-E-E.com. We are a Yelp for beaches and have created the world's most comprehensive beach resource by cataloging more than 100 categories of information for every beach in the world, more than 100,000 beaches in 212 countries. Sandy.com provides beach goers around the world with detailed, comprehensive, and easy to use information to help them plan their perfect beach getaway at home and abroad and to make sure you're never disappointed by a beach visit again. Plan the perfect beach trip today by visiting sandy.com. That's www.sandee.com. The link is in our show notes.

Stay sandy, my friends. One of the things people don't think about when they prepare for a speech, for example, and they're so focused on memorizing and so focused and so focused, the one important thing they forget to do, I'm sure there's many, but one of them is to smile. They look unhappy because they're so focused on the words themselves, they can't focus, like you said, on the intangibles. Smiling, walking to certain points in the stage, body language, all those things. A lot of bands in the 70s and in the 80s like i was it was it was considered the the proper thing to do to be this rebellious unhappy young man kind of thing so you were encouraged to to look stern and give

that cool rock look that's not smiling and um me being in a band now, after the band has been around 45 years, we're not trying to prove how dark and cool we are anymore. We're trying to enjoy ourselves and make the audience enjoy themselves. And so smiling is a huge part of that. It's an automatic relayer to the receiver that there is happiness in the room being directed towards them. And it's communication without a single word, which is important for me because I might be singing different words, but if I can smile, I'm communicating simultaneously in a separate language. You know what I mean? And the fact that I'm constantly behind a microphone and in front of people, it brings an ease where you feel comfortable talking to people. And I always look at and wonder and amazement,

not amazement, but just wonder wonder like because i'll know someone who doesn't publicly publicly speak and i can only imagine how difficult that must be to get up in front of people and be at ease and i've become so at ease that although i have a skeleton of what i'm saying or doing i have i have a lot of leeway to just ad lib and, um, and some ad libs are, are, uh, are, are already pre formulated ideas that maybe I've done part of, or a piece of, or done it differently, but I can still take that ad lib and still shape it like clay and fit that audience for that moment. And, um moment. And I think if you practice doing whatever you do, volunteering anywhere where you can be in front of a microphone, if you're announcing some

name or someone's going to a stage or, you know, if someone's coming in the room for dinner, if you can get in front of a microphone in front of people you will gain uh an easy more ease that'll help you tremendously uh so all of those things all of those things together make a effortless performance you've been in the music business now coming up on five decades maybe a little over five decades since you were in high school things have changed quite a bit i used to make money selling the albums uh then there were cds there are no more cds. I used to make money selling the albums. Then there were CDs. There are no more CDs today. The touring bands make most of the money on T-shirts and concessions. There's all kinds of carve outs. Royalties have come down. And then you got

Taylor Swift, The Craziness and the Monopoly by Live Nation and Ticketmaster. What in your mind is the current state of the music business and where is it going? I wish I wasn't as cynical as I am, especially with AI now. I was sitting in a restaurant next to a very famous rapper and I didn't know who he was, but we started up a conversation. We were right next to each other at the sushi bar. And then we started, you know, uh, I bought him a sake and, you know, we started talking and, and I was very curious about what's current artists are doing. And I said, where, where do your revenue streams come from?

And he said, live. I'm like, what? I'm like, that's where we, the only place we make money he goes i use social media to direct to live and we use you know years of people knowing the music and continuing to put on a great show to drive people to to live live is the only place you're making any money if you have a giant catalog of hits i would have suggested you sold it 10 years ago. Because I can't see a scenario where your catalog is going to make more. It's not going to have a growing, a growth life to it unless something happens. But what I see now is everybody's stealing everything and no one's paying anybody anything. And if I can steal Frank Sinatra's voice in AI to make

a TikTok clip that gets me 100,000 followers or likes or listens, and it makes me add money, what the hell? What's going on? You know, what does Frank Sinatra's estate say about that? You know, I've done so many interviews and sung so many songs. I could be AI tomorrow and no one would need me anymore. So I feel that I'm making a wise choice. I have a cynical view of what's going forward for the music business. I read a story and I verified it with a playlist that there is a certain music platform out there that's creating songs by computer. And the same song is by 40 different bands and 40 different arrangements, 40 different titles, and it's the same song. And because they know that if you have 15 songs an hour in a playlist, they have to pay out their minuscule royalties to 15 songwriting entities. But if a third of that or 20% of that is computer created content, they don't have to pay anybody anything.

So now they have a 20 or 30% saving on the royalties they have to pay out when they're already making billions of dollars on subscriptions and the artist is getting absolutely nothing anymore. So how can I have a positive view of that? You have all these hits, you've sold 80 million albums, you have five platinum albums, and you're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because critics view you as corporate. I guess that's the word out there how do you feel about that and is it ever going to happen and does it matter to you uh first it doesn't matter to me um um it's kind of like it's kind of like a little click and if you if you know the people that make do voting and they like you, you're in.

And if they don't like you for some reason, you're not. But I do want to say that one of their qualifications for being allowed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is something about the scope of your influence. And let me just say this. How many times has a person been inspired to pick up a guitar and play Hot Blooded or Jukebox Hero because they love the song? It's really popular to me. That's the definition of influence. One of the things that's most important to me in my life, and I know you've done a lot of work on this as well as giving back to others and philanthropy. Can you tell us about the work you've done with the Grammy foundation and some of the amazing letters you've received from parents and public schools about some of the amazing things you've received from parents and public schools about some of the

amazing things that you've done right we um we started working with the grammy museum grammy foundation uh maybe more than 10 years ago and uh and for years we've had choirs come on stage and sing on stage with us during i want to know what love Love Is. And it's been to raise awareness about the lack of funding for school music programs. And like I said, I was a product of the school system. And the first thing that gets cut when there's not enough money in the budget is the arts, which is to me just criminal. Because that is the doorway to the outside world, outside of your small town, outside of your state, outside of your timeline.

And you get a different perspective on everything when you have exposure to everything. limit that part because math and science and history are history maybe somewhat but it's not it doesn't change too much in your small town math doesn't change it's not extremely exotic you know but music and the arts can be so we've really enjoyed as especially Jeff and I have been you know product of the American school system, giving back a little bit. We donate to their choir so they have a little bit of money. And during the summer tour here, we're going to be having multiple choirs open the show before Loverboy. And they're going to vote on a winner, and the winner is going to win a Bose L1 system, a PA system from our partners, Bose. And so, but we'll be on stage and I look at the faces of these kids and this is probably the first time they've ever been in front of that many people.

And there's a little piece of the song where I encourage everybody to turn on their cell phones or their lighters. So the whole audience has their lighters and cell phones come up. And I just know that that's just got to blow their minds. So I'm really happy to see that. It brings us, I think, more joy than it does to them. And like you said, we've gotten really great letters from choir directors and parents and saying, you know, this has encouraged their student in this direction or that direction and really had an effect on them, had a change in them. And that's really great to hear because that's the point. That's what we wanted to accomplish. And we also do a lot of work with the Shriners for the Shriners hospitals. And that's really a little bit of a give back too,

helping those kids where parents don't have to pay for anything if their child is sick. Stepdad, 100-year-old who passed away around nine years ago, was involved with the Shriners for around 40 years. It's a great organization, and I encourage everyone to go look online and see what they do. Before we finish today, Kelly, I want to go ahead and ask you some more open-ended questions. I call this part of my podcast, Fill in the Blank to Excellence. Are you ready to play? I'm ready. When I started my career, I wish I had known...

More. Is that the kind of answer you want? No, that's too broad. That's a fish to the... Okay, when I started my career, I wish I would have known more about collaboration. I tended to be an all-my-eggs-in-one-basket type of guy. But over the course of my career, I've had so many opportunities to work with and write with and record with other people.

And I didn't take as much advantage of that as I should have. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is? You are insignificant. My number one professional goal is? To leave a positive legacy. My biggest regret is? Wow, I don't have many. Maybe not learning to cook sooner.

You make your own tortillas. I did. I did just last night. Chicken enchilada, one of your best dishes. Last night was tacos, but yeah, I do make the enchiladas too, yeah. If you could go back in time, what's the one piece of advice you would give to your 21-year-old self? I would say don't forget to enjoy what you're doing. Ten years are going to pass, and you're still going to be ten years older. So don't be so hard on yourself.

If you could meet one person in the world who would it be aretha franklin and she was i was right outside her dressing room door and didn't get the chance to meet her but you know what i i really think i would have only wanted to meet her if she knew who i was because otherwise it's just a fan that's an interesting answer i would have never thought of that perspective before. What do you think she would have said if you told her I'm the lead singer of Foreigner and there's no doubt she would know 10 of your songs? She'd probably know the songs

and she would probably be thinking of Lou Graham, not me. But, you know, the one thing that I've always wanted is to just have respect from my peers. Because anyone can be a listener. But someone who likes what you do and they know well enough the difference between good and bad, that means something to me. Who's your favorite musician in the world today? Who's alive? Wow, that's, you know, I have a problem with the word favorites. I'm not a favorites type of person, because that causes you to judge one thing superior to another thing when in fact, they can be equal, but different. So that's too broad of a question for me to answer. For all the struggling musicians out there who are listening or watching this podcast,

who know how difficult it is, they're playing in the dive bars, they're dying for their first gig, they're making 50 bucks a night or they're getting free drinks. What's your advice to them? them. I wish you the very, very best. And I hope that somewhere, sometime, there will be an avenue that rewards you as you deserve to be rewarded for your ability. And it doesn't get stolen from you or overlooked or missed completely. And one question that you wish I asked you, but didn't is. What are you going to do after foreigner? What are you going to do after foreigner? Well, that's not fair.

I'm doing your job now. Now I'm the guest and you're the host. Thanks for having me on your show, Kelly. Sure. I haven't 100% decided. My wife and I are looking at that on a daily basis. I don't know how much public music is in my future. It could be or it might not be. I don't know how much public music is in my future. It could be or it might not be. I haven't decided yet. There's still a long way to go because this farewell tour will go into 2024.

And everybody's trying to get me to go longer. Um, but, um, I have a fantasy vision of, uh, living in semi-rural France and, um, simplifying my life, having less noise in my world. Um, I don't, I'm not someone who seeks attention or needs the spotlight. I think I'm growing to learn what's important to me. And so I hope that it turns out to be something like that. And, you know, just be with my wife. That'd be cool. Kelly, I'm grateful for you to be on my show.

I've been a huge fan of Foreigner forever since I was a little kid. I know all the words to all the songs. It's on my playlist. Since your hair was as dark as it was in your logo picture? My hair, well, the logo has streaks of of white in it but i i've never dyed my hair so i don't know what was happening that day that's uh that photo has not been touched up but right there are photos in my office here of when i did have dark hair and at one point i had a little bit of mullet uh when i was in college nice i want to be and i want to be a

rapper back then right um and thought i was cool and I was very much not cool. Right. But I'm excited for you. Congratulations on all your success. I want everyone to go out and catch your farewell tour. I'm hoping to catch it as well. I know you're playing in Seattle or outside of Spokane and in September. So I'm going to try to make that show.

And if not, I'm going to catch another show. Great. So thanks for being here. Appreciate you. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Thank you.