Lou Gramm: Foreigner’s exclusion from Rock Hall of Fame down to ‘juvenile vendetta’

Former Foreigner singer Lou Gramm has said that the band’s continuing absence from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is due to a personal vendetta.

In a new interview with The Rock Shop With Ralph, he said: "It's not anything to do with our music or the amount of hits or notoriety or anything like that. It's a personal thing that we're not in there. It's a personal vendetta between the gentleman who owns Rolling Stone and Mick (Jones, Foreigner guitarist)."

He continued: "It's very juvenile, the whole thing, and I don't think it's gonna get any better. I think it's gonna stay that way. I think we're being made an example of."

Asked if he thought they deserved to be there, Gramm replied: “Of course I do. The original Foreigner. I put an exclamation point at the end of that.”

Watch: Foreigner – ‘Cold As Ice’

Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record, with criteria including the influence and significance of the artists' contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.

Foreigner became eligible in 2002 and are one of the biggest selling rock acts of all time, with worldwide sales of more than 80 million records.

Gramm had previously spoken about the reasons he believed Foreigner had never even been nominated for inclusion in the Hall of Fame.

Watch: Foreigner – ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’

In an interview with Sleeve Saturday last year, he said: “I know that at some point when a lot of our compatriots were being nominated and accepted into it, the bands and the artists that came up when we came up that were inducted into the Rock Hall Of Fame and we were left out, I believe that our manager at that time and Mick went to see the head of the Rock Hall Of Fame and had a discussion with him which led to some heated words.

“And as that discussion ended — I don't know who; it might have been Jann Wenner from Rolling Stone magazine, who actually was a very good friend of Mick's, I think he told Mick and our manager that it'll be a cold day in hell before Foreigner gets in the Rock Hall Of Fame.

“That's the way it ended up. And sure enough, I bet you 20 years has gone by since that."

Jann Wenner is the co-founder of both Rolling Stone magazine and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Gallery: Whitesnake, Europe and Foreigner rock Cardiff

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