“I was surprised, but it’s exciting,” says Gramm, who wonders how he’ll feel on opening night. For his part, Gramm, who left the band in 2003 and hasn’t always spoken highly of Jones’ decision to hire a new singer for a post-Gramm version of Foreigner, only heard about the project two weeks ago in a phone call from Foreigner’s management. “I’m not a huge fan of musicals! But we figured maybe it’s time to take a shot.” Jones’ central role was helping audition cast members for the singing parts, and he and his stepdaughter, singer-songwriter and DJ Samantha Ronson, supplied the show’s lone new song, “Save Me.”īoth Jones and Gramm will attend the Toronto opening night, where the two are scheduled to join the cast for an encore. But Jukebox Hero didn’t come together until he was approached a year ago by Jeff Parry, a Canadian impresario whose company has mounted theatrical productions and tributes to the Beatles, Pink Floyd and the Band ( The Last Waltz Remembered).
Music by foreigner movie#
Jones says he toyed over the years with the idea of a musical or movie using the songs that he (and sometimes lead singer Lou Gramm) wrote. “We figured it would probably be better to have a story that would have a little bit of drama.” In the course of the show, the cast belts out “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” “Feels Like the First Time,” “Cold as Ice,” “Hot Blooded” and “Dirty White Boy” as well as deep album cuts like “Women” and “Blue Morning Blue Day.” “Our original story was a little self-satirical at one point,” Jones chuckles when asked if he’d considered telling Foreigner’s own tale in the show. (Yes, the name of the musical is spelled differently than the song.) Eschewing the bio format of hit shows like the Carole King story Beautiful and the Four Seasons saga Jersey Boys, Jukebox Hero tells the fictional story of Ryan, a rock star who’s called upon to help his Pennsylvania hometown after the closing of its most prominent factory along the way, he ends up confronting what production notes call “the ghosts of his past.”Įvery Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best I didn’t even know she knew our music.”Ībout four decades later, that suggestion has bloomed: Jukebox Hero, a stage musical that works in 20 songs from the Foreigner catalogue, opens a five-night run on Thursday at Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre, with road work to follow. “She said, ‘That song “Juke Box Hero” could be a great stage presentation.’ I said, ‘Wow.’ That song is a pretty ballsy rocker, so for her to even know it was flattering. “She had just done The Wiz, and said, ‘You know, you have a great song that would really lend itself to a musical,’” Jones recalls. As Mick Jones tells it, the origins of a jukebox musical featuring the songs of his band Foreigner date back over 40 years, when he found himself stranded in an airport lounge in Atlanta with none other than Diana Ross.
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