Tune a radio to a classic rock station, and it won’t be long before a Foreigner song plays. That’s not hyperbole; it’s fact. According to radio research firm Mediabase, Foreigner was the 10th-most played act on classic rock stations in 2011.
The band also added to its total of more than 70 million records sold, making Foreigner the fourthbest-selling classic rock act in 2011 behind such genre staples as Pink Floyd, Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Foreigner’s saxophone player and rhythm guitarist, Tom Gimbel, is acutely aware of the situation: He spent several years touring with another of those classic rock behemoths, Aerosmith.
But now, Gimbel says by phone from the San Diego area while resting between tour dates, Foreigner is poised for a climb. The band is just getting started, in fact.
“It’s the right chemistry that we have now,” says Gimbel. “People are still very much interested in coming to our shows. We’ve got this incredible momentum.”
He credits part of the impetus to a recent foray into acoustic renditions of Foreigner hits, just like the band will perform when it visits the Walton Arts Center on April 10. The show takes place as part of the Washington Regional Foundation’s annual gala and is sold out.
The band, with the idea of doing something fresh, started incorporating acoustic cuts of hit songs such as “JukeBox Hero,” “Cold as Ice,” “I Want to Know What Love Is” and more into live setsseveral years ago.
“The sound was tremendous, and the response was tremendous,” says Gimbel, who has been performing with Foreigner since 1995. “They have such a built-in, organic, heartfelt, emotional genius. They translate well.”
The response to the live acoustic tracks led the band to re-create the sounds for the new collection “Feels Like The First Time,” named after one of their most enduring hits. The new release contains three distinct elements: “Acoustique,” an acoustic album; an album of studio versions of the current lineup tackling the band’s previous hits; and a liveDVD of the band performing in Chicago.
“It’s kind of a demonstration of the different facets of the band,” Gimbel says.
Many of the tracks, such as “Double Vision,” “Waiting For a Girl Like You” and “Cold as Ice,” appear on both the acoustic and electric studio albums. There’s a good reason for that, Gimbel explains.
“We had to do them in each situation, because it’s a song that people want to hear from Foreigner,” he says.
A lot of people want to hear Foreigner songs these days.
That’s true of the live shows, of the records the band has recently sold and also infilm, such as in the upcoming movie version of “Rock of Ages,” a Broadway musical with a touring version that came to Northwest Arkansas late last year.
Gimbel says there is no secret to Foreigner’s continued success. The songs speak for themselves.
“(Foreigner is) one of the acts that has held up over time.
There are pages of bands from that era that aren’t around any more. People still love to hear it, and they love to see it live. That’s why it still resonates. There a heavy dose of magic (in Foreigner’s songs),” he says.
And that magic can be heard from any radio, anywhere and any time.
Whats Up, Pages 15 on 03/30/2012