Ex-Foreigner bassist Rick Wills doesn’t understand why it took so long for the rock band to get inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame.
Wills played with Foreigner from 1979 to 1991. Since 2015, he has occasionally joined the band for performances. Foreigner will finally be honored later this year, but the band has been eligible to be inducted since 2003. As a member of the original lineup, he will be honored at the ceremony alongside his bandmates like frontman Lou Gramm.
Wills confessed during a recent interview on SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk,” that it’s been frustrating to see the band get ignored and overlooked in the past.
“We’ve waited basically 21 years for this to happen,” Wills told Trunk on the episode. “So when it did happen, it was a surprise in a sense. But it was also a relief that we finally could join our peers in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because I think we’ve definitely earned our place with the singles and the songs we’ve written and performed over the years. You know, what did we do wrong? I don’t know.”
Tons of positive response to my interview with former @ForeerMusic bassist Rick Wills yesterday on @TrunkNationSXM . Full interview now on @SIRIUSXM app. Here’s a clip talking about his coming induction in @rockhall . pic.twitter.com/MvsGurmgI3
— Eddie Trunk (@EddieTrunk) June 13, 2024
Wills said his annoyance stemmed from seeing other artists and bands get honored over the years, some of which he pointed out weren’t even in the rock genre.
“It is just weird sometimes how the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voting goes and includes some people that, to me, don’t seem to belong in there because they’re not rock and roll, whereas we were,” Wills said. “So, I don’t know. It’s a very difficult thing to understand sometimes.”
He even acknowledged the supposed rumors that there was tension between the band and Hall of Fame co-founder Jann Wenner.
“There’s a personality thing that went on at some point with Jann Wenner and the band, and I don’t know why, but he, I heard people say, ‘Oh, he said Foreigner will never get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unless hell freezes over,’” Wills recalled to Trunk. “Well, that’s a pretty unkind thing to say. But, at the same time, when Jann’s in control, what can you do when that’s going on? He’s obviously putting his finger on the thing and saying they’re not gonna get in.”
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Earlier this year, Gramm addressed Foreigner finally getting honored in the Hall of Fame. During an interview with Seven Mountains Media radio host Lee Richey earlier this year, Gramm said it was “very, very satisfying to be honored like this after years and years of writing, recording, and more time than that, performing.”
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Other rock bands have been open about their frustration of not being honored by the association including Styx co-lead singer Tommy Shaw who recently spilled in Billboard that they feel “really powerless over it.”
Foreigner will be on tour with Styx this summer for which kicked off June 11 in Grand Rapids, Mich.
They have two stops in New Jersey including at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel on July 23 and at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden on July 28.
The tour will run through September.
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Saleah Blancaflor may be reached at sblancaflor@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @saleyley and Instagram.
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