JEFF PILSON 'Would Not Be Surprised' If FOREIGNER Farewell Tour Continued 'Well Past 2025'

In a new interview with The Logan Show, FOREIGNER bassist Jeff Pilson addressed the fact that he and his bandmates are often dismissed as a glorified cover band, particularly since founding guitarist Mick Jones no longer regularly tours with the act.

The only remaining original member of FOREIGNER, Jones suffered from some health issues beginning in 2011, eventually resulting in heart surgery in 2012. This past February, Jones revealed on social media that he was battling Parkinson's disease, which explained his absence from FOREIGNER's live shows since 2022.

Joining Jones and Pilson in FOREIGNER's current lineup are Kelly Hansen on vocals, Michael Bluestein on keyboards, Bruce Watson on guitar, Chris Frazier on drums and Luis Maldonado on guitar.

After singer Lou Gramm left FOREIGNER in 2003, Jones took some time off before regrouping a couple years later with an entirely new lineup, featuring Hansen and Pilson, among others.

Regarding the criticism the current FOREIGNER lineup faces for not featuring any original members, Pilson said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, the ticket sales sort of speak for themselves. Listen, I understand where people are coming from. I understand it. But I also know that with FOREIGNER, the songs are really the legacy. And so my job, as musical director, is to make sure that the songs sound and deliver in a way that they should. And I think I'm doing my job because… Yes, there are haters online — of course — but I think there's not as many as you might think. I think their voices are louder than the amount of people doing it, because the ticket sales do speak for themselves and the offers from promoters speak for themselves. We are very well established as FOREIGNER right now. So, again, if people don't wanna come because there's no original members, that's okay. I understand that. But if you wanna come and hear FOREIGNER songs done really, really well, come to our show."

Elaborating on what being FOREIGNER's musical director entails, Jeff said: "Well, yes, I decide the setlist. And, listen, it's an easy job in the respect that everybody's a great musician, everybody listens. I mean, that's how you got to be in the band, is 'cause you were gonna fill that position well. So it's not like I have to ride herd on anybody, but I have to listen and I have to make sure, 'Hey, don't get too carried away doing this' or 'let's keep the vocals tight on this thing.' Yeah, I have to kind of ongoingly do that, but it's a very easy job because we all have the same vision and that's the biggest part of it. So, again, I kind of think of it as an easy job, but I take it very seriously. And it's very important to me that the delivery we give to people is a hundred percent. And I feel like we do that every night. So, I'm very, very confident in what we do."

Pilson also talked about FOREIGNER's recent announcement that it was extending its farewell tour and including a celebration of the band's Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction. Original bandmembers will join them at select shows starting with FOREIGNER's sold-out three-week fall residency at the Venetian, Las Vegas. Both Rick Wills and Al Greenwood, who are frequent guests of FOREIGNER, will sit in with the band they helped create for the entire residency. Discussions are in hand to include Gramm as FOREIGNER moves toward its 50th anniversary in 2026.

Asked how long he thinks the FOREIGNER farewell tour will continue on, Pilson said: "Well, when we first decided — we did at one point think that this was gonna be the end of the road, and then the pressure just got too great. And then with the Rock Hall, it just became obvious that we had to continue… that maybe we're gonna not do the long nine-and-ten-months-of-the-year road stuff anymore. And that's kind of what we mean by a farewell tour. We always anticipated that in 2025 we'd be doing other things, like perhaps getting some new music out, and we came to the acceptance that we were gonna be doing shows in 2025 during the course of the year; we came to accept that. Now we're realizing, okay, it's gonna be more than we thought. It's not a nine-and-10-month-of-the-year tour, though. So in that sense, the farewell of that has happened. But how long do I see it going? I see it going a while with the momentum that we've established. So, I would not be surprised if we continue well past '25."

FOREIGNER was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame on October 19. Gramm, Greenwood and Wills were present to accept the award, while Jones and Dennis Elliott sat out the ceremony. (Jones's daughter, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, was on hand to help accept the award.) Ian McDonald and Ed Gagliardi died in 2022 and 2014, respectively.

The induction ceremony was held at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio. It aired live on Disney+. An edited three-hour prime-time special will follow, premiering on New Year's Day on ABC, and become available for streaming the following day on Hulu and Disney+.

To be eligible for this year's ballot, each nominee's first single or album had to have been released in 1999 or earlier.

Eligible since 2002, FOREIGNER has had a huge number of rock hits, including "Cold As Ice", "Double Vision", "Hot Blooded", "I Want To Know What Love Is", "Juke Box Hero" and "Urgent", and has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, with no wins.