1977 Rock Song, Rejected by Record Labels, Became One of the Biggest Hits of the Decade

Foreignerhas been touring the world for more than 50 years now, and the band is still going strong. But in 1977, one song almost didn’t happen, and without it, the band might never have made it out of those early days.

That track was “Feels Like the First Time,” and before it became one of the biggest hits of the decade, it was almost the reason Foreigner never got a record deal in the first place.

Label after label passed on the band, including Atlantic Records, which would eventually become its home. According to vocalist Lou Gramm and keyboardist Al Greenwood, Foreigner came close to calling it quits without ever releasing an album. 

Before Foreigner came together, guitarist and founder Mick Jones already had the idea for “Feels Like the First Time.” He kept the song to himself at first.

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“The first rehearsal of Foreigner was Mick Jones, myself, Stan Williams on drums and Jay Davis on bass, just the four of us. We’d come in and jam every day and this would go on for a while,” Greenwood recalled in 2024. 

After a couple weeks, Greenwood was ready to walk. “I don’t know if this is for me,” he remembered thinking. “There’s no songs, we’re just jamming. It’s fun to jam, but I thought we’d have some songs put together by that point.”

Just as he was about to tell Jones he was done, something changed his mind.

“I went in [the next day] and I’m about to go to Mick [to give him the news]. He turns to me and says, ‘I have this song’ and he started playing ‘Feels Like the First Time’ on guitar. So I thought, ‘Okay, now I think we’ve got something here.’”

But having a great song didn’t guarantee a record deal. Gramm recalled shopping the demo from label to label and getting turned down every time.

“We brought that demo tape to every label and they all rejected us,” he said. The rejections took their toll, and two members, Williams and Davis, left the group.

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That’s when Bud Prager, the band’s manager, decided to take one more shot at Atlantic Records. “Bud Prager said, ‘Look, I really think Atlantic Records is the [label] you should be on. They’ve got Led Zeppelin, the Stones, it’s a great label,’” Gramm recalled. “So he says, ‘I’m going to bring it back up there.’”

This time, the tape landed on legendary A&R executive John Kalodner‘s desk. “When he listened to it, he said, ‘I think this is something,’” Gramm said.

Kalodner brought it to executive Jerry Greenberg, who wasn’t sold at first. “Jerry says, ‘We already passed on these guys,’” Gramm recalled. But Kalodner pushed back. “’No, this is going to be something. It’s going to be big,’” he insisted.

The band finally had a record deal, but by then, there was barely a band left to sign. “We didn’t have a band, because two of the members left,” Gramm said. 

“So now we had to audition for a drummer and a bass player and that’s how we got Dennis Elliott and Ed Gagliardi. That’s [how we completed] the band.”

Foreigner released its self-titled debut in March 1977, and it sold five million copies in the U.S., spent a year in the top 20 and peaked at No. 4. It also cracked the top 10 in Canada and Australia, and hit No. 1 in Norway.

Three songs from the album became hits across North America, including “Feels Like the First Time.” It landed at No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 7 in Canada. 

“Cold as Ice” hit No. 6 in the U.S. and No. 9 in Canada, while “Long, Long Way from Home” reached No. 20.

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