In 1976, following the break-up of former Mountain vocalist/guitarist Leslie West's solo band, guitarist Mick Jones was stranded in New York City without a gig. Fortunately, the Englishman, a former member of Spooky Tooth who done session work for George Harrison and Peter Frampton among others, had a decent contacts book, and when West's manager Bud Prager offered him a rehearsal space in the city, he began casting around for like-minded musicians to play with.
Soon enough he had a new band, Trigger, featuring two fellow Brits (former King Crimson multi-instrumentalist Ian MacDonald and ex-Ian Hunter drummer Dennis Elliott) and three native New Yorkers (vocalist Lou Gramm, bassist Ed Gagliardi and keyboardist Al Greenwood).
"It was a very heady time," Jones recalls. "I’d played in bands before, but this was the first time that I was the principal writer and had the responsibility of leading the band. We were in the studio but we didn’t really know yet exactly where we were going. But I knew that I wanted to be in a successful group."
Initially, when the new group submitted demo tapes to major label A&R departments, no-one wanted to bite. “Disco was at height," Jones pointed out, "and punk and new wave were just hitting. So things didn’t look at all good for what we were doing!” But after a young Atlantic Records talent scout named John Kalodner came across their tape and recognised the commercial potential of Jones' Feels Like The First Time, the sextet were offered a deal. As Kalodner was aware of another band called Trigger, one that he thought "stunk", he suggested that a name change might be advisable.
“I never liked the name Trigger anyway,” Jones told Classic Rock writer Malcolm Dome, “and we all agreed that it should be changed. We had pages and pages of ideas, and a lot of them were embarrassing. Eventually, I suggested Foreigner, because we had three Englishmen and three Americans, so wherever we went there would always be a foreign element in the band. We did briefly toy with the idea of calling ourselves Alien, which is another way of saying we were foreigners, but it never sounded right."
