February 23, 2024 • 11 mins
Foreigner is bringing their Farewell Tour to Vibrant Arena in Moline on March 3rd. Mark Manuel caught up with Michael Bluestein of Foreigner. He's been their keyboardist since 2008 and, in addtion to Foreigner has ALSO worked with Roger Hodgson (Supertramp) and Boz Scaggs. What's it like touring with a band like Foreigner? What's his favorite song to perform live? What's the latest on Mick Jones?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All right, Michael Bluestein, aforeigner joins us. Of course, the
Foreigner Farewell Tour is coming up Marchthird at Vibron Arena. That is correct.
So let's talk a little bit aboutMichael Bluestein before we talking about this
Foreigner Farewell tour. You actually startedstudying classical piano when you were nine.
That's true. Yeah, that's correct. So did mom and dad just say,
(00:22):
hey, you're going to take pianolessons? Here you go. No,
I mean, it wasn't forced onme. I just I took to
it. There was a we movedinto this house in Bradford, Massachusetts.
There was a piano that was justthere, that was left behind by the
previous owners, and I started tinkeringwith it, and guests showed an aptitude
(00:42):
for it and was picking out somemelodies. And my mom, being an
artist and the lover of all thingscreative and artistic musical, said why don't
we get you some lessons? Doyou want that? And I said,
sure, let's do it. AndI fell in love with it. I
really she never really forced me topractice or anything, you know. For
certainly for a lot of years,I was definitely very self motivated. See,
(01:04):
that was always my downfall. Istarted piano that I was eight,
and I remember, once you geta year or two into it, you
start doing the classical stuff. I'mlike, I don't want to play this.
I want to play and you namethe pop song of the day.
And yet when I think of mostreally good rock pianists keyboardists, they all
have a classical music background. Imean it doesn't help for some things,
(01:26):
you know. I mean, Ithink there's exceptions to that. There's definitely
people that, you know, alot of the blues guys, you know,
weren't big classical guys, you know. I mean, it can help
for certain things. All I knowis when I was thirteen years old,
if someone had told me that Eddievan Halen was a classically trained pianist,
I would have done that till Iwas blue in the fingers. Blue in
(01:49):
the fingers, I like that.So you go from classical music piano studies
to the very famous college out there, Berkeley, and then you moved to
LA to play with bands including bosGags. Huh right, Yeah, that
was one of the first tours thatI That was the first tours that I
got after moving out here. Andit was a kind of confluence of things.
(02:12):
I was coming from the Bay Areaat the time, I was in
San Francisco and Boz was a longtimeBay Area guy, and so it was
actually ironically after moving from the BayArea, it was my Bay Area connections
that got me my first gig.How old were you when you played with
the Boss Gags? So that wouldhave been two thousand and three, So
yeah, I was thirty four yearsold, So you're about the same age
(02:36):
as I am then. So whenyou're playing with someone like bos Gags,
so you no doubt listen to itat some point in your life on the
radio. What is that like?Well, you know, I just there
is that thing, a magical thingof when you're playing with stuff that you
were a fan of, right ofcourse that Silk Degrees album when he really
blew up on the Oh yeah,so huge with Lido Shuffle and Direaty Low
(03:00):
Down and you know Georgia Jojo,all those great tunes that were just so
big back then. So you knowit is it is kind of a surreal
sort of magical thing to reconnect andplay with people that you were you know
from music from your childhood. Reallythat's really what it was. So then
(03:22):
flash forward to now you've been well, I shouldn't say, now, you've
been with Foreigner since what two thousandand eight? Yeah, it's coming up,
it'll be sixteen years. How didthat come to be? I was
recommended. I had a friend colleaguethat I had worked with before, and
he his name's Paul Mrkovich, andhe was doing the Foreigner gig at the
time. In two thousand and seven, he had stepped in, but he
(03:44):
was only able to come in asa temporary inter remember, So what he
did was he told he basically toldthe guys, hey, I'm only going
to be able to hang around fora little while, but I'll help you
find somebody when I leave. Andthat's what he did. We went into
each other. He and I justserendipity into each other at a convention at
nam down Anah I'm California in earlytwo thousand and eight, and when we
(04:06):
ran in, the light bulb wenton off for him to said, oh,
wow, actually I'm looking for somebodyand I think Michael would be a
good fit. And he mentioned thatto me, he said, what do
you think? Are you interested?At the time, I was touring with
Enrique Iglesias, so I did avery different thing, much more top kind
of ye act, but that youknow, that was been a great kick
for a while. But when Iauditioned and got the gig, I just
(04:29):
I felt like it was a betterfit. And Mose left the Enrique camp
and joined Foreigner. So the veryfirst concert you played with Foreigner, I
mean, this is a legendary band, should have been in the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame decades ago.They're finally maybe going to get in.
So you're playing that first concert withForeigner, the first time you knocked out
(04:51):
Cold des Ice Because it's got thaticonic keyboard intro. What was going through
your mind during that show? Really, you know it's kind of overused,
but this surreal comes to mind.It's just there's just this like a meeting
of worlds, you know, it'sjust a right Obviously, when I first
heard that tune, I was eightyears old there, seventy seven, and
(05:14):
it's just I always loved that tune. I always love the piano part,
and I was like the vocals isamazing, and yeah, but you know
at that point, I was justbarely I mean, I wasn't even really
playing yet, so I didn't.It didn't occur to me, of course
that I would be in the banddoing it, you know, fast forward,
you know, three three decades,three decades to be in the band.
(05:35):
So so yeah, that there's thatmoment. I actually I remember it
more with Jukebox Hero because I playthe intro on that, or pretty keyboard
keyboard heavy intro that happens with that. So I just remember kind of the
goosebumps and a sort of lightheaded surrealsee. See that's why the band,
because you're really good and me Iwould knock out the first like three course,
(05:58):
oh cramp, Mick, can westart over? So you play?
You play some too? Oh yeah, I can play that part. Yeah
right, well yeah it's uh,it was. It's been quite a journey,
you know, not the band journey, but yeah right, it's yeah,
And they're just it is pretty amazingto play all these tunes that I
(06:20):
grew up with. It's really it'spretty special. So you've been with foreign
Er now for sixteen years. Isthere a song do you look forward to
playing every night? I love playingLong Long Way from Home. Oh yeah,
great song. That's a really coolclavi inet part keyboard part on there,
and then I sort of double upon the horns and stuff too,
(06:43):
and it's really I've always loved thattune. Again, going back to childhood,
it was always when I got forPumps when it would come on the
radio. Yeah, so that's abig one. That That and Jukebox Here
are both two big favorites for sure. Well, and here's one of the
things that I love about foreign I'veonly seen them two, maybe three times,
and it's only been within the lastfifteen years that I've seen them,
(07:04):
So I never saw him in theirheyday when hey, here's a brand new
one called Jukebox Hero. My bigcomplaint about so many of these classic rock
artists is they only want to playtheir new stuff and off, we have
to play Jukebox Hero. Foreigner neverdoes that. They always deliver all the
hits. I mean it's pretty muchhits from the beginning to the end.
(07:25):
And you know, we always saythat we're in this very uttle newborn here
that's chiming away in the background.What does the newborn play in the band?
Yeah, she plays I mean passivefire. Yeah, she plays the
passive fire of the rattle. Sometimesa little bit of drool and spit up.
(07:46):
So I was starting to say thatwe kind of feel sort of like,
we just feel so lucky that we'rein a band that has that kind
of catalog. So beginning to end, it's all hits. Everybody knows that
every song, you know, it'sfrom beginning to end. So yeah,
these are the tunes that have thathave charted, that have been played and
(08:07):
are part of the classic rock legacy, and that's you know, that's generally
what we play. We are talkingto Michael Bluestein, keyboardist with Foreigner the
Farewell Tour. It's Vibrant Arena Marchthird. Tickets still available, We have
that info up on the station website. Let's talk about Mick Jones for a
moment. Yeah, you're talking aboutthe announcement that he made, right,
(08:28):
So it came out this week thatMick Jones has Parkinson's. I will say,
my thoughts are with them. Mydad's got Parkinson's and he's had it
for fifteen years. Was that oneof the catalysts for this farewell tour?
I think it definitely figures into it, for sure, you know. I
mean a lot of it though,is coming from Kelly, our singer,
that as you know, these songsare very challenging high, yes, because
(08:52):
they all sing them really high backwhen they're young, and then things happen
to our male voices as we getolder. Yeah, and remark Kelly has
maintained, has kept the pipes togetherand has been able to deliver these tunes.
You know, he's getting on twentyyears now with a band. Sure,
but there is this sense that it'snot going to go on forever.
(09:13):
And the phrase we go out ontop, right, we go out when
you're still kicking ass, you know, is the idea there. I mean,
there's bittersweet. You know, we'rewe have a great chemistry together.
We have a great camaraderie on theroad, and we feel like, you
know, false amount of sea side. You know that we sound pretty good
playing these tunes and we gel prettywell with it. And you know,
(09:35):
it's been the same unit for quitea while, so we're going to be
sad to let that go. Butat the same time, you know,
it's some more time with the familiesand a quote quote unquote normal life isn't
the worst thing in the world either, you know, and none of us
are getting any younger, so achance to ask you heard you know I
have I have my first child,a three and a half month old girl
sitting right here, and I'm goingto get to spend more time with her.
(09:58):
So I'm pretty thrilled about that.Yeah, twelve years, we'll see
if he's still want to spend timeor there. So I'll tell you what
first you think it is, butit's not. Yeah. So the first
time I saw you guys, youwere opening up for def Leopard, and
I can't remember who else, butI remember my son going, you know,
have all three. He was ahuge deaf Leopard fan. He's like
(10:20):
Foreigner was the best of the three. We just loved your show. And
of course Mick was part of that. One last time you were in town
and Davenport at the Adler Theater rightbefore the pandemic hit. Mick was not
part of it. Is he partof this tour or is he like,
I just can't do it? No, I mean not with the Parkinson's Ye
can't. Yeah, it's just Imean, as you know, the the
(10:41):
repercussions of the symptoms of that makeit, you know, musical instruments pretty
tough. Oh, exactly. Well, I'll tell you what our thoughts are
with Mick and hopefully he can stilllive a long life and not have too
many of the side effects from thoughParkinson's. And Michael has been great to
meet you can't wait to see theshow. Vibrant Arena and Moline, Illinois
awesome. Thanks so much, greattalking to you.
All right, Michael Bluestein, aforeigner joins us. Of course, the
Foreigner Farewell Tour is coming up Marchthird at Vibron Arena. That is correct.
So let's talk a little bit aboutMichael Bluestein before we talking about this
Foreigner Farewell tour. You actually startedstudying classical piano when you were nine.
That's true. Yeah, that's correct. So did mom and dad just say,
(00:22):
hey, you're going to take pianolessons? Here you go. No,
I mean, it wasn't forced onme. I just I took to
it. There was a we movedinto this house in Bradford, Massachusetts.
There was a piano that was justthere, that was left behind by the
previous owners, and I started tinkeringwith it, and guests showed an aptitude
(00:42):
for it and was picking out somemelodies. And my mom, being an
artist and the lover of all thingscreative and artistic musical, said why don't
we get you some lessons? Doyou want that? And I said,
sure, let's do it. AndI fell in love with it. I
really she never really forced me topractice or anything, you know. For
certainly for a lot of years,I was definitely very self motivated. See,
(01:04):
that was always my downfall. Istarted piano that I was eight,
and I remember, once you geta year or two into it, you
start doing the classical stuff. I'mlike, I don't want to play this.
I want to play and you namethe pop song of the day.
And yet when I think of mostreally good rock pianists keyboardists, they all
have a classical music background. Imean it doesn't help for some things,
(01:26):
you know. I mean, Ithink there's exceptions to that. There's definitely
people that, you know, alot of the blues guys, you know,
weren't big classical guys, you know. I mean, it can help
for certain things. All I knowis when I was thirteen years old,
if someone had told me that Eddievan Halen was a classically trained pianist,
I would have done that till Iwas blue in the fingers. Blue in
(01:49):
the fingers, I like that.So you go from classical music piano studies
to the very famous college out there, Berkeley, and then you moved to
LA to play with bands including bosGags. Huh right, Yeah, that
was one of the first tours thatI That was the first tours that I
got after moving out here. Andit was a kind of confluence of things.
(02:12):
I was coming from the Bay Areaat the time, I was in
San Francisco and Boz was a longtimeBay Area guy, and so it was
actually ironically after moving from the BayArea, it was my Bay Area connections
that got me my first gig.How old were you when you played with
the Boss Gags? So that wouldhave been two thousand and three, So
yeah, I was thirty four yearsold, So you're about the same age
(02:36):
as I am then. So whenyou're playing with someone like bos Gags,
so you no doubt listen to itat some point in your life on the
radio. What is that like?Well, you know, I just there
is that thing, a magical thingof when you're playing with stuff that you
were a fan of, right ofcourse that Silk Degrees album when he really
blew up on the Oh yeah,so huge with Lido Shuffle and Direaty Low
(03:00):
Down and you know Georgia Jojo,all those great tunes that were just so
big back then. So you knowit is it is kind of a surreal
sort of magical thing to reconnect andplay with people that you were you know
from music from your childhood. Reallythat's really what it was. So then
(03:22):
flash forward to now you've been well, I shouldn't say, now, you've
been with Foreigner since what two thousandand eight? Yeah, it's coming up,
it'll be sixteen years. How didthat come to be? I was
recommended. I had a friend colleaguethat I had worked with before, and
he his name's Paul Mrkovich, andhe was doing the Foreigner gig at the
time. In two thousand and seven, he had stepped in, but he
(03:44):
was only able to come in asa temporary inter remember, So what he
did was he told he basically toldthe guys, hey, I'm only going
to be able to hang around fora little while, but I'll help you
find somebody when I leave. Andthat's what he did. We went into
each other. He and I justserendipity into each other at a convention at
nam down Anah I'm California in earlytwo thousand and eight, and when we
(04:06):
ran in, the light bulb wenton off for him to said, oh,
wow, actually I'm looking for somebodyand I think Michael would be a
good fit. And he mentioned thatto me, he said, what do
you think? Are you interested?At the time, I was touring with
Enrique Iglesias, so I did avery different thing, much more top kind
of ye act, but that youknow, that was been a great kick
for a while. But when Iauditioned and got the gig, I just
(04:29):
I felt like it was a betterfit. And Mose left the Enrique camp
and joined Foreigner. So the veryfirst concert you played with Foreigner, I
mean, this is a legendary band, should have been in the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame decades ago.They're finally maybe going to get in.
So you're playing that first concert withForeigner, the first time you knocked out
(04:51):
Cold des Ice Because it's got thaticonic keyboard intro. What was going through
your mind during that show? Really, you know it's kind of overused,
but this surreal comes to mind.It's just there's just this like a meeting
of worlds, you know, it'sjust a right Obviously, when I first
heard that tune, I was eightyears old there, seventy seven, and
(05:14):
it's just I always loved that tune. I always love the piano part,
and I was like the vocals isamazing, and yeah, but you know
at that point, I was justbarely I mean, I wasn't even really
playing yet, so I didn't.It didn't occur to me, of course
that I would be in the banddoing it, you know, fast forward,
you know, three three decades,three decades to be in the band.
(05:35):
So so yeah, that there's thatmoment. I actually I remember it
more with Jukebox Hero because I playthe intro on that, or pretty keyboard
keyboard heavy intro that happens with that. So I just remember kind of the
goosebumps and a sort of lightheaded surrealsee. See that's why the band,
because you're really good and me Iwould knock out the first like three course,
(05:58):
oh cramp, Mick, can westart over? So you play?
You play some too? Oh yeah, I can play that part. Yeah
right, well yeah it's uh,it was. It's been quite a journey,
you know, not the band journey, but yeah right, it's yeah,
And they're just it is pretty amazingto play all these tunes that I
(06:20):
grew up with. It's really it'spretty special. So you've been with foreign
Er now for sixteen years. Isthere a song do you look forward to
playing every night? I love playingLong Long Way from Home. Oh yeah,
great song. That's a really coolclavi inet part keyboard part on there,
and then I sort of double upon the horns and stuff too,
(06:43):
and it's really I've always loved thattune. Again, going back to childhood,
it was always when I got forPumps when it would come on the
radio. Yeah, so that's abig one. That That and Jukebox Here
are both two big favorites for sure. Well, and here's one of the
things that I love about foreign I'veonly seen them two, maybe three times,
and it's only been within the lastfifteen years that I've seen them,
(07:04):
So I never saw him in theirheyday when hey, here's a brand new
one called Jukebox Hero. My bigcomplaint about so many of these classic rock
artists is they only want to playtheir new stuff and off, we have
to play Jukebox Hero. Foreigner neverdoes that. They always deliver all the
hits. I mean it's pretty muchhits from the beginning to the end.
(07:25):
And you know, we always saythat we're in this very uttle newborn here
that's chiming away in the background.What does the newborn play in the band?
Yeah, she plays I mean passivefire. Yeah, she plays the
passive fire of the rattle. Sometimesa little bit of drool and spit up.
(07:46):
So I was starting to say thatwe kind of feel sort of like,
we just feel so lucky that we'rein a band that has that kind
of catalog. So beginning to end, it's all hits. Everybody knows that
every song, you know, it'sfrom beginning to end. So yeah,
these are the tunes that have thathave charted, that have been played and
(08:07):
are part of the classic rock legacy, and that's you know, that's generally
what we play. We are talkingto Michael Bluestein, keyboardist with Foreigner the
Farewell Tour. It's Vibrant Arena Marchthird. Tickets still available, We have
that info up on the station website. Let's talk about Mick Jones for a
moment. Yeah, you're talking aboutthe announcement that he made, right,
(08:28):
So it came out this week thatMick Jones has Parkinson's. I will say,
my thoughts are with them. Mydad's got Parkinson's and he's had it
for fifteen years. Was that oneof the catalysts for this farewell tour?
I think it definitely figures into it, for sure, you know. I
mean a lot of it though,is coming from Kelly, our singer,
that as you know, these songsare very challenging high, yes, because
(08:52):
they all sing them really high backwhen they're young, and then things happen
to our male voices as we getolder. Yeah, and remark Kelly has
maintained, has kept the pipes togetherand has been able to deliver these tunes.
You know, he's getting on twentyyears now with a band. Sure,
but there is this sense that it'snot going to go on forever.
(09:13):
And the phrase we go out ontop, right, we go out when
you're still kicking ass, you know, is the idea there. I mean,
there's bittersweet. You know, we'rewe have a great chemistry together.
We have a great camaraderie on theroad, and we feel like, you
know, false amount of sea side. You know that we sound pretty good
playing these tunes and we gel prettywell with it. And you know,
(09:35):
it's been the same unit for quitea while, so we're going to be
sad to let that go. Butat the same time, you know,
it's some more time with the familiesand a quote quote unquote normal life isn't
the worst thing in the world either, you know, and none of us
are getting any younger, so achance to ask you heard you know I
have I have my first child,a three and a half month old girl
sitting right here, and I'm goingto get to spend more time with her.
(09:58):
So I'm pretty thrilled about that.Yeah, twelve years, we'll see
if he's still want to spend timeor there. So I'll tell you what
first you think it is, butit's not. Yeah. So the first
time I saw you guys, youwere opening up for def Leopard, and
I can't remember who else, butI remember my son going, you know,
have all three. He was ahuge deaf Leopard fan. He's like
(10:20):
Foreigner was the best of the three. We just loved your show. And
of course Mick was part of that. One last time you were in town
and Davenport at the Adler Theater rightbefore the pandemic hit. Mick was not
part of it. Is he partof this tour or is he like,
I just can't do it? No, I mean not with the Parkinson's Ye
can't. Yeah, it's just Imean, as you know, the the
(10:41):
repercussions of the symptoms of that makeit, you know, musical instruments pretty
tough. Oh, exactly. Well, I'll tell you what our thoughts are
with Mick and hopefully he can stilllive a long life and not have too
many of the side effects from thoughParkinson's. And Michael has been great to
meet you can't wait to see theshow. Vibrant Arena and Moline, Illinois
awesome. Thanks so much, greattalking to you.
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