Kelly Hansen Opens Up About Leaving Foreigner

06-01-2025

Kelly Hansen has been the lead vocalist for Foreigner for 20 years and he shocked fans last month when he revealed that he is retiring from the group during their appearance on the season finale of The Voice.

He shared that he will be playing with the band for their summer tour and will then handover lead vocal duties to the group's rhythm guitar player, Luis Maldonado.

Hansen spoke to New Jersey radio station WDHA-FM 105.5 FM's Terrie Carr about the decision to retire from the band and how the announcement on The Voice came about. He said, I've been in this business almost 50 years, I've been in the band 20 years and I'm singing a catalog of songs that every singer couldn't even dream of having. But it's a very demanding catalog of songs, and it doesn't get easier. I mean, the song demand never changes, but as you age, you change. And I don't wanna be out there doing these songs less than the best I can or that the songs deserve.

"So, what we decided to do was when we started kind of putting things in motion, it made all the sense in the world to go inside the band to a guy who's been with the band almost five years, who's an amazing vocalist, and have him be the singer. And it just all made sense to do it that way.

"And then we were talking about how we were gonna make this transition, and 'The Voice' called us and they said, 'We want you to play on our finale show.' And I had the idea. I called my manager, I said, 'Why don't we do the handoff live on 'The Voice'?' And he thought that was a great idea, and 'The Voice' just thought that was a great idea. And so that's how we made it happen. It was really serendipitous."