‘For one night, you’re rockstars’: Mt. Spokane Chamber Choir to back Foreigner on band’s local performance of ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’

The Mt. Spokane High School Chamber Choir has a new assignment, and it’s urgent. 

After winning a local radio contest, teacher Justin Olvey’s choral group has been alternating rehearsals with their usual classical arrangements and a song with a much more contemporary sound: Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” which they’ll be performing with the rock band at its Airway Heights concert Friday.

“It’s not Mozart, it’s not Beethoven, but it’s awesome,” Olvey reminded the choir at a recent rehearsal.  

In the powerful 1984 rock ballad, original lead singer Lou Gramm soulfully ponders the risk-reward ratio of opening himself up to love.

“In my life, there’s been heartache and pain/I don’t know if I can face it again. Can’t stop now/I’ve traveled so far to change this lonely life,” he sings leading up to the titular chorus.

Backed by the New Jersey Mass Choir for the studio recording, the song primarily written by band co-founder and original guitarist Mick Jones, along with Gramm, became Foreigner’s biggest hit. Its pleading pathos has also been used in numerous commercials and ad campaigns. 

The choir-to-Foreigner pipeline is the work of John Lappen, the band’s head of marketing and self-described “choir wrangler.” In the 19 years he’s been working behind the scenes to get local singers, usually high school kids, to back the rockers, Lappen said it’s become the highlight of his 52 years in the music industry. 

“They wake up the next day and go, ‘Was that real or a dream? Now I’m waking up and I have to go back to school – was that a dream or what?’” he said. “I tell ya, once they sing with Foreigner, they’re fans for life.”

Lappen said he and the band don’t expect the local performances to be perfect – or to convince the kids to go professional. 

“This is just about living in the moment, being a high school kid, and your choir, your high school choir in this case, won a contest to sing with Foreigner,” he said. “And for one night, you’re rockstars.”

It’s also a gift to see for the band itself, said Luis Maldonado, its new lead singer and longtime guitarist before that – especially considering how funding for the arts is lacking or virtually nonexistent at some schools. 

“This stuff matters, and it matters to these kids, and it’s a wonderful thing. You’ve got to see their faces,” Maldonado said. “It’s incredible seeing their faces.”

At Mt. Spokane on a recent early afternoon, the whiteboard was scrawled with choral notes, concert notifications and an electric guitar artfully surrounded by the famous lines the student singers have been practicing: “I want to know what love is… I want you to show me! I want to feel what love is… I know you can show me!”

Olvey’s 20 or so students sat and listened as he explained to them the intricacies of performing: what to wear, showing up on time, selling the song to an audience of “random people” – not your parents, like at most choir concerts. 

“It’s a love song; it’s about yearning and wanting. Even if it’s not love, we all yearn and want for something,” Olvey said in an interview. “And if you believe that, you’ll sell it.”

Of course, honing the fine art of performing not just with one’s vocal cords, but body language and face, takes practice. 

“Oh, my face hurts from smiling,” one student quipped. 

Junior Benjamin Haight, 17, said he’s performed in musical theater, so he’s been channeling that same combination of emoting and singing to deliver for Foreigner. 

“It’s not that much different for me,” he said. “You just practice enough until you feel comfortable enough to do it on stage.”

Senior Hailey Magee, 17, has also been working hard to make sure she captures the song’s emotions, while 18-year-old senior Angel Taylor joked that it’s a bit of a challenge since she has “resting sad face.” 

For junior Olivia Compogno, 16, harnessing the passion the song requires works best by thinking of someone she loves. 

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing,” she said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity.” 

Foreigner is a band many of the kids concede they’d never heard of before winning the contest – at least, they didn’t realize they’d heard of them until they connected the famous songs with the name. 

For many of them, it’s older loved ones who are the biggest connection to the rock band. 

“My family is all huge Foreigner fans. I think the most immense reaction was from my aunt – she was freaking out,” senior Alan Noriega, 18, said of sharing the news he’d be backing the band.

Maldonado said the concert could become an important flashpoint in the career path of these kids – no matter what that eventual job may be.

“It gives them kind of … this wild experience, you know, of, ‘I could do this,’” he said. “And even if it’s something they don’t want to do, it’s this experience that makes them go, ‘What could I find that would give me that rush?’”

Even more than it touches the rockers, Maldonado said the performance promises to be memorable for the students.

“They just experienced something that they’re going to take with them for the rest of their lives,” he said. “What an honor to be able to give that to them.”

Tickets for the concert at the Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino are available at spokanetribecasino.com/spokane-live-events/foreigner/.