Kelly Hansen gets the sense that he's doing an admirable job as the new singer for Foreigner -- he doesn't like to say "replacement" singer -- but realizes that he's not in the best position to make that call.

"The fans have been amazing to me," he says. "Granted, I am aware that when people don't like you, they don't usually stick around after the show to tell you. So I get a skewed reading."

Hansen, who performs with the band this Saturday at PNC Park, joined Foreigner five years ago after seeing an article in the paper about a charity show that guitarist Mick Jones, founder and only original member, was doing in Santa Barbara. It was a revamping of Foreigner, which has been unstable in the vocal department since about 1990 when Lou Gramm left the first time. Gramm was briefly replaced by Johnny Edwards, which didn't go well, then returned a few years later only to be saddled with surgery for a benign brain tumor that affected his vocal abilities. Gramm and Jones played their last show together in 2002, and Gramm is now venturing into Christian rock.

The show Hansen was reading about was a Foreigner project with Bonham singer Chaz West that lasted just one night.

After reaching out to Foreigner management, Hansen says, "They eventually sent me a CD, like a karaoke kind of thing, with five original Foreigner songs, and said, 'Put your voice on these.' "

Rather than being in a Foreigner tribute band, like the new singers for Journey and Yes, Hansen's track record involved stints with '80s metal band Hurricane (a one-hit wonder with "I'm On You To" in 1988), Slash's Snakepit and a project called Perfect World. "Yeah, I was doing this for 30 years so it's not like I was on YouTube and someone discovered me," Hansen says.

When Jones got Hansen's karaoke tape back, they hooked up for a jam session that lasted about an hour and a half.

"They called an hour later and said 'Listen, we have shows booked for next weekend. Can you start rehearsing tomorrow?' So I had five days to learn the show," Hansen says.

Suddenly, he found himself in the "surreal" situation of being a member of a beloved although decimated classic rock band with 14 Top 20 hits, including "Feels Like the First Time," "Hot Blooded" and "Cold as Ice," and album sales of more than 70 million.

"Coming from a singer's point of view," he says, "I'm a male tenor rock vocalist of a similar era, and my voice is somewhere in the same bag, so I was very aware of the band and really liked the band but didn't envision doing it or have the fantasy in my head. When we decided to do it, I felt like I could, and having Mick believe in me was important."

What fans get from Hansen is a voice that is remarkably similar to Gramm's, but a totally different and darker look -- kind of a cross between Alice Cooper and Steven Tyler.

"I'm just trying to be me," Hansen says. "My feeling is that if you're trying to be something other than who you are, you're going to be insincere. It just won't be real. When you're talking about music or art or cinema or literature, if you're not being honest and real, people are going to see that."

By the same token, Jones and Hansen set out to make sure that fans would be hearing the songs they way they originally heard them on the radio.

That concept extends to "Can't Slow Down," the first album of new Foreigner material since 1994's "Mr. Moonlight." The album, which drops at Walmart exclusively on Sept. 29, is a three-disc set that consists of the new 13-track record, new punched-up remixes of the old hits and a live DVD of the Hansen-fronted band.

The new stuff, written by Jones and Hansen and produced by Marti Frederiksen (Aerosmith, Def Leppard) sounds like Foreigner being true to Foreigner -- formulaic to the late '70s but with some modern kick, as if they have heard the Foo Fighters.

"With Mick being involved and being kind of the visionary of the band, I wasn't worried about it sounding like Foreigner," Hansen says. "Here's the reality: If you're going to do a new record by a band that has been around this long, there are going to be all kinds of expectations and they're going to run across the spectrum. If you try to make a record to satisfy what you think people want, again there is a sincerity issue there. You have to make something you think is good."

As for the new remixes, Hansen says, "It makes the songs punchier and more up to date without losing what they are. I think they'll fit in on playlists better. I think sometimes a lot of tunes that are a decade or two old don't fit playlists because of volume and EQ differences, as opposed to music that's out now."

Hansen knows that new records by classic rock bands can go either way -- below the radar like '00s records by Styx or REO Speedwagon or to the top of the charts like AC/DC and the Eagles. He's going to sit back and see what happens, but thinks Foreigner fans are anxious for new stuff.

"I'm not an expectations-type person," he says. "I believe if you expect things, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment. I would rather let it be what it is and hope that the fans get it and understand it and enjoy it. That's my hope, but I can't expect that. The response is going to be what it is and that is your lot in life as a musician."