Peter Frampton

Peter comes alive!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Search Podcast.
My guest today is the one and only Peter Freempton. Peter,
give us a health update.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh yes, So, for those who don't know, I have
what is called IBM inclusion body myascientists, and that is
a muscle disease and I'm losing basically, I'm losing strength
and my muscles are depleting. Luckily, I've had this probably

(00:41):
for about twelve years now, and it moves very very
slowly for me. For other people it can be very quick.
So I'm very very lucky. And therefore when people say, well,
you did the finale too, now you're doing another, and
now you're doing another too, well, I have to wait

(01:01):
until I can see how my hands are going to be,
and then we just have to guess that it'll be
okay by the time we booked the tour. So that's
the way it's been. So that's why I can't put
together something too far ahead. But I'm doing good.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Is it the type of thing where it's progressive or
one day is better than the next.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, it's it's a steady It's either we get plateaus
and then we get progression, and I've just come out
of a progression and I'm now in a plateau, which
is very nice for the tour.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
How my are the plateaus proximately how long?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I couldn't tell you. I mean, it's I just know
some some points. When I'm working I work out every day.
I have a gym upstairs, and I have two trainers
a weekend uh and and a week trainer, so that
because I wear them out if I have just one.
So but yes, so it's while working out is where

(02:16):
I feel it. You know all, I can't do this
today like I could last week or something like that.
You know. So. But but as I'm very pleased to say,
I feel like we're in a We're in a plateau
right now, which is very handy.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
So you're obviously a guitarist you need a certain amount
of dexterity. But assuming you weren't a musician, how much
functionality have you lost at this point?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, I think because I'm a musician, I haven't lost
the dexterity. In my IBM is is each side is
is a different speed. So my left side is is
is weaker than my right side, but not my hands,

(03:07):
not my left hand which I've been playing guitar since
I was eight years old, so you know, there's sixty
odd years worth of playing there. Whenever I sit down
to I might drop a tea cup or something in
my left hand, but I sit down, I pick up
a guitar and it's there. So the problem that, the

(03:30):
only problem I'm having is that the pressure to put
push down on the strings and to bend notes. So
I work on I practice that every day, obviously, and
so far it's it's remarkably good. So I have to

(03:51):
say that, even though if you see me walking with
a cane and everything, oh my god, he's really you know,
things have gone down south, you know, so, But then no,
it looks bad. But when I when I sit down
and I play, it's fine.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
And what is the long term prognosis? Uh?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, I know the endgame. It's I won't I'll be
in a wheelchair and and one day I won't be
able to even pick up the TV remote. So uh,
that's that's the endgame.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, do you die from this or do you die
know something else while you have this?

Speaker 2 (04:37):
No, hopefully not. No. This this is a life changer,
it's not a life ender. So that if it was
something else ALS, which is a similar uh uh pro

(04:57):
diagnosis to diagon knows someone with ALS and someone with IBM.
The only difference is when you first are checking for
it is that IBM is unbalanced. It's either side is

(05:18):
a different thing, and whereas ALS is absolutely the same
either side. Keep spacing on the word. But anyway, and
of course ALS. The doctor when he told me I
had IBM but needed confirmation, he said, I'm glad to

(05:40):
tell you that you have IBM and not what I
thought you had, which was ALS. So that was a
huge bonus, but still scary, you know, obviously, because I'm thinking, wow,
I play guitar, you know, and that was not a
good feeling when I first heard it. But I'm this

(06:02):
eternal optimist. My kids say to me, Dad, how come everything,
little tiny things really like that should be over there? This,
why aren't you doing that? This is you know, the
bike should be over there in the garage. But the
big things don't bother.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
You at all.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
And I said, well, because the big things there's usually
nothing I can do about them. They so why worry
about it? You know. So therefore I'm the eternal optimist,
and I think we're going to find a drug. We
don't have one right now, but my Peter Frampton Research
Fund at Johns Hopkins. Thank you everybody who keeps sending

(06:46):
money in for this wonderful fund. It's it's a lot
of money now and it enables Johns Hopkins and the
Maya Sidis Clinic to be able to hire all the
people necessary to do the next trial drug trial that

(07:06):
comes along. So that is really really helping, and I
have to thank everybody for doing that. I know a
lot of people have donated because someone in their family
has it, or you know, they know they they want
to help me, which is unbelievable. But a lot of

(07:27):
people who and it is a very boutique disease, boutique
in this case meaning few of us compared to Parkinson's cancer, dementia.
You know, this is a they say fifty to seventy

(07:48):
five thousand people in America, whereas the others I've mentioned
are exponentially larger. You know, So yes, it's just something that.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, okay. You know, typically males, although everyone is different,
are in denial of physical problems. They're the last people
to go to the doctor. What was your experience in
terms of symptoms, diagnosis, and obviously you're in a relatively
positive space right now, but how did you cope emotionally?

Speaker 2 (08:31):
The biography of this disease is basically round about two
thy and twelve, we were touring summer tour and I did.
We were doing some outdoor dates, obviously most of them
were amphitheaters and small stadiums and things like that, and

(08:57):
we were playing backstage sound check off soundcheck, we were
playing frisbee and I couldn't run as fast as I thought.
And I'd been on a hike with my son up
northern California and usually I would beat him, but I

(09:17):
couldn't come anywhere they're close. So those two things sort
of said something to me, and I said, I don't know,
maybe I'm wearing my jeans too tight. It's stupid stuff,
you know, and all the things you think because we're
not a doctor, and I've never played one on TV either,
so but I mean so anyway, Unfortunately, what happened on

(09:40):
the tour was someone you know, as they do, kicked
a huge, you know, three foot foot beach ball up
on the stage, and as you do, you go over
and you kick it back to them. You know, well,
this one of these balls is like light as air,
and I went to kick it with my right foot

(10:01):
and I went I fell backwards, and so we all laughed.
We all thought it was highly hilarious. He's fallen and
he can't get up, you know, the whole the hole,
where's the beef, the whole thing, you know. So uh,
and so that was, you know, I thought, well, something's
going on here. But then two or three weeks later,

(10:26):
I bent down on stage and I still use a
guitar chord. I hate wirelesses and doesn't sound good. And
my cable got shorter as I got to the ground
and I stepped on it and then I went to
stand up, and of course it kept me and I
just went back again. So there wasn't so much laughter

(10:48):
this time. And we had a ten day break coming up,
and I decided. My doctor said, you need to see
a neurologist. Let's see what's going on here. And so
I went see the neurologist on the break and he
the initial diagnosis was IBM and he said, so I said, well, okay,

(11:12):
what do I do now? And he said, you call
up doctor Christopher Stein at Johns Hopkins make an appointment,
and she's the head of the Myacidas clinic and in
this country, well in Johns Hopkins, and so I did.

(11:34):
I went up and had a painful test that they
do with electrodes and stuff to find this the it's inclusions.
They're looking for these little tiny round things that are
inside my muscles, and so in order to prove it

(11:55):
one hundred percent, I had to have a muscle biopsy
and where they found the most inclusions was in my
arm up here, so I have a little little scar there.
And but I have to say, as an aside, someone
knew that I must be a guitar player. Because as

(12:16):
they wheeled me into the operating room, or as we
say in England the operating theater, Django Reinhart was playing
and I said, all right, then, who's read my bio?
So and I they said that that the nurse said,

(12:40):
as soon as you were unconscious, the doctor said, let's
get this shit off and let's put on some conws.
So anyway that might be not an untruthed but it's
a good joke. But so anyway, yes, and of course
the the the test came back and it was positive.
So I continued, and I didn't say anything for about

(13:03):
four years until I went on vacation with my daughter
Mia and we went to Hawaii, went to Maui and
some people took us out on their boat, which was
very nice, and I fell on the boat and I
I broke a bone in my back, and I said,

(13:28):
I think I ought to slow down here. Now this
is getting a little crazy. So I was the next week,
I was going up to New York to meet with
Ken Levitton, my manager, and we were shopping a book deal.
We were looking for a publisher, which we found well

(13:49):
in between in each cab, right between the publishers. We
were talking and and I said, Ken, I think I
think we You know, we were scheduled to do a tour,
a co headline tour with Alice and a dear friend,
wonderful man and friend for so long, and his lovely wife.

(14:12):
And Ken said, I think we ought to cancel that
and make this your finale tour, because if we don't
know how long this, no one has any idea. That's
the problem with this. So no one had any idea
of how long I would be able to play. And
I had always thought I don't want to be one

(14:36):
of those guys that goes out and can play one note.
And you know, I said, I want to quit while
I'm doing well, and I'm playing well. And then when
we did the after the Finale tour, we got shut
down because it was twenty nineteen, we did American Canada

(15:01):
and we were going to play the Albert Hall and
the rest of England and Europe in May Well got
shut down in March. Everybody got shut down. So I thought,
I'm never going to get to England to you know,
say goodbye to the old country, you know, Blighty. And

(15:26):
it was a little disappointing, but I said, you know,
everyone has the same situation right now as far as
not being able to work, so I can't. That's it's
something else I have that means so much to me, obviously.
And so when COVID two and a half years later,

(15:47):
my agent dangled a Royal Albert Hall date at me
and I said, oh my god, well, I don't know,
I don't know if I can do this, you know,
so or by the time it was a few months before,
you know, because you have you have to book it
in advance. So that's always the problem, you know, I

(16:09):
can book it now. But will I be okay? Then? Well,
I made sure that I was okay because that's the
way I am, and I don't let stuff get to
me too much, and my moments don't get me wrong.
But practicing and has my playing changed, I would say

(16:31):
to myself, Yes, but what I'm playing now I think
is almost better. It might not be as fast, but
it's less notes, more soul. And I just we started
rehearsing and I was just having the time of my life,
you know, So I thought, well, because it it gives

(16:54):
me so much enjoyment, I'm gonna whether I can play
like I could before or not. If I like what
I'm playing, it's okay. But when I get to the
point where it's like Kim and Pete, that's that's not good,
then I'll stay home. But right now, I still feel

(17:14):
that I've got uh at least this tour, these four
weeks in this in the spring, and I know it's
going to be great.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Okay, you live in Nashville. Do you live alone?

Speaker 2 (17:32):
I live with a big black dog who's sleeping over
there right now, Bigsby. Yes, I do live alone.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
I have.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Had a relationship recently that unfortunately broke up, but but
we both have our own house. I think the way
it used to be in relationships when you started to
get a little wise, was okay, well, if you're going
to live in the same house, at least two sinks
in the barroom. And then it got to a point
where at least two bathrooms, and now it's separate houses.

(18:08):
In the relationship last a lot longer. So that's where
I'm at. I don't think I could actually I'm not
sure I could actually cohabitate with anybody anymore.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
But I.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
Look forward to a you know, a relationship in the
near future.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Well, I guess I'm asking, since you have a progressive
disease and you might need aid help, do you feel
that being single leaves you at a loss.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
I have a wonderful family and my daughter who lived
in Manhattan with her husband Sat Jade and Sam. They
got this wonderful small place up in Manhattan on the
east Upper East Side, and they were in Seventh Heaven
and then Jay got pregnant and she gave birth on

(19:10):
April the sixth, twenty twenty, in the absolute peak of
Manhattan's COVID, which, if you remember, it was the worst
place in the country, and only that morning did the
governor give partners or husbands or white whatever permission to

(19:32):
actually be in the birthing room while so she was
allowed to have her husband in there. Sam was allowed in,
but as soon as el was born, he had to leave.
And there wasn't a lot of help for Jay because

(19:54):
all the nurses were you nowhere in the hospital dealing
with what was going on and anyway, So as soon
as she got home and spent a couple of months
home in the apartment during still during COVID, I get
the call we're moving. I said, what, but you said
you'd never leave Manhattan. You're just Sam group was born

(20:18):
in Manhattan's yeah, now with the baby. I said, well,
where can you be moving to? She said, Nashville. I said,
oh my god, that's fantastic. I said, great, we'll get
your place around the corner. And we did. We've got
them a house around the corner. And so I see
my granddaughter and my daughter and her husband, the family.

(20:41):
I see them just about every day. And my daughter
works for me. Now. She left her job in Manhattan
and she's got a full time job with l obviously,
but she works part time for me and comes over
and helps me during the day. So I'm okay. At
some point, I probably we will need a nurse or

(21:02):
someone at night, you know, to to help me. But
as of the moment, no, I've I've got the family here,
so I'm I'm very lucky.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Okay, you lived in Cincinnati. How did you ultimately decide
to move to Nashville? And obviously you have physical issues
at this point, but to what degree did you interact
to the scene in Nashville as opposed to just being
Peter Freempt that I happened to live in Nashville.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yes, we lived there because of family reasons. We were
living that's my previous wife. We were living in Cincinnati
during to due to family reasons. We'd lost granddad, so
our daughter Mia and Tina wanted to be close. I

(22:01):
knew it. I said, we're moving back. I got it.
It's it's the right thing to do. And I met
a lot of musicians in Cincinnati, went to clubs and
stuff like that. There's great music up there, a lot
of jazz and blues and R and B and stuff
like that, which was right up my alley. So but

(22:24):
and then at one point when we lost George Harrison,
which was November. I forget exactly the year.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
I think it was two thousand and maybe nineteen ninety,
and I think it was one of those.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Right, And I had said that I wanted to do
a concert to raise money for local venues and things
like that for the community and do a free show
and have every good local band on and I'd be

(23:05):
the headliner. And so it was very very successful and
we raised a lot of money and that that the
night before I called the band members up and I said, look,
I think I would like to do a tribute to
George at this show and for the last number, can

(23:31):
you all listen to while my guitar gently weeps, And
we rehearsed it at the soundcheck, and we did it
that night, and the audience didn't shut up. I mean,
it went on and on and on and on and on.
It was so emotional because we only a couple of months.
This was in January, we'd lost George in November. I think,

(23:52):
so very emotional. But we've played that number every night
ever since as the last a kiss off, as it were,
saying goodbye to everybody. And yes, so Cincinnati was very
important in many ways. I mean, I had a wonderful
studio in my house in my basement. I recorded three

(24:14):
of my albums there. So yeah, it was. It was
very instrumental in my career at that point. But when
finally I we got divorced, I ended up with the
house and there I am in this wonderful house with
the studio in Cincinnati. But I'm living alone now, and

(24:39):
I thought, well, I'm going to just move back to Nashville.
So I said, we're all my museo friends are, and
and so that that's why I moved back down here.
And I didn't build a studio this time. Well this
is my music room, but I bought a studio because
at that time when I bought here, two thousand and

(25:01):
eight wasn't too far in the distance, and things had
plummeted obviously, so and studios, smaller studios were while they
weren't getting so much work because everybody's got pro tools
on their iPad, you know, in the bathroom, you know,

(25:22):
let alone the garage. And so someone said to me,
you should go. And I was looking for a place
to just dump my recording stuff in a room somewhere
in rent space, you know, And and so someone said
we should go and look at the studio. So I said, well,
I can't buy anything, you know, I just bought a

(25:44):
condo and so anyway, I went there and fantastic place,
you know, so and I thought, oh gosh, wouldn't this
be amazing? So I said, so, who's your business manager
to the owner and he said, Gary Haber. I said,

(26:05):
that's my business manager too. Maybe we can work something out.
So he needed something, I needed something, and I ended
up with the studio for a very fair price. And
I still have it now, and it's it's been improved,
and lots of people recording there now so apart from me,
so it's it's phenomenal. So I'm I'm a studio owner

(26:28):
in Nashville.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Okay, you talk about getting divorced A you're a rock star,
be you've married three times. What can you tell us
about relationships?

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Oh gosh, Well, I'm I'm a person who jumps into things,
probably ahead of the time. I should and I should
think more about certain things to do with a relationship.

(27:08):
And I think for me, I had been living with
my parents. I left when I was sixteen seventeen. I
moved out with a lot of screaming going on from
my dad and mom. I moved out with and moved
into a flat in London with my girlfriend, who then

(27:31):
became my wife, and we are still the best of
friends and lifelong friends. Maybe we should have met later on,
but I think that. And then yeah, my point is,
so I go straight from living at home to living

(27:55):
with my girlfriend get married. Then that ends. I moved
straight in with another girlfriend. We don't get married, thank god,
and then that ends viciously. And then I was alone
for a while and let's see, yes, then met somebody

(28:20):
else very quickly and moved in with them, and they
moved in with me, and we started having children. And
my wife, Barbara, who is the second one, we're still
incredibly good friends. And she's moved to Nashville now too,
so she's so. But as far as I needed, I

(28:47):
never because I was so obsessed with music and I
just needed a relationship to get into, to have ground,
you know, to have a basis for living, I think,
and and I didn't really I've never thought about is

(29:10):
this right for me or if you know. It's weird
to say, but it's it's like I took things. I
didn't take things seriously enough, I think, and if i'd
have played the field like most people do, most guys

(29:31):
or girls do when they first leave home and get
their they get their apartment on their own, and then
they play the field. And then hopefully I didn't do that.
I just I short circuited all that and just would
just move straight in, you know. And I think that's
where I made my mistakes other you know, I can't
say for other people, you know, but that for me.

(29:54):
Wash yeah, impulsive, Yes I am.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
How did these relationships end? Uh?

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, that's rather personal, Bob.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Well, I guess I wasn't looking for it. Let me
just go halfway. Everyone says it's equal, but it never is.
You have multiple relationships. Are you the one who leaves?
Are they the one who leaves? Or every relationship is different?

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Oh, every relationship is different. I think I've ended and
I've been ended. Okay, I've played both sides of the fence,
as it were, or the ending. So I've experienced both,
and neither one is what I would call enjoyable.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
So okay, you have this incredible upbeat attitude, and I
have only known you subsequent to your incredible success.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Were you always this bright? Sunny guy.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
No, I was very introverted and insecure all that stuff. Well,
I'm probably still insecure, but not to the group degree
I was when I was seventeen eighteen. Yeah, I went

(31:26):
from being as a child, you know, I was, I
was a normal child, you know, crazy, and then when
it got to twelve thirteen, that that time period where
music was becoming all important to me, I kind of

(31:47):
became antisocial. I think because I was I'd much prefer
to be in my room learning another Eric Clapton solo.
Then I would be to go out and see a
movie with my friends or do whatever. So I kind
of cut myself off from people that way. And the

(32:09):
only person at that time that I saw well about
when I was fifteen or sixteen was Mary, was my
first ended up being my first wife, and she was
very instrumental in helping me at that time in many ways,
so with my career.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
And but yeah, well I guess I'm saying, when did
things turn such that you became relative to someone as
successful as yourself, very easy going, have a laugh at yourself.
When did that happen?

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Well, I've always been a little bit like that, But
I think when I think being successful with the first band,
The Herd, gave me confidence in myself that I've achieved something,
you know, and that it's not this a wonder. It's
not a wonder anymore. It's I did. I did put

(33:18):
a record out with this band, and and we've had
three big hits. You know. I'm now in a successful band.
This is I never imagined that. I never I never
knew it would happen. I imagined it, but I never knew
it would happen. And when it happened, I think it
just opened me up and gave me that when you

(33:43):
go out on stage and you get like so many
thousand people clap in and shout shouting your name, it
gives you a nice feeling, you know. And that started
happening in The Herd and continued, you know, with Humble
Pie and so and by the time I was a

(34:03):
solo artist, I kind of went back. I had because
I'd spent two to three years with Humble Pie, leaving
before the live album Humble Pie's live album came out
was everyone thought I was crazy, but it was the
right time for me to leave. Then after mixing that

(34:25):
album with Eddie Kramer, I left and then I knew
it was going to be their first really successful album.
We just knew it was. It was so evident that
we were giving the audience what they wanted, which was
our live show. And so yeah, I think then I

(34:47):
got a little bit, went back into my shell a
little bit, and and had to start at the bottom
of the ladder again. Okay, I was a couple of
rungs up, but only couple. And then you know, it
wasn't for another four to five years before well four

(35:10):
years and the Frampton album came out, which had shown
me the way and Baby, I'll have your Way studio
versions on it, and that all of a sudden took
off regionally now you know, and I know what regional breakout,
but nobody else does anymore. But we were huge. I

(35:34):
was huge in San Francisco first and foremost. For some reason, Kasan,
the aor top station in the Bay Area, took to
the Frampton album like you wouldn't believe. And I was
all of a sudden, I was on the air like

(35:56):
twenty four to seven in San Francisco, a little bit
less in New US and probably the same as New
York in in Detroit. Those three places were I was
having a regional breakout. It's not a disease, folks, It's
it's the fact that all of a sudden, radio stations

(36:18):
weren't programmed by one person for the whole country or
a company, you know, they were each area, Each region
was in charge of its own playlist, which meant that
you could have a regional breakout in San Francisco and
in New York. They wouldn't know anything about you, you know,

(36:40):
but you could be huge and be headlining in San
Francisco and opening the bill in in New York or
Philadelphia wherever. And it was. It was very interesting that
that whole thing. And I think when we went up
to seventy five to play Winterland, which was to promote

(37:07):
the Frampton album, it wasn't we decided that we would
record and do possibly do a live album because I
was following the template of Humble Pie. Humble Pie, we'd
had four solo albums and then everyone said, Jerry Mors

(37:28):
de'anthony the band, we also we should do a live album,
so we did. And I always think of of Rock
on the album before that as like my Frampton album,
and it was that Rock on Album also was breaking
out regionally, and so we knew that we could do

(37:49):
a live album and it's good. There was a good
chance it was going to be successful. How successful we
didn't know. And uh So at that point, uh I've left,
it becomes a huge hit and I'm on back on

(38:12):
the back, on the bottom rung again. But it took me,
uh the same amount of time it took uh two
to write those songs that are on the live record
was a six year period. One year of humble Pie
for shine On and then the rest are all cherry

(38:35):
picking from my four solo records and and then a
cover of the Stones. And so at that point when
I when we walked out on stage for the very
first time headlining in a major city like San Francisco Interland,

(39:00):
there's like eight thousand people there where you can hear
on the album what it sounded like, you know, and
we were taken aback by the reaction. And I think
that through humble Pie, the herd, humble Pie and now
this acceptance, I think it definitely gives you more confidence,

(39:25):
but it also worries you, what are you going to
do next? So but yeah, I think that I just
grew up and got more confident along the way. And
I actually think the downs, the pitfalls were more important

(39:46):
than the successes, because I, you know, talking about comes
Alive inasmuch as you go down to from being the
bigiggest thing in the world for eighteen months two years
to who wein, you know, by nineteen eighty one or something.

(40:12):
We're talking about. Seventy six is when the album came out,
So seventy nine eighty eighty one, it was deteriorating. The
music I was putting out after that wasn't as good.
I was being rushed into recording and stuff like that.
And so I think that my character building time was

(40:35):
mostly the time it took me from the early eighties
to the two thousands to come back and to get
a Grammy for doing for not singing, for playing guitar.
You know, in two thousand and six I got the

(40:59):
ground me for Best Pop Instrumental Album, not just the track,
the whole album, which again stuff like that. I never
thought that there was a possibility again after the Big
four of anything like that. And I remember as I
was walking out, numb with this big shit eating grin

(41:24):
on my face, thinking what the hell just happened? I'm
holding a Grammy and I see this guitar player. No,
I didn't know it was guitar player. I saw these
two people, this guy and this lady running towards me,
and I suddenly realized it's Larry Carlton and his wife.

(41:47):
And he just launches himself on me and gives me
the biggest hug because I just beat him out in
the category too. And it doesn't get any better or
make you feel like King Kong when the guitarists guitarist
who's played on all those Steely Dan records that we
all love and wonder how he did those solos, comes

(42:10):
and gives you a big hug that I think was
almost more important to me than the Grammy. And from
that moment on, I've always been this happy, go lucky guy.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Just to stay on this one point for years now.
You know you mentioned when you're on stage as part
of a song, you change the lyric I've lost my hair.
You poke fun at yourself, whereas your contemporary some household names.
Some are wearing wigs even though people don't know it.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
I know it.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Others have gotten plastic surgery. You were also known for
your hair. Is that just your personality? To make fun
of yourself or how did you own that?

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Oh? I think it comes from my parents and our family.
We never took ourselves too seriously, and we were all
always making fun of each other and of ourselves, you know.
My father was like that, you know, he would he
would make himself the butt of the joke, you know.
And my mother too, So we had great humor in

(43:27):
our household. And my mother is the of the two
of them. My mother was the one that I think
I got the eternal optimism from. And I remember I
was being forced in to do this record I'm Innew

(43:50):
which shouldn't have come out for another four years as
far as I'm concerned. But anyway, and I said, oh,
and they were. They were staying my parents were staying
with me at the time in New York up in Westchester,
and I was getting ready to do I was starting
to record an Electric Lady, I'm in You. And I said, gosh,

(44:10):
I wish I could get Stevie Wonder to, you know,
play a harmonica solo for me and my mom just
in SA call him up. I said, I can't. Just yes,
you can, I said, well, how do I call? Call Motown?

(44:31):
They'll know who you are now, Peter. So I called
up Motown and lo and behold. A few minutes later,
I get a call from Stevie Wonder and I'm I'm speechless,
but I'm trying very hard to converse with him. And

(44:54):
I said, he said, what can I do for you? Know?
So congratulations, Oh thank you, Stevie wondered. And and so
I said, do you think there's any possibility? I mean,
I think you understand what a big fan I am

(45:15):
and we all are of you. Would you ever think
about coming and doing some harmonica for me? And he
said when do you want me there?

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Gosh? So and then there is there's a human story
out of out of that. And my birthday was about
after that. He came to the session played Mick Jagger
was in the room while he was doing it. Was
it was just very heavy stuff, you know, and I'm

(45:47):
jumping up and down and it's just all my birthdays
and Christmases came at once. Seeing Stevie Wonder playing harmonica
out there in the studio for me, you know, it
was wonderful. And so anyway, my birthday was a couple
of weeks later, and some people brought me a cake
and stuff, and then we're trying to record and then

(46:09):
the door opens and I see Calvin Stevie's brother, and I, oh, no.
Stevie came to my birthday party and brought me a Nakamichi,
the high end cassette player, you know, stereo, big big thing.
It was huge, but it was like really pro and

(46:30):
these headphones that had microphones in them, so you could
have the headphones plug it into the Nakamichi and you'd
hear you you could record what you were playing, you know.
So I couldn't believe that. And we had some champagne
going around and I asked him, would you sing some backup?
He said, I'm too drunk now, So that was I

(46:50):
didn't get him to sing. But but anyway, and then
the story is I had a horrible car crash in
nineteen seventy seven. All right, I'm not sure now, wow,
I usually know that right off. But it was July second,

(47:12):
seventy seven or seventy eight, and I was in the
Bahamas and I was broken. I was a broken mess.
And they sent a plane down for me, my doctor
from New York and my manager came put me in
a lear jet took me back to Lennox Hill and
they started to mend me, you know. And so it's

(47:37):
I have a private nurse at night just in case,
and two guards outside my door, who one of them
used to take my mother. My mother stayed with me too,
which was wonderful, and she was staying at the hotel
right down the street, so he would take her home
every night at night. And anyway, and so this nurse,

(48:02):
my nurse comes in and said, mister Frampton, you have
a phone call. I said, what time is it. She
said it's three thirty am, mister Frampton. Uh, you don't
want to take this to you. I said, well, who
is it? And she said it's a mister wonder So

(48:24):
he'd gone to all the trouble to find out what
hospital I'm in and actually get to my floor where
the nurses so they brought you know, they plugged me
in and everything, and it's Stevie and he said, man,
I'm so sorry to hear about Hey. I just called
you up to cheer you up, man. And and what

(48:47):
he then did was he was either in the studio
or in his music room at home, and he said,
I've just recorded these three tracks, but I haven't put
the vocal on yet. You want to hear them? What
are you going to say?

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Say no?

Speaker 2 (49:01):
So he's singing into the phone with these back in
tracks going, and to this day I have never heard
those three tracks. They are still in the archives, and
they were, of course unbelievable, especially when you're getting a

(49:21):
live vocal from from the West Coast at three point
thirty in the morning in New York. And so it
doesn't life doesn't get better than that. So it's very
it's very hard for me to take things too seriously
when stuff like that happens.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
You know, let's go back to the double live album
seventy six. You know, there are a lot of rumors
that not all the tracks were recorded where they said
they were. That was an era, you know, in nineteen
sixty eight, Big Brother they record a live album, it's
unusable and they ultimately create a live album of the studio,

(50:01):
that double live album. To what degree was it's swedened
in the studio changed? If it all?

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Okay? I made a rule that if it made it
to the truck, we would not replace it. If it
didn't make it to the truck for whatever reason, we
would have to put it on because it wasn't there.

(50:28):
So the piano on Go to the Sun was, you know, crackling.
It was intermittent all the way through. So Bob Mayo
had to go into Electric Lady, and I don't know
how he did it, but he had to play exactly

(50:49):
what he played live, you know, and redid that okay.
On Show Me the Way is the only time I
used a different amplifier for my guitar, and but they
forgot to move the microphone to the other amplifier because
they didn't have that many mics those days. So my

(51:09):
rhythm guitar on Show Me the Way had to be
replaced because it didn't exist. Same thing with the acoustic
Baby Out of Your Way, it was intermittent again, crackling.
So that's about it. Anything anything else. You can't replace

(51:35):
lead vocals, even though I might have replaced a part
of Something's Happening vocal the very beginning because I was
the clemped, but that was it. But anything else that
didn't make it to tape we left. You can't redoce

(51:56):
solos because you wouldn't be able to have or vocals
because you wouldn't be able to have the audience up
that loud, you'd hear it, you'd hear the other track.
So I would say ninety seven ninety eight percent of
Frampton Comes Alive is absolutely live. And there are three
places where I'm sorry, four places where stuff came from.

(52:23):
The bulk of the show comes from Winterland, the acoustic
section because it was a slightly better acoustics for the
acoustics in Marine Civic Center. So those three songs, those
three songs came from Marin. We went back mixed a

(52:44):
single live album. Then Jerry Moss, the m of A
and M came and listened to the single album and
he just said, oh my god, he said, where's the rest?
We said, what do you mean the rest? Said, well,
we didn't want to do a double album because I
haven't really earned you that much money. I was worried

(53:07):
they were going to drop me, you know, and so
he gave me the go ahead, go out and record
some let's make it a double album. Oh gosh, okay.
So the ones we redid or where they came from,
we went out and did about six more shows Comac
Long Island. The arena there that the hockey arena that

(53:31):
doesn't exist anymore, is where show Me the Way it
comes from and that was engineered by Eddie Kramer, and
Baby I Love Your Way comes from and New York
University Plattsburgh in Plattsburgh, and I think the ticket price

(53:53):
then was like three twenty five and out of that,
and Chris Kimsey was in the chart for that. So yes,
So we came back and right before Christmas in seventy five,
we mixed those and the other ones that we hadn't

(54:16):
the acoustics said would have changed all that stuff. We
recorded more. We mixed more stuff. And because they were
only on the original live album, the single one there
was only five tracks, and Show Me the Way and
Baby I Love Your Way were not on it.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Just to stay on the live album. My favorite cut
of yours, though I love I Want to Go to
the Sun, is the opening cut on the second side
of the first album, All I Want to Be Is
by your Side. The second half of that is a
long electric instrumental. How did this become an acoustic number?

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Okay, there's a very good reason for them. You have
to see this face here.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Wow, that's Peter's dog. We're audio only, but very well
behaved in uh, very hairy.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Very hairy, he's a he's a black golden doodle.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Look at that love He's so lovely. Anyway, sorry about that,
I forgot what we're talking about now.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Which about all I want to be is by yourself, all.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Right, right, right? So we didn't have we were we
were not headlining, so we were doing forty five minutes
to an hour, and then all of a sudden, in
the middle of the tour, we have this headline gig

(55:49):
at Winterland and we need at least an hour and
a half. So that's when I said, well, I've got
a penny few thoughts. I could do all I want
to be acoustic, and I could do Wind of Change acoustic.
So we got those three and then I think we
added I'm not sure what other number we added, but

(56:10):
an electric one as well. But that's how it became acoustic.
And now we're back to doing it electric on stage,
which is so good.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
So to what de we playing today? Do you feel
that you have to deliver what the audience wants in
terms of song choices and to what deg we? Is
that fine with you? Or would you like to put
other material in?

Speaker 2 (56:34):
It's up to me. It's I'm out there to enjoy myself.
I'm lucky that they seem to like what I choose
to play. But there's no way they're not going to
hear songs that they really like. You know that they've
known me for so I do it all. I don't

(56:55):
hold back. I don't say I'm not doing my single.
I can't stand that. Uh no, that's that's not me.
I get do. I enjoy doing show Me the Way
and Baby, I Love you Way, Yes, because I enjoy
seeing the faces of the people and the couples looking
at each other and going you know, and they've obviously

(57:19):
either got married to it or I don't know what.
But there's so many wonderful stories. This last tour, which
was the never Say Never to, because I had said
at the end of the finale tour, I'm gonna fight this,

(57:40):
so never say never, and everybody went all right, you know,
and so obviously I called it. They never say never
to And this one is to never ever say never
to her. We'll stop there. If I do more, it'll
be different. But so anyway, yeah, he's not ill at
all anymore to he so but so uh yes, so

(58:07):
Rob my bandleader, and I robbed Rob Arthur and I
got to got together and we listened to a bunch
of my solo albums, which was painful for me, but
just to find find a couple that we'd never done
before ever, you know, so I decided we decided to

(58:31):
do uh I Got My Eyes on You, which is
the opening cut from Frampton's Camel and it's such a
so great to play, never played it live before. And
and also one from the Frampton record that's very low
key jazzy, the crying clown and they go nuts for

(58:54):
the crying clown. It's it's it's wild actually, how so
I anyway, those are two I didn't really choose those
because people had said to me, you know, we'd love
to hear this, or love to hear It's what I
want to do, you know. It's like this this album

(59:16):
that I wrote you about that I'm working on now
that when will you know it's very well, I'll know
when it's ready, when I'm happy with it, And I
really don't care if anybody else is happy with it
at all. It's what I feel is what I need

(59:39):
to be doing right now. Like I'm sitting in the
room where I'm putting all these songs together over quite
a few years already, but it took me a lot
of years to do those write those songs Comes of Live.
So I'm in no rush. Obviously. I have another an
IBM clock as well that I'll be able to play.

(01:00:01):
But I'm playing guitar on these demos as we as
we go along, so I'm making sure that there's something
there always. But it's I had so many people telling
me what they thought was best for me in the
seventies after the success of Comes Alive that and I

(01:00:22):
listened to all of them, and I made terrible mistakes.
So I I have an area of my stomach that
lights up with a certain feeling when I know this
is something I shouldn't be doing. And I hope we
all go by our gut because and I went against
it many times early on, and now I just do

(01:00:49):
what I want to do when I want to do it.
It's I'm lucky that I can. It's not like I'm
making this album to have you know, a mega you know,
and I'm selling out. No, No, I know that's not
gonna happen. But it's it's gotta be what what I

(01:01:09):
want it to be. My my level of perfection, and
I'll throw a song out that I've been working on
for three weeks if I get to a point where
I say, well, I don't think it's cutting it now.
I thought I liked it, but so I'll move on
gone next. So I don't. I don't. I don't baby
those songs anymore. It's either in or it's out. And

(01:01:34):
and I tend to write the lyrics. I'll have a
song title, but I tend to write the lyrics after
I write the music. I'm that kind of way. And
so I can have a great track and great melody,
and I know I'm gonna write words to that, but
I can if it's not a great track and a
great melody and it's turning me on like crazy, I'm

(01:01:57):
I'm not going to finish it, because why you know?

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
How did you mean? The year.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
I knew he'd saved the good stuff for last de
Anthony humble Pie were with Andrew Oldham. We had signed
management and record label. I don't think we'd even signed anything. Actually,
I'm not sure. Probably the record label and the publishing.

(01:02:33):
I don't think we signed a management contract, but who knows.
And he Unfortunately Immediate Records went broke and he uh,
he led us out of our contract so that we
could go and get We'd had two albums, the Safest

(01:02:53):
Yesterday is in Town and Country. We'd had one big
hit in England and Europe, natural Bornboogie. And so he
he shouldn't have let us out of our contract because
we were an asset to the company, but he did.
But he couldn't let us have our publishing because he said,
I got to give them something, so which we got

(01:03:17):
back in the end, but it took a while. But
what he did do and Andrew's a terrific friend and
we text all the time. He's wonderful did dear lifelong
friend and and uh so he said, okay, you're going
to go and see all. You're going to see Warner Brothers,

(01:03:39):
A and M Atlantic, Uh, this one, that one, and
this is what you want to ask for? And so
he said, you want, uh, you want to ask for
three hundred thousand advance for four years, two albums a year.

(01:04:01):
And I forget what the percentage was that at that point.
So Steve Merritt and I went to see every record
label in London, American or British and we gave the
same story until we got to A and M. Jerry
Greenberg and Armat Erdigon, who was one of my dearest

(01:04:25):
I loved Armen and he was very very nice to me,
phenomenal and as a friend and anyway, and they left
and went back to to New York thinking they got.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Us Atlantic records.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Yes, and so the next day we go and see
Larry Yaskell, the UK president of A and M Records.
So we're given the spiel, what do you want? And
to my surprise, you know, Andrews said three hundred thousand.

(01:05:07):
Asked for three hundred thousand and so and I'm going, well,
we'd like to and Steve goes four hundred thousand, and
I didn't, you know, obviously I didn't flinch because I
didn't want to give the game away, you know. And
Larry said, well, I think let me. I think I
should call Jerry right now and see if we've got

(01:05:28):
a deal here. So he goes out of the room
and I look step from oh my god, you just
up to thee hundred grand and he said, well, all
I could do is say now. So he was right,
and that's bravado for you. And Larry comes back in
ten minutes later we've got a deal. So we all

(01:05:53):
got one hundred grand out of that each, you know,
over four years. You know, well I didn't get the
last years because I left, but but we all did
extremely well out of that, and thanks to Andrew first
of all, and then Steve for upping it. So and

(01:06:16):
I've forgotten the question, but I know this was leading
up to it. D Anthony all right, yeah, so there
were going, okay, well, Andrew can't be our manager anymore. Okay,
all right, So Greg Ridley, who was formerly with Spooky Tooth,
had been to America and toured. They were an island

(01:06:42):
act Chris Blackwell. But Chris Blackwell didn't want to be
the manager in America. He needed a manager, a co
manager and an agency. Well, he went straight to Frank Barcelona,
Premier Talent, the biggest stages in the world at that
at that time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
He said, well, I'll manage Spooky Tooth Joe Corker, you
know he did The Mad Dogs and Englishman to all that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
Well a little bit slower. You mentioned Frank, but you
didn't say how d came into it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Oh sorry, sorry, Okay, So therefore Frank Hauld ask D
T can you manage these acts from Chris Blackwell over here?
He doesn't want to handle that here, so D gets involved.
Therefore he gets spooky tooth as well. And obviously they

(01:07:38):
did very well. When they were over there with D
and Greg said well, I know this. You know one
America manager and he's he's really good, I think, you know.
And so we said, well, let's call him up see Ifield.
And so he came over to England and met with us,

(01:08:01):
and you know, he kind of reminded me of a
mob boss, you know, but but very funny, very amiable, uh,
very on it music. And he was already working with
Jay Giles and so and they were they'd already just

(01:08:24):
had a hit with their live album, I think the
first one single live album. So anyway, uh he then
D then said well, I've called Frank Barcelona and he'll
be your agent over there. So that's how the whole
thing got set up. And then but in the in

(01:08:45):
the same time we got all got the same lawyer
and all got the same business manager. Mmm. So that
was ominous. We didn't realize when you've got no money,
no one can seal it from you. So everything went

(01:09:07):
swimmingly for a long time until all of a sudden,
rock On comes out and we start doing really well.
You know, we're not opening the bill, we're middle spot
and sometimes you know, small theater headline, you know, so uh,
you know, everything everything started to happen at that point,

(01:09:29):
and we all thought. We all thought D was a genius,
you know, and Frank, and we were very thankful to
be involved with them, you know, So yes, and that
that's how it all started.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Okay, D is the manager for Humble Pie. How does
the end up becoming your personal manager when you go solo?
And then what happens?

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Well, luckily Jerry Moss wanted to keep me as a
solo artist, so I was. I was, I think, on
the same contract as I was under Humble Pie, but
just because I was signed individually as well. So that
was okay, And then D said he'd still manage me.

(01:10:21):
I said, great, Frank's still there. So I went back
and started at the bottom again and opened the bill
for as many people as I can remember, you know,
or anybody can remember. If you name a band from
that era, I've opened for them, you know. And I've
never been I've never been afraid of hard work. And

(01:10:43):
playing live is my love. So, you know, off I go,
and every every year I take a little bit of time.
Every year to eighteen months, I take a little bit
of time off, not enough to write and record. The
next album, Wind of Change, was done over quite a

(01:11:07):
long period. Actually, in came out in seventy two. It
was done in seventy one, and that was during my
session period where I was part of the George Harrison
kind of session team and you know, played with a

(01:11:28):
lot of a lot of artists and and a lot
with with George obviously. But so then having taken my
time over Wind of Change, whether it was it wasn't
loaded with hits, that's for sure, but it was loaded
with what I wanted to be on the album, which

(01:11:48):
is kind of where I'm at now, you know. So,
and it came out and to a little fanfare. I
think I toured a little late coming over because I
had to get the band together and rehearse it and
all that. But that's how it started out. And then
every every now and again, time would be to write,

(01:12:11):
do another time to do Frampton's Camel and then it
was time to do something's happening and touring in between
so tour album to an album to an album to
a no no break, you know, except for the time
allotted to writing, and it was usually a month so

(01:12:37):
and then back on the road again month to right
six weeks to do the album, back on tour.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
So that was it? Okay? If d Anthony had not
been your manager, would you have had the same success?

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
I will truthfully say I don't believe so, because because
he was bombastic in his he would fight tooth and
nail for his artist. And he would even even as
well as Jerry Moss and Gil Frieson and Frank Barcelona

(01:13:20):
and he got along. He would ruffle feathers along the
way if he thought any of them weren't doing a
good job. You know it was he could be ferocious
to a fault, you know, and but he got the
job done, you know. So what about the money, Well,

(01:13:43):
as I said, first of all, there was no money,
and A and M was giving me to a support.
That means they were giving me the shortfall of so
that I didn't I didn't lose money that we would
break even because we're in those days. We were doing

(01:14:04):
them a favor by going out to promote the album,
by working I don't worry that way anymore. So then
we get to the Frampton album and I've still got
same business manager, same lawyer, And that's not good right there.

(01:14:27):
And and I'm a novice when it comes to business.
I've never I'm not really interested in never been interested
in finance, unfortunately, you know, that's just the way I am.
I am now, but no back then anyway, So I'm

(01:14:48):
in you comes out and he's sending me. All the
money went to d not to the business manager, but
all moneys went to the manager. And then it's when
you have it in front of you, it's very hard
to go but I owe this person how much? Do I? Well,

(01:15:11):
let's just give them this amount, you know, because I
want to keep this for me. You know. It's it's
very very hard when it's there on the table and
virtually in cash, you know. And but you know I
wouldn't be like that, you know, most people the team

(01:15:32):
I have now, that would never happen, obviously, because what
he did was you could have had He always used
to say, a career. You got to think about longevity,
You got to think about the road I had. You
can't manage you for now, you know, Meanwhile, if you
rip the artist off, now what does that say for

(01:15:56):
the longevity because he's going to leave you when he
finds out. So that's a conundrum right there, you know.
So so anyway, I was waiting for my publishing money
because obviously I did the publishing company through him. Fram
D Music supposed to be fifty to fifty, but it

(01:16:20):
was what I signed and my lawyer said it was fine,
which was D's lawyer. Yeah, you get fifty to fifty
on this of the company and you and your writers.
I just got my writers. So anyway, even with that,

(01:16:45):
I wondered where my publishing was for the last six
months when we were I think I'd just done I'm
in you, and it was in six months. It was
seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars and which was a
chunk of change back then. And so I called. I

(01:17:08):
called my lawyer and I said, where's my money, where's
my publishing money? He said, well, let me call D.
So he calls D. God alone knows how they what
they were into together, I don't know. But so D
always used to say to me, you know, when you're
owe some more money and they come to you and

(01:17:32):
they say where's my money? You just say I don't
have it. And so I said to D, I said, D,
where's my money? And I know you have it and
he said, I don't. I don't have it. I don't.
And the sick thing was he didn't have it because

(01:17:53):
we did forensic accountancy into his bank accounts and unless
he'd hidden it so well, he not that ever. So
he was just a the opposite of a spendthrift. He
was a throwaway. He I mean in the Beverly Hills Hotel,

(01:18:13):
if the two of us were staying there, from the
suite to the car, he would tip everybody fifty bucks.
They would come out of the woodwork. Oh, mister Anthony's
checking out, okay. And he would have a role in
his That was the old the mob thing, right, you'd

(01:18:36):
have the big role. One hundreds and fifties, you know.
Take that, take that and that. No, no, you you
were really good. So God alone knows how much of
my money he gave people as we were going to
the car, you know. So that's that shows you. So
that's how he lived his life.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
He overspent all the time. My money.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
Okay, So when did you realize We're being ripped off,
and what did you do?

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Not knowing that my lawyer was probably so much more
involved in this than than I realized, I went to
him and said, look, he says he doesn't have it.
What can I do? And he said, well, you know,

(01:19:29):
he should give you the deed to his house, you know,
he should, you know. So basically I I got that,
But the deed means nothing, you know. They were just
placating me.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
And so then within a short period of time after that,
I realized that everyone was in on this, not Frank.
Frank was a great man. I loved Frank. Frank Barcelona
was a was a one of a kind, really great agent,
but a great person human being, And he was not

(01:20:08):
part of that at all, and he probably knew about
it and what and you know, he was he was
very loyal to me and me to him. And but
so then I sued him and I got a huge

(01:20:30):
you know, price Waterhouse did the financial you know thing,
looking into all and they found so much stuff that
he'd taken unfortunately advances of mind that he signed over
to himself and things like that. So to think I've

(01:20:55):
asked a couple of different people over the years how
much they think he took from me. And in nineteen
seventy dollars it was probably six million, wow.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Which is like sixty million today.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
Right, So it was totally demoralizing the whole situation, and
I felt like an idiot for not They know you
love the music and that's all you're interested in. They
know it. They know it, so they take advantage those
that those that are think that way, they take advantage

(01:21:36):
of you. And that has happened over and over and
over again, you know, even up to Mateoff. You know
who thought about that. You know, he was the chairman
of the board in the financial board in New York
and everybody thought he was the Bee's knees. You know,

(01:21:59):
no one knew. And then it was the cards failed,
didn't they So and so many people lost multimillions in
that situation. But I did too, I guess. But so
it was basically like starting all over again.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
Okay, So when you were done with the accounting in
the lawsuit, did you get any cash?

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
No? I didn't go ahead with the lawsuit because they
were going to stop me my lawyer and other lawyers.
I got a separate lawyer. I got a separate lawyer,
new company to do all this. I didn't use my
old lawyer because I didn't trust him at this point
at all. And when I went into the meeting with

(01:23:00):
the guy that was going to come into court with me,
he said, he's going to say your gay, he's going
to say you've got this disease. He's gonna They're gonna
say shit that you wouldn't believe about you. And and
I thought, I don't think I want to go through

(01:23:21):
I've been through so much already. And I said, if
he had the money and he could pay me, it
would be one thing. It would be worth not being
able to work for four years. But he doesn't have it.
You know, we knew that because the man still worked

(01:23:44):
for the mob, because you never leave. So the more
money I earned, the more money he had to pay them.
And that's where his money went. I think a lot
of it, but he was he enjoyed spending it too.

(01:24:06):
So my money.

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
What about the songs and the royalty interest? Did you
end up with all that? Because theoretically he owned fifty
percent of the.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
Songs that in the settlement, we did a settlement he
gave that all came back to me out of management,
out of publishing, and I was still with A and M,
so that was pristine. So I was still there. But
so many people knew so much more than I did,

(01:24:37):
because no one wants to tell the king he's not
wearing any clothes, you know. And that's happened with friends
of mine who are big stars that I've worked for
that say what, will come to me and say why
didn't you tell me about this guy? I said, no

(01:24:57):
one wants to tell the king he's not wearing any clothes.
That's the same thing, you know, because they shoot the messenger.
You know. Oh that comfy. That's not true, I said, Well,
so I kept my mouth shut in those situations. But yeah,

(01:25:19):
it's yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
So you regained this decades later, very recently relative to
your life. You sold all these assets, your publishing and
your royalty stream to BMG. How did you decide to
do that?

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Well, because the disease played a big part of it.
That definitely was something I was thinking about and at
the time that we would suggest suggested that I did it.

(01:26:02):
The deals were very good. They're not as good anymore,
but and I just I just thought that if I
can get the amount they're talking about, which I'm not
going to divulge, but if I can get that amount,
I will be fine for the rest of my life,
so will my family and anything I do. Knew from

(01:26:25):
this point on touring New Record with new Record label, public,
New Publishing, it's all come that that'll come to me too.
Not that it will be a lot, I'm sure, but
but it will be something that I will be assured
of getting. You know. So it happened, and I got

(01:26:48):
what I wanted, and it meant that if I handle
things correctly with my management financial management team right now,
who I wish as I said, I wish i'd had
them in the seventies, I'll be fine. So I'm very
very lucky.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
What did you do with the money?

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
That's kind of personal too.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
No, let me let me be clear, because I don't
need to know your an x amount of apple, but
I do know people who've gotten tens of millions of
dollars who've already blown through seventy five percent of it.
Musicians are not great with their money. So the first
question is you got the lump sum after taxes, did
you treat yourself to any luxuries or desires?

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
A couple of really nice vintage guitars. Oh that's about it.
I haven't gone crazy, And basically I always live as
if I because I've been up and I've been down,
I mentally think that I don't have anything.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Blackwell told me every musician thinks this is going to
be the last payday.

Speaker 2 (01:28:08):
No they don't. I don't think so. No, you never
think it's going to stop when you when you have
that big success, you never think it's going to stop,
and it does. It's you can't be the new success
guy for more than it takes for another generation to

(01:28:30):
come along. It's four to six years, you know, unless
you are the Eagles, the Beatles, the store you know
that that have managed to keep it going all these years,
you know, and not had the the peaks and valleys
I've had.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
So anyway, okay, let's go back to a little cleanup work.
How did you decide to leave Humble Pie? How did
you tell all the rest of the band and what
did they say?

Speaker 2 (01:29:05):
Well, I can't actually say what they said on the radio,
I don't think, but well, d Anthony came over to
London with the mock up of rock in the film
or cover. So the big sheets, you know, with the

(01:29:25):
and the color code and all that, and I'm looking
at it and it's fantastic cover, you know, love it
And he said what do you think? I said, I
love it. I love it. I've got something to tell you, though,
He said, what I'm leaving? He said, you're not. I said,
I am. You're crazy. Maybe I am, Maybe I'm not.

(01:29:49):
We'll see. So he said, well, you better call him
up right now and tell him. So I said I will.
So Jerry and Steve uh at Steve's place as it happens,
and called up, Hey, guys, how's it going. I've seen
the cover. It's really good. You'll love it. But unfortunately,

(01:30:13):
I have something to tell you, and I've decided to
leave the band. And there was silence, and then there
was screaming, and then there was profanity, which I expected.
Why not. I would have been the same way too
if it had been reversed and Steve had said he

(01:30:34):
was leaving. So anyway, that's how it was. They weren't thrilled, obviously,
But then when I got my band together, Frampton's Camel
humble Pie did a tour of England and guess who

(01:30:55):
opened for them? Just to show there was no you know,
and they just was every night they stood on the
side of the stage going throwing raspberries at me, so
you know, it was all in jest, but they were hurt.
I would be too, you know. But I didn't have

(01:31:17):
any future whatsoever lined up, nothing, nothing except I was
doing a lot of sessions and I was earning enough
money to live without the advance from the next album
from Humble Bye. So I was doing okay enough to
get by, but I had no idea how I was

(01:31:37):
going to live, you know. And I knew I wanted
to record. I knew I wanted to form a band,
but just went to d and said, look, will you
still look after me? And Frank and I know Jerry
said he'd stay with me, and so we started again.

Speaker 1 (01:31:55):
Okay, were you involved at all in finding your replacement?
And then after rock in the film More Smoking comes out,
which is a mega success, it's much more blue collar.
Was any of that material worked up before you left
the band?

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
No? No, I had no hand in recruiting Clem. I
thought he was a great choice because he's very good,
but blues player not my style at all. But I
thought for what they needed he was and still think
he's a great player, but I guess it wasn't as

(01:32:38):
unique sounding. The juxtaposition between me and Steve was more
diverse than Clem and Steve. But and I think they
cut most of Smoke in as a three piece and
then brought in Clem to overdub on it because they

(01:33:01):
were still looking for somebody. I could be wrong there,
but I'm pretty sure. But uh yeah, And I say
this all the time. Smoking is my favorite Humble Pie
album and I'm not on it. It's a great, great album.
And you know, because they always the crowd always shout
out thirty Days in all and I have to go, Okay,

(01:33:25):
let me just clear you in here, I had left
the band. I would love to do thirty Days in
a Hole for you, but I can't. So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:33:35):
So okay, let's go back to AM and you. You
have this unbelievable success, possibly the biggest success anyone has
had in the seventies. Everyone knows you a have to
make another album when you have that level of success.
You had your hardcore fans who'd stuck with you the
four solo albums, but there was a whole new audience

(01:33:57):
of younger people you were had a teen idyl aspect,
whether that was something you desired or not. The album
that has ultimately comes out from a consumer standpoint, a
fan standpoint, seems to play more to this younger Evans
in demo than the traditional hardcore Frampton fan. On the cover,

(01:34:19):
you're dressed in an appealing way to an audience that
is not your traditional audience. What went on there?

Speaker 2 (01:34:28):
That was the little Lord funk Roy outfit. I call
that one. Uh Okay. So when d made two phone
calls to me that were uh one was totally I

(01:34:54):
was totally ecstatic about and the second one scared the
shit out of me. And that was the day it
went to number one. The album was the first one,
and then it seemed like the next day, but I'm

(01:35:14):
sure it was a couple of months later. He called
me again and said, you've just broken Carol King's Tapestry
sales record. You're now the biggest record ever selling record
in America and Canada. And the pit of my stomach

(01:35:35):
just fell out. I didn't want to know that. I
didn't want to be the biggest. I would have preferred
it was at number two. I'd have preferred that it
didn't sell as much as Tapestry because now the spotlight
is on me. Like myself, I'm putting the spotlight on me.

(01:35:57):
It's now made it so much more difficult to come
up with another album. I did not want to. I
wanted to. They say, you're as good as your last album. Well,
until we released the next record, I'm as good as
ram Who Comes Alive. So but well, everyone was saying, well,

(01:36:18):
you don't want to leave it too long because you'll
just get too scared and it'll And I said, well,
I don't really have what I would call great songs.
The material isn't up to pa. You know, I'm kind
of writing it in the studio. It's I'm drinking, it's drugs,

(01:36:39):
it's all this, all these distractions, and it was demoralizing.
And I remember going into uh D's office with the
two boxes A and the B side. I threw him

(01:37:00):
at him. I said, they are I said, I don't
want this out, but I know you guys are going
to put it out. And then I should have been
in jeans and a T shirt on the cover with
a leather jacket or something, you know, but I was
still in the lord front lay outfit with this with

(01:37:23):
the satin pants, the white nurse's shoes and some god
awful woman's top. You know, it's but they looked fine
the year before, but now, you know, sex pistols are happening.
Things have changed drastically overnight, you know. And and I'm

(01:37:44):
behind the times already, you know, and out of sink.
And that's that's what happened, basically, And I was just
very disappointed that I couldn't have the time to spend
another couple of years writing. You know, the Eagles don't

(01:38:10):
dash into the studio every five minutes. They've had a
handful of studio records as opposed to what you think
they've had, but they don't go near the studio until
they've got you know, ten number one hits because the
reason is they can't stand each other, so they better
have some good music to go in there. So I

(01:38:34):
don't know if they love each other now, I don't know,
but the documentary shot looked like they weren't thrilled with
each other sometimes so but so I went against my
gut and that was the beginning of the me learning
to say no.

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
Okay. The album comes out sells immediately I'm in You
is the success, the single and the whole enterprise. Crash
is very shortly thereafter. M. What was it like for you?

Speaker 2 (01:39:10):
Oh it's horrible. I mean, I've got to be honest,
you know. It's not as if I didn't know that
was going to happen because I didn't like what I
just put out, you know. And then the next the
next album, we go out on tour. All of a sudden,

(01:39:32):
I realize, uh, oh, we can't have the private plane anymore.
Why is that? Well, because you're not selling as many tickets.
And so now I've gone from arena's busting over sold
to not filling arenas you know. And it was horrible, feeling,

(01:39:57):
totally demoralizing, and so we're back on the bus again,
you know, and that's oh gosh, And it was I
think I was self medicating at that point to the
to to to the point where it was not good.

(01:40:21):
And and really the next thing, I did one more
album where I should be for an M and uh,
then breaking all the rules with David Koshimo that that
that was a rock album, that was a good album,
should have been the one off, the should have been

(01:40:43):
the one instead of I'm in You, and then and
then I did one more album, The Art of Control.
I had no control, and and and A and M

(01:41:04):
dropped me. You know, I'm sure Jerry Mortis must did
it with moist eyes, but he had to let me go.
You know, it was it was so obvious, you know. Meanwhile,
you know, A and M took up profit sharing after
comes Alive and there's a building next to the Handsome

(01:41:25):
Lock that's called the Frampton Building, which was Almo Irving
Publishing building. And you know, so I've gone from a
giant picture of me, you know, and then it all
kind of faded into nothing. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:41):
Although on that album before the Kirshion Bomb album, you
the opening track I Can't Stand It No More? That
was classic for Hampton.

Speaker 2 (01:41:48):
Oh well, thank you, Yeah, I like that one.

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
Tell me about Sergeant Pepper. Why well, the question becomes
a why did you do it? B there's the beat
is whether it was I'm in you or Sergeant Pepper
put your career in the dumper?

Speaker 2 (01:42:07):
Both. I think they It was a tag team. I'm
not gonna say too much about the movie except for
the fact that I was told by Robert Stigwood that
Paul McCartney was going to be the the savior of
the hot Land and instead of.

Speaker 1 (01:42:33):
Billy Billy Shears, No, Billy Preston.

Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
Yes, Billy who I love dearly, and so I I
when Stickwood said, as Paul is going to be in
the movie, I said really, and I said, well, if
a Beatle's going to be in the movie, he's sanctioned it,

(01:43:01):
then it can't be bad. Well, I get to I
fly out to Los Angeles, I go to the first
meeting out there no Paul McCartney. So I was lied
to and I did it because I'm how old am I?

Speaker 1 (01:43:24):
Then?

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
I'm twenty seven now twenty six? When I got asked, probably,
do you want to stir in a movie? I've got
you this amount of money and it's about the Beatles,
And I said, oh, it's about the Beatles really, And
that was the only thing that worried me until Stickwood

(01:43:47):
said Paul McCartney's going to be in it. So and
then I realized from the first day of shooting, oh
this was a disaster. You know. I didn't walk because
I would have been sued to high hell, I guess,
you know. But we all hated being in that movie.

(01:44:13):
I mean the Beg's and I.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
Okay, Stickwood, for all his success, was somewhat of a mystery.
What was your take on Stickwood?

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
I didn't really I didn't really know him that well
or no. I know that he was the manager and
record label of Oh, record label for Cream, he was
record label for the Beg's, he did Saturday Night Fever.
I mean, he'd had a lot of successes, you know,

(01:44:47):
so and Greece, you know, which hadn't which was being
edited while we were doing Uh, Sergeant Pepper, I believe.

Speaker 3 (01:45:00):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:45:01):
So I just thought, well, he has to know what
he's doing, you know, and everyone thought we couldn't fail
and it would have been good. The only thing I'll
say about it is there was no script and rest

(01:45:22):
in peace. George Martin should not have been the guy
to do the music because he imagine doing that with
Jeff Emeric the Beatles, but you don't have the Beatles
and you're trying to I would imagine they were not
enjoying it. I never asked George that, but you know,

(01:45:50):
nowadays Giles would have done it right. But anyway, Yes,
another mistake of Frampton mistake there.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
Okay, you grew up in Bromley, David Bowie was on
the scene. Was he that charismatic? Growing up? Did you
feel this guy was going to be a star? I
mean he was just another kid in the neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (01:46:16):
Well, I didn't meet him until I went My father
was the head of the art department in a technical
high school, meaning it's not so much on academics, it's
more on art. Would work design all sorts of stuff,

(01:46:36):
you know. And my father took me to the school
on a weekend before I went there. I went there
about a year and a half later than this what happened.
So we went on a weekend and they were having
a garden fate, which like a fair fete, and it's

(01:46:58):
raising money for the school, you know, and pencils and whatever.
And and so myself, uh, my father, my mother and
my brother we walk in to the grounds and there's
a band playing on the steps of the entrance to

(01:47:20):
the school. And of course I'm going, who the hell
is that? That sounds really good? And and I knew
it was the Conrads because I'd heard of them. They
were a big local band. And I said, Dad, who's
the guy on the end playing the sacks? He said, oh,
that's Jones, very creative, and and so I just you

(01:47:52):
looked at the band, but you couldn't help but you're
he had the charisma right there, right from the off,
you know. And so yeah, year and a half later,
I go to the school. I'm in the first first year,
and lunchtime I make a bee line for Dave. So

(01:48:15):
I go and Dave's sitting next to George Underwood, who
does is also in my father's class. And for three
years they were both in the art class. And George
did the Ziggy start Us cover and he's a fine
fine artist. Now have some of his work, and he

(01:48:37):
did He's done a lot and for David over the years.
And they were they were Frick and Frank till till
we David left us, you know. So while I was there,
it was kind of like the there was three of us,
you know, and I would I don't know whether they
liked me bugging them, but I was. I was there

(01:48:59):
art teachers son, so they had to be good to me.
But anyway, my dad would say, uh, hey you guys.
Why didn't he wouldn't have said hey you guys, He said, Pedra,
I know you're all very musical, he said, but I
think will be a good idea for lunchtimes. Wouldn't you

(01:49:21):
want to get your guitars out and play? And we've
got those beautiful steps on the the hot the stairway
on the on the art block has got a lovely
echo there. Wouldn't you like to sit there? So I said, yeah,
He said, so, tell David to bring his guitar or
George to bring his guitar. So all brought our guitars.
He stored them in his office and then at lunchtime

(01:49:43):
he left the door open for us. So we went
in there, got our guitars, sat on the steps of
this beautiful stone stairs stairway and sang Buddy, Holly, numbers
and everly brother, what you name it? All American, of course,
And they taught me stuff and taught me Buddy Holly,
George loved may I baby no.

Speaker 1 (01:50:05):
Maybe maybe baby whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:50:07):
Yeah, yeah whatever it is maybe baby yes, maybe baby yeah.
And so anyway, that was it. So we became, you know,
really close friends, and until we lost David. You know,
I've been the three of us have been friends.

Speaker 1 (01:50:25):
Okay, you're a little younger than the first generation the Beatles,
The Mercy bands. They were all born in the early forties.
You're born almost ten years later. In addition, the scene
is different in the UK. In America we have you know,
Rocket Ada, Rock around the Clock, Elvis, then we had

(01:50:47):
you know, Little Richard, then we have the teen Idols,
then we have the Beach Boys. In the Four Seasons
and sixty four the Beatles hit, whereas they talk about
different acts in the UK Rory Storm, Cliff Richard, Beatles
break in sixty two. What was it like in the
music scene and were the Beatles this phenomenal force like

(01:51:10):
they were in the US.

Speaker 2 (01:51:13):
Yes, they were. It didn't happen with the first single,
which was Love Me Do here in America. In England,
UK single first one Love Me Do, and the album
was Please Please Me. But that didn't come out until
In those days you had like bands would put a

(01:51:36):
single out, if it was a hit, you'd put another
single out, and if it was a hit, you'd put
another record out and you'd be asked to do an album.
None of those singles would be on the album. It
was a completely separate entity, you know. So that's why
I Love Me Do is not on Please Please Me.

(01:51:58):
So the English I over here.

Speaker 1 (01:52:00):
No, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're right. The English ones
have become the standards at this point anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:52:04):
Right, right, So my band the True Beats, and yes
I did think of the name, Sorry about that. I
was twelve or twelve or thirteen, and the rest of
them were all sixteen seventeen something like that. And so
we were just doing every instrumental record you can think of,

(01:52:29):
all the Shadows, all the Ventures, Nero and the Gladiators,
all these names. We've probably never heard of, all these
instrumental bands, but the Shadows and the Ventures were the
two primo, and of course for me, as great as
the Adventures are, I have to say I picked the

(01:52:50):
Shadows because they're homegrown, and so we went from that,
and then the Beatles came out. I remember of seeing
them do Love Me Do on I forget what which
which TV show it was, but in England, and I

(01:53:11):
was mesmerized. It was such a different sound and the
harmonica and obviously they've written it themselves and this was
not the normal up until this point, you know. And
then Please Please Me came out and went through the roof.
So I don't know if that was still sixty two

(01:53:35):
or whether it was sixty three, it was probably still
sixty two. Please Please Me came out, and then it
was an album. Then it was there, there's your album,
Please Please Me album. And because they'd do like three
or four singles a year, maybe more, you know, and
they'd all be one, two, four and seven, you know

(01:53:56):
in the British charts, we go, oh my god, I've
never seen anything like well. I had seen Cliff at
number one, Shadows at number two, Cliff at number three,
Shadows at number four, had seen that, but this was
going even further. This was like, oh my god, everything
they do, so the true Beats had to start singing.

(01:54:17):
So we did badly and so that was it. And
then I didn't realize that when they went to America,
the first single that came out was I Want to
Hold Your Hand, because that when that came out in England,
now we're we're above number one, we're like plus twenty

(01:54:42):
the Beatles are, you know, in everybody's mind. It was
phenomenon exactly like it it was here, you know. I mean,
we loved them. They were ours and we loved them
and we couldn't get enough of them.

Speaker 1 (01:54:56):
Okay, you've been living in the US for a long time.
What's the difference between the UK and the US.

Speaker 2 (01:55:05):
Well, as you say I haven't lived in the UK
for many years, I can't really answer that question. I
don't know anymore because I haven't lived there.

Speaker 1 (01:55:17):
Well, let's change it. Did you move to the US
for romance or did you want to live in the
US both.

Speaker 2 (01:55:25):
I think I had my share of enjoyment touring with
Humble Pie. It seemed like every time I went to America,
I woke up, and every time I went back to
England I went to sleep. It was like I was
just waiting for the next tour or the next album

(01:55:46):
or whatever. And there was something very exciting for us
young English musicians. Look, we're coming to the country where
you invented jazz, blues, gospel goes on, it goes on
R and B. I mean it just, oh my god,
you know, And we couldn't believe the radio stations. There's

(01:56:08):
just just jazz on this one, and there's look, there's
R and B just on this one, and there's you know,
it was we couldn't believe it. So it was for
a musician, I felt that they were much more involved.
Music was much more important in America than it was
in England, which is not true, but we just didn't

(01:56:30):
have the outlets we had. We were used to the
BBC having a playlist of five records a week, new record,
five new records a week, and then luckily we had
the pirate radio stations Caroline, London and all these guys
throwing up on boats outside the three mile limit playing
music until the GPO finally shut them down with the technicality.

(01:56:55):
But that was like American radio absolutely and that we
wouldn't have had the who I don't think the Stones
would have been as big a small Faces Swinging Blue.
So many bands that were part of the British Wave,
the late latter British Wave wouldn't have made it had

(01:57:15):
it not been for Radio Carolina, Radio London and all
the others, because now you're in rotation, you know, and
there's no BBC orchestra music, you know. So very that
was a very, very important and it's this this year

(01:57:37):
is the fiftieth year of Radio Caroline. Wow, it's yeah.
So I just did an interview about with them about
that because that changed everything.

Speaker 1 (01:57:48):
To what degree are you a gear head? You finally
got your black less Paul back in your possession after decades.
But are you the type of person who homes one
hundred guitars has to have the leadest pedal? What kind
of person are you?

Speaker 2 (01:58:04):
I don't have as many guitars as a lot of
players have because you can only play one at a time. Well,
actually you can actually put two on them play too. No,
but I lost in the Nashville flood forty four guitars,

(01:58:27):
and a lot of them were backups for backups, for backups,
guitars given to me by companies that I had used
at one point. So it wasn't all great my most
favorite guitars, but it kind of cleared me out, cleaned
me out and of instruments. So I was very lucky

(01:58:51):
that my team that I have now. I was one
of the very few people that stored their equipment at
Soundcheck in Nashville who was insured for flood. The building
wasn't insured. Sound Check was not insured for flood, and
they're on the river, so I got I mean, I

(01:59:13):
had to replace the entire back line, drums, keyboards, everything
for the band. They'd lost everything right that I did first.
So when we got enough equipment back replaced, then we
were good to play. But then what I did was,

(01:59:33):
instead of going out and replacing every guitar, I just said, well,
I've always wanted one of these. So I went and
got a Burst, a nineteen sixty Gibson to pick up
Burst and which is a collector's item. It's very expensive,

(01:59:58):
but I bought it a few years and ago, and
I just got one of everything that I really like.
One decent telecaster, one baritone guitar, a bunch of acoustics
because they all sound different, but you know, one fifty nine,
three thirty five, you know, beautiful. So I was able

(02:00:22):
to give my replace the band's equipment. Plus I was
able to go out and get a nice one of
each that I desired to have. I didn't go get
a million guitar. No, and I don't do that now.
You know, every now and again, something or just I'll

(02:00:43):
get a bug And as they say, you don't need
another guitar, do you oars room for one more? So?
You know, but no, I'm not a Joe Bonamasa or
cheap Trick.

Speaker 1 (02:01:04):
Rick Nielsen.

Speaker 2 (02:01:05):
I'm not a Rick Nielsen. I love Rick Nielsen and Joe,
but Rick Rick is more of a businessman. When he
comes to that because he's been doing it a long
time and he's he's had some amazing guitars. I'm not
as into the instrument for what it represents, its value

(02:01:30):
or anything. I'm into an instrument because it's comfortable and
it sounds good and it makes me play good. You know.
There are guitars that are worth a lot of money
that I can't really get my hand around the neck
it's so big, you know. So yeah, it's moderation. I'm

(02:01:52):
a I'm a collector with moderate collector.

Speaker 1 (02:01:55):
Okay. The question, obviously is where's all the equipment stored down?

Speaker 2 (02:01:59):
Not this? No, No, we have our own we have
our own locker within a whole consortium that is owned
by Dolly Parton.

Speaker 4 (02:02:16):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:02:17):
And we've rehearsed at her nose it's called and we
rehearse at her rehearsal Hall too.

Speaker 1 (02:02:23):
Well, you ended up playing on two songs on a record.
How did that come together?

Speaker 2 (02:02:28):
I was with a friend having lunch and he said, oh,
I just he's a great singer and guitar player, but
he gets a lot of session singing jobs. And he said, well,
I said what you been doing? I said, well, I
just got I just got out of a session sang
background on this song first Steven Tyler and Dolly Parton.

(02:02:49):
I said, that's right, she's doing the album right now,
the rock and roll album. I said, okay, wow. So anyway,
I called my manager. I said, Ken, do you have
any connection over there. I'm sure they've got all the
duets done by now, but I'd love to offer a
guitar solo. It would be such a thrill to be
on that record. And so he gets me Kent Wells,

(02:03:13):
who is a lovely man, her guitar player and also
her producer, and he's producing these thirty tracks. So anyway,
he calls me up. He said, oh, hi, man, you
just want to do a guitar solo. I said, well,
I'm lowballing with a guitar solo, but I figured you'd

(02:03:36):
done all the duets. And he said, hold on a minute,
would you ever do one of your songs? I said,
let me think about that. Yes, and so he said,
hold on a second, I'll call you right back. Five
minutes go by. If that he calls me back, Dolly's
screaming she wants to do baby, I love your way

(02:03:56):
with you? Will you do it? I said, let me
think about that. Yes, So that's how it came about,
and my band cut the track. I sang it all
the way through, gave it to Kent and said, dip
me wherever you want me and have us sing whatever
she wants to sing on it. And then I got
it back. I got her vocal back, and I got

(02:04:17):
chilled because she'd taken it to another level. You know,
this is Dolly's version, you know, even though it's my song,
and that's right. So she starts ad libbing with me
and singing three part harmony with me, blew me away.
So I had to redo some of my ad libs
because I was definitely lackluster competitor, you know. So I

(02:04:42):
so enjoyed doing that, and she's like, she called me up.
We never met throughout the I've met her once, but
we never met throughout the whole process. But she called
me up after she'd finished the vocal and she was
just like guff thoring how much she enjoyed it and
all that. She's a lovely lady. We all know that,
and she does so much great stuff for so many people.

(02:05:05):
I applaud her.

Speaker 1 (02:05:07):
Just to finish the equipment where you at on amps,
and generally speaking, where are you at on effects? Are
you into effect or you like to be cleaner and
just have the guitar.

Speaker 2 (02:05:17):
In the studio. I tend to play. I tend to
play through an amp, straight into an amp. Might have
one fuzzy effect or something, but use the studio effects.
I find that that's cleaner. But then when you when
you mix the album, you got all these different sounds

(02:05:39):
on these different tracks. So I have a guitar rig
that can handle all the effects I do use. So, yes,
I do use effects, and I've got a huge rig.
And she said, but anyway, I can't go anyway. So yeah,

(02:06:02):
it's bigger than I'm trying to scale it down. But
it sounds so good that I'm not downscaling for scaling
it down for this tour. So but when we finish
this one, I'm gonna build another rig just because I can,
just in case.

Speaker 1 (02:06:22):
And are do you have a specific ant brand or
you have one of different ones, just like you have
guitars different ones.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):
It's been Marshall for Marshall Fender. You know, John Suh
makes a phenomenal amplifier and we've just we've just tuned
one to me, So that'll be part of the rig.
I'm hoping at some point soon. So yes, it's nice

(02:06:57):
having It's like going having an amp tuned. It's like
going for an eye test. It's like you're sitting there
looking through the thing, or you're listening this right, and
he's got the bottom off and he's got all these
capacitors and he's going this one, uh yeah, or this one,

(02:07:20):
go back, give me the other one. And then he
unsolded that one and sold of this one. That one okay,
number one or number two, number one, just like an
eye exam. And he tuned this amp for this was
only a month and a half ago, you know. And
so yeah, I love all that. I'm so into sound.

(02:07:40):
It's so important to me.

Speaker 1 (02:07:42):
And then you mentioned Dolly Parton. Tell me to pinch yourself.
Moments where you've met people who were famous.

Speaker 3 (02:07:53):
Uh well, gosh, so many. But I mean, well, you
can have more than two. I don't want to limit you.

Speaker 2 (02:08:07):
Well, but I have to. George Harrison has to be
at the top of the list, you know, George and
Ringo and Paul. But I never met John. But yeah,
walking into a control room with my friend who worked
for George, Terry, Dorian and rest in peace. And he said,

(02:08:35):
you want to come and meet George. I said, George
who he said, And they've all got they all had
code names he would call him. I forget what he
called him now, So anyway, I said, yeah, of course.
So he said, well, they're recording it Trientent. So we

(02:08:56):
walked down ward Oh Street. There's the little alleyway and
Tried Studios is right there, and so we walk in
and there's a little tiny office here. Then you walk
straight ahead and the control room is door you open up.
The control room is upstairs, and the studio is in
the basement, so you look down into the studio. So

(02:09:21):
as I walk in, I looked to my left and
there's George Harrison Ade my first Beetle meeting. And he
looks up and goes, hello, Pete. And I just couldn't
Did he just say hello to me? How does he
know why? Oh, I'm in a band, don't I? Yeah,

(02:09:44):
he probably knows why. And all this is going through
my head and I'm sweating profusely and shaking and wishing
the floor would just open up. And I mean I
didn't wipe my hand before I shook his hand and
I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (02:09:57):
It was wet.

Speaker 2 (02:10:01):
With sweat, you know. And he just is so nice
talks to me, and he said so nice for you
to come on, and do you think you want to play?
I said, what when on a session? Sometimes? He said no. Now,
I said, but you're in the middle of a session.

(02:10:21):
He said, well, we just I'm doing this album for
Doris Troy and uh and we're we're Steve Stills and
I have just and Doris have just finished this writing
this song. I said, who, Steve Stills is down there?
He said, yeah, Steven Steeles is down there. Doris and
Doris had sang on shine On on the original version
and as a background singer, and so I knew Doris.

(02:10:44):
I'd met Steve once before, I think. And so he
takes me down into the studio. I say hello to
Stephen Stills, who's sitting there playing his gradge as I
imagine he should. And there's a Princeton amp over here,
and George hands me this sort of red looking les Paul,

(02:11:10):
which is now we know is called Lucy, and it's
the guitar that Eric gave to George but also played
the solo for while my guitar gently weeps on this guitar.
Thank god, I didn't know any of this at the time.
So he gives me the guitar, plugs me in, and

(02:11:33):
he starts. He's got a guitar and he's showing me
the chords, and I'm a quick learner, so I picked
it up really quick. So anyway, George goes over and
we start we rehearse it, and and so I start
playing very quiet rhythm. This is the Stephen Stills is

(02:11:57):
right there like I could kick him if I moved
my foot, and George, the Beatles lead guitarist, is over here,
and I thought, play quiet rhythm, so I did so,
and then halfway through George goes no, no, no, Pete,
no no, I'm going to play rhythm. I want you

(02:12:19):
to play lead. Another gut wrenching feeling. Oh my god.
You know this is too much, too good to be true,
you know.

Speaker 1 (02:12:31):
And so.

Speaker 2 (02:12:35):
The track is called Ain't That Cute? And it was
the first single, and the first guitar you hear on
it is me and George did a little slide solo
in the middle afterwards, but all the lead licks in
the whole song is me and I couldn't. I couldn't

(02:12:56):
believe my luck, you know, what was going on. And
then obviously I did pretty well for the audition and
George comes over to me and says, at the end
of the session, so we've got you know, we've got
a few tracks to do left. Will you join us
on the rest of the album? And I said, let
me think about that, yes, you know, and ended up

(02:13:21):
there's Ringos playing drums, Klaus Woman's on bass, Billy Presty,
you know, Gary, right, but they're all They're all there.
All the precursor to All Things Must Pass is right there,
you know. And I don't think I slept that night.

(02:13:43):
I was on such a high from not only meeting
of Ethel and let's face it, you know, I was
twelve when they came out, you know, and now I'm
twenty twenty one maybe, and I'm still a huge Beatle

(02:14:04):
obviously for the rest of my life, a huge Beatle fan.
It shaped my music and everybody's music, you know, but
in the form my formative years of playing music. So
just and then I came back for all these other sessions,

(02:14:25):
and then from that that's when that's when I get
a call George has obviously given Harry Nielsen my phone number.
I get a call from Harry Nielsen, you know, who's
just had the huge, huge, huge hit and he's doing

(02:14:46):
his next album, Son of Schmielsen, and I get to
play on that whole album too, And meeting Harry was unbelievable.
I just, you know, it's a it's hard to explain
because I'm such a huge fan. I think that's why

(02:15:07):
I'm part of my makeup that I don't think of
myself as as being what these other people are. I
think they're much better. They've got to be better than me.
You know. It's like someone to look up to because
they've done so much. And then I realize, gosh, actually

(02:15:28):
people are looking up to me now for what I
you know, and I realize now, and then I'll get
young guitarists will come backstage, and I'll spend time with
them because I know what it means. They say stuff
like or the father or bring the young kid back. Literally,
you know, this big he's he knows every solo you've

(02:15:51):
ever played. I said, you're kidding me, and he will
show me and he'll play one of myself, and it's like,
oh my goodness, and the kids like shaking, sweating and
wishing the floor would open up, just like me meeting
George Harrison. So you pay it forwards, you know. And
I've got so many I've had so many young players

(02:16:13):
come up to me and the same way, and I've
been through the same thing, and a lot of them
I keep in touch with.

Speaker 1 (02:16:22):
So yeah, Now is it true that you wrote the
legendary songs for the fourth album over a very short
period of time in the Bahamas or the Caribbean whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:16:35):
Yes, I was there for three weeks to write. I
had an acoustic and an electric. Steve's cottage was where
I stayed, Steve Merrick's cottage, and he had an amplifier
and upright piano, so I had everything I needed to write.
And a boom box Sony five point fifty A, the

(02:16:56):
one with those great mics and the limitter in it
and everything you put down on acoustics sounded fantastic. So
and I still have one. So yeah. So at the
airport when I when I came in, I realized that
Alvin Lee from ten years after was on the other

(02:17:19):
side of baggage claim. So hey, you know, I vote
with them many times and and with Humble Pie and
with me, and so I said, uh, hey, Alvin, it's me,
you know. So my three weeks ended up being the
last eight days when they left town. We were we

(02:17:41):
were partying and and I was procrastinating. So I had
eight days before I had to go back, and I
hadn't written anything, not that well, not what I would
call up to standard. So I got up that first

(02:18:01):
day of the last eight and picked up my acoustic
and I thought, well, let's tune it to openg, just
for something different, inspiring. And then I played played a chord,
and I played another chord, and then I played another chord,

(02:18:21):
and I went back to the first chord, dang ding
getting ding ding, getting ding ding ding d ding. It's
the beginning. It's the intro to show me the way.
And so I thought, oh, this is good. This is
better than anything I've written so far, and so got

(02:18:43):
out the pad. Uh, first of all, put it down
on the on the boombox so I didn't forget it.
And then I got out my notepad and started writing
the first verse and and the first chorus, and then
I said, well, I'm into something here. Let me move on.
So I had lunch. I was right on the beach.

(02:19:06):
It's just me, nobody else on this wonderful beach, and
I had a little table outside umbrella and I took
my boombox about four o'clock after lunch in a swim,
really hard writing session, and I brought the I brought

(02:19:30):
the guitar out, sat down, I put it back to
normal tuning. I thought, well, I don't want to write
the same thing again, okay, So within another twenty minutes,
I'd written the beginning of the intro to Baby, I
Love Your Way, and I said, well that it's a

(02:19:53):
bit like kind of the Blackbird chords there, Paul's Blackbird Chords,
and they are a different order, and so I knew
that I felt this is this is good. So ran
back in, got the pad, pencil, and it's the sun

(02:20:14):
is just about to set. And that's when I looked
around and I went, shadows gross along before my eyes
and they're moving across the page and go. So I
knew I had another one. And then I went back

(02:20:34):
in that night, same night, same same day, within a
twenty four hour period, I went back and I picked
up the electric and I said, well, let's try this.
I plugged into Steve's am boombox again started jamming, and
I came up with the chords for No Where's Too
Far from My Baby, which is on Frampton too. And

(02:20:56):
I didn't have a melody or anything, but I loved
I had the I had the whole song in chords,
no melody yet. And there's another person I met that
I got chills. Eddie van Halen. You know, another guy
who reinvented guitar, the nicest guy in the world. He

(02:21:19):
was so sweet. And I got invited by the engineer
to go to one of their sessions, and so I
went in there and they're all over me. How did
you do? What did you do? Want?

Speaker 1 (02:21:30):
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:21:30):
I thought? So? Uh, Eddie goes, come out, come out
in the steert ive. Got to show you something, You've
got to show you something. And so he picks up
the guitar of his and he said this is Nowhere's
too far right, And then he played me a Van

(02:21:53):
Halen number that they were just recording. That's that backwards.
I got it. So I was so inspired by the
Frampton album. He said, I love what you play on that.
He said, this is so cool man, And I forget
which number it is, but I was just blown away
that And then he's he's playing his guitar, you know,

(02:22:15):
he's got the big rig in the studio, you know,
and he goes, hey, try this. I go, okay, not
wanting to play it all, and nothing comes out. You know,
It's like, I am totally this isn't this isn't happening
right now, is it? He's asking me to play his guitar.

(02:22:36):
I can't do it. So I just played a couple
of chords and gave it back to him straight away.
It was very intimidating, but rightly so, because he was
so good.

Speaker 1 (02:22:47):
Okay, you write these legendary songs in a brief period
of time, and you talk about having like a month
off to write songs when you're in your tour recording
cycle generally speaking, is it like the ri for Satisfaction
came to Keith Richards and you know when he was asleep,
he woke up he recorded it. Has your process been

(02:23:07):
there's a bolt, there's an inspiration or can you literally
say I have to write, I'm gonna sit here and
I'm gonna write something.

Speaker 2 (02:23:15):
I have to be in the right mood, I have
to feel something coming.

Speaker 1 (02:23:20):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:23:21):
Recently, I've had this real creative streak. That's why I
think that I'm going to be able to start to
finish this album in the summer after this tour. Uh,
And I pick up an acoustic or an electric, you know,
and just jam on chords or riffs or whatever, and

(02:23:43):
something will they either come to me or it won't.
I either put it down I don't. I'm not a
fighter for for I don't fight for a song. It's
gonna come easy or it's not right. So finishing a
song is difficult, no matter how easy it is to

(02:24:05):
come up with the initial ideas. But lyrically is it's
always harder for me. Getting much easier actually, because I'm
just writing. I'm writing from my heart and I'm not

(02:24:28):
trying to write a hit song. I'm just trying to
write a great piece of music that I like. You
might not think it's great, but I do. And that's
that's it. I cannot force myself to write. It's not
going to happen. But there is something that I was

(02:24:51):
felt very pleased about when I wrote. When I read
Chronicles one by Bob Dylan and which I loved, I
thought it was great and he said, which I was
thrilled to hear. He said he had a like an
eighteen month two year period we couldn't write. And he said,

(02:25:15):
that's it. I'm done for you know, you always think that,
right when, oh god, I got write it. And then
there came this time. I don't know how long it
was total, and he said, I sat down in the
dining room, I got out this pad and I wrote

(02:25:36):
and wrote and wrote for ten days, two weeks straight,
he said. And I opened the drawer in the dining room,
I put the pad in there, and I said to
my wife, that's my next album. And I thought, wow,
that's pretty cool. And then he said it made him
think about why now and why not for those two years?

(02:26:02):
And he said, you don't have writer's block. There's no
such thing as writer's block. And this is the best part.
He said. You're either on input or you're on output,
and you can't have output if you don't have input first.
So those two years, he said, I was writing, But

(02:26:27):
the culmination of those two years came two and a
half years later. In those ten ten days to fourteenth
two weeks. You know, so don't he said, I don't
worry now if I can't write, because I know that
there's a reason for that, that I don't have anything
to say. Therefore I need to live a little, you know.

(02:26:48):
And I thought that was that made all the difference
in the world. And our poet Lauriate couldn't write for
two years.

Speaker 1 (02:26:54):
Yeah, okay, Don Henley. I heard here him talking at
Glen Fry's memorial service where he was somewhere in Asia.
He went deep back into the bush and some person said,
point it out. I said, Hotel California. What is your

(02:27:14):
situation traveling the globe? If you're all of a sudden,
you know, in Bozeman, Montana, and you're standing by the carousel,
someone to say, Peter Frampton or can you be relatively anonymous?

Speaker 4 (02:27:31):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:27:31):
You mean just out and about. Yeah. Uh. If I'm
in the city, we're playing, I'm going to get recognized
because people are thinking about me. Sometimes I get recognized
a lot, you know, But then sometimes I don't get recognized,

(02:27:58):
And it's good because I can do I don't. I'm anonymous,
and I found that out. I went from being the
most recognizable person with the hair and you know, the
perm and all that and too when I cut my
hair and everything went into a ditch, and nobody recognized me,

(02:28:26):
and nobody was thinking about me either. I was I
was gone. I was a hasben, you know. And and
there was a part of that. I really enjoyed being anonymous.
But there's that other that that's this side and then
the other side of the broad say, oh, but nobody's
recognizes you. Yeah, but no, I uh I. It's something

(02:28:53):
that I've grown used to. And my daughter will say,
you know, everyone's looking at you, don't you are they?
I don't know, you know, So you know, it's it's
part of my life now, and it's something that happens,
and sometimes it doesn't, you know, but it's h I
tell you. I I went to I went to a

(02:29:20):
party after an award show in the late seventies, and
the party after the show was at Chasin's. Was the
big place where everybody went, you know, the big restaurant.
I'm not even sure if it's still there.

Speaker 1 (02:29:40):
No, it's not.

Speaker 2 (02:29:41):
No, Well there you go. So that dates me right there.
So anyway, so we go to Chasin's and I got
to think of his name. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm old. Okay,
what was the name of his TV show. He was
a private eye, lived in a in a caravan on

(02:30:04):
the beach.

Speaker 1 (02:30:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. What was his name? Tom Selleck?

Speaker 2 (02:30:08):
No, not Tom Selleck the Oxford Files. Yes, okay, wrote him.
Who's he?

Speaker 1 (02:30:15):
I'll look it up because I I'm aware of the show,
but actually I didn't watch it, Jim. What's his name?

Speaker 2 (02:30:22):
James Garner? Right, okay, So out of I walk up
the steps to Chasen's and and I'm out of the
corner of my eye I see this relatively tall, thin
guy coming over to me and it's it's James Garner.

(02:30:44):
And he said, I don't wish to bother you, Peter,
but would you mind signing this for my daughter? I said, yeah,
what's her name? And I gave him and he was gone.
He didn't he knew what it was like. He didn't
hang around, and it's He's one of the only people
I've ever wished would have stayed around a little bit.

(02:31:05):
So that kind of stuff, it's kind of really neat.
You know, this guy was asking for my autograph when
I would like to ask for his autograph, you know,
And because we're all fans, let's face it, well, I
know there are some musicians that don't think of other
artists and the way that I do. But I just

(02:31:28):
know that for the artists that i'm whichever one I'm
thinking about, that's had this illustrious career, they have been
through the ringer, they have so much talent and they've
done things right and they've had a wonderful career and

(02:31:50):
I know they've you know, it didn't come easy to them. Therefore,
you know, I don't want to bug them, you know sometimes,
And there's some people that I have bugged that I
wish I hadn't, you know, and have been rude, you know.

(02:32:10):
So I prefer to think of myself as the James
Ghana than the.

Speaker 1 (02:32:18):
So to what degree do you think about are you
concerned with legacy?

Speaker 2 (02:32:24):
Oh gosh, I haven't really thought about that. I have
no idea. I have to think that the one thing
I will be I mean, it's lasted this long and
it's it's still people's one of people's favorite albums of
all time. So I'm going to be known for Comes Live,

(02:32:46):
whether I like it or not, and I'm very proud
of that. I'm known as a guitar player, which I
hope you know. I'm always in the books for that,
you know, and that's it. Really, I'm a singer, but

(02:33:10):
another great singer. I'm not thrilled with my voice, but
but I get by with it. And people when I
say that, people say, oh, will you can about yourself now?
I do you know? Hey, I'm honest. You know, I'm
a great guitar player and I'm a great writer when

(02:33:30):
I get to write, but my voice is okay.

Speaker 1 (02:33:36):
So one hundred years from now, do you care whether
anybody knows who you are and your music or you
don't care?

Speaker 2 (02:33:45):
I don't care. I don't.

Speaker 1 (02:33:48):
Well, we care, Peter, and I want to thank you
so much for taking this time to be so revealing
and go so deep from my audience.

Speaker 2 (02:33:57):
Well, you're very welcome and I've enjoyed this and I'm
sure I'll regret it, but that's okay.

Speaker 5 (02:34:04):
Actually, I don't think you said you know. Sometimes people say,
you know whatever. I think you were very straightforward. I
mean it's interesting. I talk to a lot of people,
and yes, you're self effacing nature and your humorous element,
but also an intelligence radiates through, which is not something
you always find with musicians, whether they're intelligent or not.

(02:34:27):
They can't verbalize it, and I'm sure that that's somewhat
frustrating to be in this world, which is not always
such an intellectual world, but you're definitely a thinker.

Speaker 2 (02:34:40):
Well, thank you. I try. This has been great, Thank
you very much.

Speaker 1 (02:34:46):
Absolutely till next time. This is Bob left sets