I've never stopped making new music, and whether the audience wants to hear it or not, I'm going to play it. Because I'm an artist, and I create, and I've got new stuff.
— Peter Frampton
The 'Frampton' album sold better than all of the other solo records that I'd had, put together. It was over 300,000 copies, so that was a good signal that we were poised for my first gold record.
The '80s were a difficult period for me.
I had so much out there, the world was going crazy about 'Comes Alive!' I didn't need to go and rush into something else. You're only as good as your last record, so don't put one out for a while.
This was the rule that I had when we made 'Frampton Comes Alive!': being known as a live performer, I'm not going to go into the studio and overdub.
I'd sold more records than any other person in history with one album, at that point, in '76. It became a very scary place for me, because I didn't know whose advice to ask and lost my confidence in my own gut feelings about everything.
I've never been in this business to make money. I've always been in it to make good music.
I never thought I would do an all-acoustic tour or an all-acoustic album.
A lot of people were moved to write after September 11th. It had to affect us all in a way.
There's a place in England called Petticoat Lane, and... they always used to get the heavy albums, like, a week before. So I went down there and got it, and I went back home. I didn't come out of my room for about three days. I just played it nonstop... 'Sgt. Pepper's' was the best thing I'd ever heard in my life.
I love to be a hermit.
I used to jam with Steve Marriott of the Small Faces.
I started out as a musician, and I ended up as a cartoon.
I write about what happens to me. It's all there. I couldn't do it any other way.
I wrote 'Show Me the Way' in the morning and wrote 'Baby, I Love Your Way' in the afternoon of the same day. I've been trying to figure out what I ate for breakfast that morning ever since!
I have a soft spot for 'Wind of Change' because it was my first one, and it was a departure from Humble Pie - very much so. It showed me the spectrum of what I could do.
I am an oldies act - yes, I am - there's that part of me, but I am so much more than that.
When I go to do a show, it's my time; it's all about me. You've come to see me. You haven't come to see me if you're in an armchair watching a video. It's very distracting.
I believe I'm an artist that just shines live - it's just something that happens.
I've always been very gadget-conscious.
I love working with film, whether it's the technical side, the acting side, or the musical side.
I love everything to do with movies.
As long as I can have enough to make the record and pay the mortgage, those were always the two things that were most important to me.
Hey, I've done a lot of other things, but I'm also very aware that when I kick the bucket, the first paragraph will be, 'The man responsible for 'Frampton Comes Alive!' just dropped dead. Frampton Drops Dead! after coming alive all these years.'
You know me - I'm the road dog of road dogs.
Most rock movies are never authentic - you'll have someone supposedly in 1958 playing a 1990 guitar, and a 1986 microphone.
I love staying at home and not seeing a guitar for ten days... but then I love that feeling of picking it up again.
I think, at some point, I might have said it must be great to be as big as Elvis, but that wasn't a realistic dream.
It got to the point where I couldn't afford to borrow any more money to lose. Know what I mean? That was just before 'Frampton,' my fourth album. As we were recording it, I was very down and depressed.
People are buying my life when they're buying those records. I hate to sound bigheaded or something, but that's the reality of it. Suddenly, everything you've been doing means something.
The reason I wanted to play guitar was because I saw Buddy Holly and then our own homegrown Shadows on TV in 1957 or '58. I wanted to learn to play guitar so I could do what they did and be in a band.
I've always had a good time in bands, and when I wasn't having a good time, I left.
The rule is to try and never play the same thing twice when you have the freedom to do that in the song.
If one percent of the people who take iPad or iPhone videos of concerts watch them, I'd be very surprised.
I never gave up. I'm a fighter.
The number of times that anything is overdubbed on 'Frampton Comes Alive!'... the rule was, if it didn't make it to the tape, then we can redo it because it needs to be done. If it made it to the tape, and it sounds good, we leave it. So nothing was overdubbed on that album at all that wasn't absolutely necessary.
An artist has to be selfish; otherwise, he's not true to his own art.
Mistakes were made, so I learned by my mistakes.
Most of everything I've ever written actually was written on acoustic. 'Do You Feel' was written on electric. 'I'm in You' was written on piano.
Everybody wants to be on the front cover of 'People' and 'Rolling Stone.'
'Penny for Your Thoughts' was something I noodled on for a while.
I've always loved to play live.
I pile up the press clippings and send them off to my mother. She's got a scrapbook going back to when I was, like, eight years old.
I was on 'The Mike Douglas Show' twice. I was on the cover of practically every magazine in the United States. I never said no to anything. I told everything to everybody. I gave everything away, and when you give it all away, you have nothing left.
I've always wanted to be the best guitarist in the world, ever since I was eight years old.
Performing live has been one of the most important opportunities I've been given, and I am lucky to share my music with so many of my amazing, loyal, and diverse fans.
If there's ever a live record that deserved to be mixed in surround sound, it's 'Frampton Comes Alive.'
The more simple my life is, the happier I am.
