{"id":8438,"date":"2013-01-01T23:05:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-02T06:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=8438"},"modified":"2013-01-01T23:05:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-02T06:05:02","slug":"peter-frampton-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2013\/01\/peter-frampton-2\/","title":{"rendered":"PETER FRAMPTON"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

PETER FRAMPTON\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The master guitarist revisits the album that made him a rock icon<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric R. Danton\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Frampton Comes Alive! <\/em>has defined Peter Frampton\u2019s career. Only his perspective has shifted\u2014from surprise and frustration to acceptance. The result is FCA! 35 Tour:<\/em> An Evening With Peter Frampton<\/em>, a two-DVD set that captures a tour celebrating the 35th anniversary of one of the most iconic live albums ever released.<\/p>\n

The double LP was Frampton\u2019s breakthrough album, though it wasn\u2019t his first. The singer and ace guitarist co-founded Humble Pie when he was 18, played on albums by Harry Nilsson and George Harrison, and even made the short list to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones. Frampton had also released four solo albums to mediocre commercial success before Frampton Comes Alive! <\/em>rocketed him to stardom. The record was the best-selling release of 1976, but its runaway success created an impossible standard for the musician to live up to.<\/p>\n

And he tried. Frampton has released 10 studio albums since 1976, attracting a small but loyal fan base that has followed him through each new turn in his career, including a period he spent trying to duplicate the success of Frampton Comes Alive!<\/em> \u201cI went through a phase of thinking one had to pander to one\u2019s audience,\u201d says Frampton, \u201cwhich was so wrong. But after the huge success of Comes Alive<\/em>, I was lost about what to do next. It was just too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frampton eventually made peace with the album\u2019s monstrous success. \u201cIf that\u2019s the record I\u2019m remembered for, I\u2019m fine with that, for all sorts of reasons,\u201d he says. That acceptance turned into more, prompting last year\u2019s 35th anniversary tour. Taking the show on the road was an opportunity for Frampton to reconnect with fans who had loved the original album, and to showcase the wealth\u00a0of material he had recorded since.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your relationship with the album now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a fear factor that kicked in when the thing got so damned big that it didn\u2019t matter who you were or how clever or talented you were, you just weren\u2019t going to follow it up. I did fine\u2014but everyone thought the next one, I\u2019m in You<\/em>, was a failure because it only sold 3 million. It\u2019s something that I grew to appreciate for what it is. It went from being an albatross to something that I\u2019m very at peace with and proud of. Look, the day that Frampton drops dead, the first sentence is going to be: \u201cPeter Frampton, who was most famous for his album Frampton Comes Alive!<\/em> …\u201d There\u2019s no getting away from it, no matter what I do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Any expectations for the new edition?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the best thing is not to have expectations about anything these days, because it\u2019s such a changing business. As long as they press enough for my family and animals, I\u2019m fine. I never really thought I\u2019d revisit the Comes Alive<\/em> tour. I haven\u2019t played those numbers in that order in one show since 1976.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What made you decide to do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I could see the attraction for the audience\u2014for those who were there, those who missed the tour at the time, and those who have become fans since. But once we started rehearsing, I started getting excited, because the band got excited. By the first show, we walked in to a packed house in New Jersey and the place erupted in what seemed to be d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu for me. At that moment it\u00a0all seemed worthwhile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was the best part of it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I realized I had a captive audience, and in the longest show I\u2019ll ever do in my life, we said, \u201cOK, now we\u2019ll catch you up.\u201d For those who haven\u2019t been to the shows recently or bought the albums, I\u2019ve been active. There\u2019s a lot of material. I\u2019ve had a long career. So basically we did an hour and 20 minutes of encores. It was very successful, and the most fulfilling part for me was giving them what they wanted, but also to do stuff from, say, Fingerprints<\/em>, that had nothing whatsoever to do with Frampton Come Alive!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How long did it take to escape the long shadow of Frampton Comes Alive!<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thirty-seven years. I\u2019m coming out of it next year. The \u201980s were a difficult period for me. It wasn\u2019t until my dear friend David Bowie got me out on the road for the Glass Spider<\/em> tour and on his Never Let Me Down<\/em> record and reintroduced me as a guitar player around the world. I can never thank him enough for believing in me, and seeing past the image of the satin pants and big hair to the guitar player he first met when we played together in school. Then I started working with Steve Marriott again. After that, I sort of shelved the solo career in the early \u201990s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What brought you back?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I missed playing. I enjoyed touring with David so much I just wanted to go back out and play, because I hadn\u2019t really played out that much in the \u201980s. So come \u201992, I called friends who had been with me in the last band, and said, \u201cLet\u2019s go and play. Let\u2019s do six weeks of clubs and have fun.\u201d Six weeks turned into six months.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How important has a sense of humor been to your survival over the years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was brought up in very down-to-earth family, and you never took yourself too seriously. When Comes Alive<\/em> hit, I was a diva for like three weeks, and then my family ridiculed me and brought me back down. That\u2019s about it. We\u2019re all the same, we just do different things for a living. I don\u2019t put myself on a pedestal. That\u2019s for other people to do, and sometimes it\u2019s a drag\u2014but it does get you good seating in restaurants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did you write \u201cShow Me the Way\u201d and \u201cBaby I Love Your Way\u201d on the same day?<\/strong><\/p>\n

True story. It\u2019s part of my \u201cways\u201d series: \u201cShow Me the Way,\u201d \u201cBaby I Love Your Way.\u201d I was in the Bahamas for three weeks to write the Frampton<\/em> album between tours, and I borrowed Steve Marriott\u2019s cottage on the beach. For the first two weeks I had nothing happening whatsoever. I brought a few guitars, an electric and an acoustic, and I was getting a little panicky. I wrote \u201cShow Me the Way,\u201d the verse and the chorus, before lunch, and decided that was the first thing I felt really good about. I quit after the first verse and the chorus, had a swim, some lunch, and was starting to write the second verse when I thought, \u201cHmm, I think I\u2019ll try to write something else, I think I\u00a0just might be on a roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Describe your evolution as a songwriter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I first started, I didn\u2019t know what I was doing, and that\u2019s the best way, not to have any rules. I didn\u2019t know you had to have a reintroduction before the next verse. Does there have to be a chorus? If you listen to my first solo record, I don\u2019t think the opening track, \u201cFig Tree Bay,\u201d has a chorus. It\u2019s just a song. You can find hooky parts in it, and I think it\u2019s a very hooky song, but it doesn\u2019t really have a chorus. Sometimes, too much information when you\u2019ve been schooled by others is restricting because you think, \u201cWell, I\u2019ve got to follow this format now.\u201d When I would write with other people, I would see that they would have a format, and\u00a0I don\u2019t like formats.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019re writing for the Cincinnati Ballet.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a stretch, and nerve-wracking, but I think it\u2019s good to be a little scared. It pushes you. I\u2019m loving the process. They had done a pas de deux to some of my music from Fingerprints<\/em>, and they sent me a DVD. I was just blown away with the choreography and dancing. I thanked them, and the head of the Cincinnati Ballet called to say they\u2019d like to have me onstage playing while the ballet danced. They wanted three 20-minute sections. I said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we start off with some older music, and end up with some chestnuts. But how about the middle 20 minutes be brand-new music that I\u2019ll write from scratch?\u201d They loved that, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m in the middle of doing right now.re is definitely physical effort involved. I\u2019ve\u00a0got a few years left.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PETER FRAMPTON\u00a0 The master guitarist revisits the album that made him a rock icon By Eric R. Danton\u00a0 Frampton Comes Alive! has defined Peter Frampton\u2019s career. Only his perspective has shifted\u2014from surprise and frustration to acceptance. The result is FCA! 35 Tour: An Evening With Peter Frampton, a two-DVD set that captures a tour celebrating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3805],"tags":[5668,5669,5667,5475,2375],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8440,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8438\/revisions\/8440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}