The more simple my life is, the happier I am.
Peter Frampton
In 1978, I had a near-fatal car accident in the Bahamas. There was a point when I could have lost my right arm - but it was good because it forced me to slow down and take a break.
Everyone wanted to play like Eric Clapton in the early to mid-'60s.
Some might say I didn't pay enough of my dues, and I think I've paid my dues.
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'm sure that I am enjoying my sobriety. And respect it. If you've been through what I've been through, then you really do treasure it.
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.
People love to play 'Baby, I Love Your Way' at their weddings. They even play it for births and deaths - whatever the occasion, it seems to fit. Over the years, it's been used in lots of movies, and it's been covered by other artists more than any of my songs. I've written a standard... which is pretty incredible to me.
I love to be a hermit.
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.
Music is now becoming 'free,' and it's very difficult for new artists to start.
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.
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 write about what happens to me. It's all there. I couldn't do it any other way.
I was only a teenager when I played with the Herd and Humble Pie, and I was still in my early twenties when 'Frampton Comes Alive!' came out. That was an immense amount of work in a relatively short period of time. I needed to stop for a while and grow up, but I didn't do that.
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.
Your own material is your identity, and I think that's what you need to stick to.
I'm lucky that I enjoy playing live; it's my passion to do that. There's certain artists that never want to play live. They just want to be in the studio. Good luck, because there is no income.
After 'Frampton Comes Alive!' became a huge success, I really needed to take time off to work out what the hell just happened. Instead, I just kept working.
I used to jam with Steve Marriott of the Small Faces.
The perception that I was just a pop star was pushed upon me by the public, and it's very hard to change the public's perception even though I never really pushed aside the musician aspect of my career. After I released 'Fingerprints,' my peers reassured me that I was on a level that I always hoped I would be on.
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'm lucky. I've got my own studio. I can make my own music, but not many people can do that. I will always be making new music, because that's what I have to do; that's why I'm here. I will always do that.
I formed Humble Pie when I was only 18. We were one of the first 'supergroups,' with Steve Marriott of The Small Faces on guitar and Greg Ridley of Spooky Tooth on bass. With Humble Pie, I tasted American success for the first time.
I'd often use a Leslie cabinet on its own in the studio because everyone in the late Sixties and Seventies was experimenting with them. We'd stick anything through a Leslie because it made everything sound so good.
I was allowed a freedom as a baby boomer to do whatever I wanted to do. My parents were able to give their permission because they just felt, 'Why not?' I joined my first band and dropped out of school.
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.
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.
I really wasn't into sports at an early age. I couldn't wait to get home from school and go straight to my bedroom and pick up the guitar and play it. It became an obsession with me. That's all I wanted to do was play guitar and learn every lick I heard on the radio.
'Frampton Comes Alive!' is the album I'll always be remembered for. I'm very proud of the music that's on it. Why it exploded the way it did and continues to live on are things that can't fully be explained.
Politeness and caring for each other cannot be a thing of the past.
Money never meant that much to me.
Most rock movies are never authentic - you'll have someone supposedly in 1958 playing a 1990 guitar, and a 1986 microphone.
I've always had a good time in bands, and when I wasn't having a good time, I left.
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.
If there's ever a live record that deserved to be mixed in surround sound, it's 'Frampton Comes Alive.'
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.
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.
I've always wanted to be the best guitarist in the world, ever since I was eight years old.
I started out as a musician, and I ended up as a cartoon.
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.
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've always loved to play live.
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.
'Penny for Your Thoughts' was something I noodled on for a while.
You know me - I'm the road dog of road dogs.
A lot of people were moved to write after September 11th. It had to affect us all in a way.
Everybody wants to be on the front cover of 'People' and 'Rolling Stone.'
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.'
I never thought I would do an all-acoustic tour or an all-acoustic album.
