A Conversation with Peter Frampton – HuffPost 10.25.12

Mike Ragogna: There’s a new DVD, Blu-ray and CD of a revisited Frampton Comes Alive!or rather FCA! with an exclamation point and we’ve got Peter Frampton here on Solar-Powered KRUU-FM, the only solar-powered station in the Midwest to prove it.

Peter Frampton: Well, I do hope it doesn’t get cloudy while we’re doing the interview. Will the station draw to a complete close if the sun goes out?

MR: Not at all, but you know why? Because your sunny disposition will be charging the station.

PF: [laughs] Okay, all right, very good.

MR: Peter, it is a joy to talk to you once again. It’s always a pleasure and, of course, you have this new project for us to chat about. Now, let’s start with how the performances that are on this DVD, Blu-ray and CD were recorded around the world.

PF: Yes, the DVD and Blu-ray, basically, was two nights of filming — that’s The Beacon Theatre in New York City and the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, both done in February of this year. Then I decided that seeing as we were selling CDs for people to take home with them from every show of the FCA! 35th anniversary tour, which was a great thing, Abbey Road Live brought their equipment every night and recorded everything and by the time people left, they could walk away with three CDs of the entire three-hour show. So because of that and because we were multi-tracking every night, I thought it would be a great idea to do a best-of as well as the DVD and Blu-ray. But I didn’t realize what I was taking on, because the DVD was a lot of work, choosing between two shows, which tracks you’re going to have, and then editing between the two nights. But it worked out great. We recorded a hundred and sixteen shows total, that was the amount that we did for the …Comes Alive!anniversary tour, so luckily, we kept a logbook when we came off stage each night. Everyone in the band would mark what songs they thought were good or if they thought none of them were up to par or if the whole night was good. At the end of working on the DVD, I started this mammoth task of going through what ended up being about forty shows that we all said were the better shows out of the hundred and sixteen. Then I set about going through and choosing three hours of the best tracks, whether they be from Toronto, Walla Walla, Washington, or Manchester, England. So, yes, as I said, it was a huge task and I didn’t realize what I was taking on but I feel really good now that I’ve done it because I’ve found some really special renditions of the songs, twenty-five of which are not on the DVD. There are only five songs that are the same as the DVD, because those were the better versions of those songs, so you’ve got twenty-five extra versions from all over the world, basically.

MR: So this is like a complete celebration, not only of Frampton Comes Alive! but also of Peter Frampton. In a way, this has been years in the making.

PF: Well, yeah, in a way, but also, there was never any footage of the entire show. There was footage, but the three hits — “Baby, I Love You,” “Show Me The Way,” and “Do You Feel Like We Do?” — at the time it was released, there was no MTV; you just did your promotional videos or films of each single, basically, at the time, which was a drag. The footage from Winterland where we actually recorded most of …Comes Alive! originally was just one static camera and I believe that went up in smoke when Bill Graham’s office got torched. They lost a lot of stuff, so there was no record of what these songs were like live other than the three. So I always thought it would be a good idea to do the whole thing as a show and record it and film it because there just wasn’t anything available of the entire amount of material on that original …Comes Alive!

MR: And these releases bring your career up to date. Having played that many shows… a hundred and sixteen, I guess it was, for the tour total?

PF: For just the Frampton Comes Alive! 35th anniversary leg of it, yes.

MR: Having played that many performances, were there any revelations about the original project?

PF: There were a few things that came to life and happened from when we started the tour to when we finished it. Obviously, Stanley Sheldon, the original bass player from …Comes Alive!, is back with me again, which is wonderful and we’re so thrilled to have him back. So that was great that we were going to experience it with Stanley again, but I think the other members of the band had never played all the songs from …Comes Alive! We cherry-picked for the tours. I haven’t done …Comes Alive! total for years, since the seventies. I think when we first started rehearsing “Something’s Happening” that the band had never done, and “Doobie Wah,” I think the revelation was, “These are really good tracks, you know?” And everyone got excited about the fact that we were doing something that was sort of historic and that I was actually in the band. I think that the excitement then came. We played in New Jersey and then the Beacon the first time for the first couple of shows and I don’t think any of us were prepared for the reception that the entire thing got. There was something that we tapped into, a time warp or something for everyone in the audience and for those new audience members that were not there at the time. They just got to feel the same thing. It was pretty phenomenal and we just really enjoyed it. People have asked, “Did you really want to do all those songs again?” Well, I never really planned on it, but now that I’ve come up with the idea of doing it so we can film it, it’s been very enjoyable. I’ve never played the same notes twice in a solo and never plan to. It’s always new every night. It’s been wonderful. Of course, lo and behold, right before Christmas in 2011, halfway through the…Comes Alive! 35 tour, I was to actually get the guitar back after thirty-two years of thinking that it went up in smoke, the guitar that’s on the front cover of …Comes Alive!original cover.

MR: The audience must go nuts when you bring it out and go, “This is the guitar, guys!”

PF: Yeah. [laughs] We the band, go nuts as well. It’s surreal. That is a surreal story and to actually be the recipient of the surrealism and be the person that benefits from this the most, talk about something you never thought in a million years would ever happen, because you were led to believe for thirty-one years, it was up in smoke, basically. I stumble for what to say every time, and I’ve had it back for a couple months, now, but it’s just very emotional. It’s a piece of wood, I know, but it’s something that’s very near and dear to me, and it was the only electric guitar I owned for so long because I didn’t have the cash to have more. I had an acoustic and I had an electric and that was it when I was in Humble Pie.

MR: So I feel like your new CD captures more of the experience of what happened on the road than even the DVD and the Blu-ray are able to.

PF: It does actually! There are a couple extra numbers on there because we didn’t do exactly the same show every night. There are, I think, two songs on the CD that don’t appear on the DVD.

MR: Now I know we’ve done this before, but just to have it all in one spot for this interview for these people listening and reading right now, what are your thoughts, seventeen-million albums later, about the original Frampton Comes Alive!?

PF: Well, it’s something that I’m very proud of, obviously, but it’s enabled me to collect new audiences along the way and it’s something that I will always be remembered for obviously, which is not a problem for me. It has enabled me to keep going and keep doing new music, which obviously is featured on this new collection, too. So even though we do the entire…Comes Alive! show from beginning to end, the second set was another hour and twenty minutes of stuff from throughout my career, including covers and material fromFingerprints and Thank You Mister Churchill, and the more recent albums. It’s enabled me to keep going and to just branch out. Now it’s almost like whatever I do is a bonus for me, you know?

MR: What a good run you’re having lately.

PF: Yeah, it’s been a good period for me. It’s been pretty prolific in writing new stuff and I think that the plans for the future are looking great. It has been a good period. Right now, I’m doing something completely different. I’m trying to stretch myself and do things that scare me a little. The Cincinnati Ballet have already used some of my music to do a performance with them and asked me if I would write some music for them. I’m doing that right now, actually. I’m about halfway through writing it and in April, we’re going to do three or four shows with my band and I actually playing on stage behind the ballet dancers. It’s going to be a real different event. There’ll be the old music for the first twenty-minute segment, and then the center section, this twenty-minutes, will be this brand new, never heard by anybody before premiere of brand new music that I’m writing for the ballet, and then we’ll end up with the last twenty-minute section of things people know me for already.

MR: Nice. And it just keeps coming.

PF: Yeah, and I will probably be doing some more instrumental stuff as well, because I enjoy that so much. I’m not saying I won’t be doing vocal stuff as well; this ballet stuff is working out to be pretty fifty-fifty instrumental and vocal. I’ve got a lot more to say musically, and I’m finding more and more different ways to do it. It’s just been a phenomenal period.

MR: Peter, what advice do you have for new artists?

PF: It’s a terrible time for the music industry now. I don’t mean to be a downer, but that’s the way it is. We don’t know where it’s going. Music is now becoming “free,” and it’s very difficult for new artists to start. My advice to new artists is to not follow a trend, but to start one. By that, I mean to not be tempted to do what business people might suggest to you, to jump on the bandwagon, but to be strong. Your own material is your identity and I think that’s what you need to stick to. The power of your audience is in the hand of the artist now via all the media — Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all of them — all of the new available techniques to get to people. I think that you are your best publicist and record company and everything right now when starting out. There have been many artists recently that have proven this. I don’t think it’s a time to despair, I think it’s a time to really go after what you want to do and not sell yourself short. Stick to your guns and to your gut instincts on your own music.

MR: Thank you, and will you be coming back for another interview when you do the 35th anniversary of Frampton Comes Alive! 2?

PF: [laughs] I don’t know about that! Gosh, no I don’t think so, but we can do whenever you want to. I don’t mind.

MR: Any closing thoughts? Anything you want to throw out there?

PF: All I can say is I took a lot of this year off to work on the DVD and the CD set and we’ll be starting back up with the ballet, which we’re also going to film with, so there’s another project there, but then right after that, we’ll be going back into rehearsals and be going out on another expedition touring the world and we’ll have something new out there at that point, whether it be an EP or something like that, which will be out to accompany another tour.

MR: Nice. And we’ll talk to you then, right?

PF: You will indeed.

MR: Thanks. All the best, Peter, and thank you again for all your time.

PF: All right, thanks so much.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne