From the Archives: Peter Frampton

This week on Here’s the Thing, Alec talks with Grammy-winning guitarist Peter Frampton. “Sound is very inspirational to me,” explains Frampton – and it always has been: he started playing guitar before he was 8 years old. Frampton talks about his musical roots in England, playing in bands like The Preachers and The Herd. At age 14 he was playing at a recording session produced by Bill Wyman, who he says is “sort of like my mentor, my older brother.” Eleven years later, Frampton was on stage in San Francisco, recording "Frampton Comes Alive," one of the biggest selling live albums of all times. Frampton also talks about the challenges of his extraordinary success: “I don’t think anybody can be ready for that kind of success,” explains Frampton. Peter Frampton recently completed a 35th anniversary tour of Frampton Comes Alive – a DVD will be available later this year. Originally aired July 15th, 2012. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Cost climbs. Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need, when you need it, so you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRanger, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  We all have routines. I'm Javron, and with diabetes, mine was finger sticks. Sometimes, I skip them because they hurt. The Freestyle Libre 3CGM changed that. It gives me glucose insights without finger sticks. Learn more at freestylelibre.us.

• 0:50Speaker 03

  Finger sticks are required if your glucose alarms or readings do not match symptoms, or when you see check blood glucose symbol for the first 12 hours. The views expressed should not be used for medical diagnosis or treatment as a substitute for professional medical advice. Individual circumstances may vary. For prescription only. Safety info found at freestylelibre.us.

• 1:04Speaker 04

  Thinking about selling your car? Get a real offer worth real money from CarMax. Then take seven days to think it over. That's it. No haggling, no hassles, no pressure. Get all the details and a real offer today at carmax.com. Want to drive? CarMax.

• 1:19Speaker 05

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.

• 1:50Alec Baldwin?

  This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio.

• 1:57Alec Baldwin?

  Come on, admit it. If you're my age, you remember exactly where you were when you first heard this.

• 2:16Alec Baldwin?

  That's the sound of 25-year-old Peter Frampton performing what would become one of the top-selling live records of all time. It was 1975, and Frampton Comes Alive would change his life.

• 2:39Alec Baldwin?

  He was young, but hardly a newcomer. By then, he'd already made four solo records for Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss of A&M Records. Frampton, who recorded his first album when he was 14, started Humble Pie when he was 18. Frampton's signature sound is a mixture of virtuosic guitar, a powerful voice, and this electronic device called a talk box. As it turns out, the talk box wasn't his first successful foray into the world of musical gadgets.

• 3:11Speaker 07

  I realized that I was a techie when I was very young. I got my first reel-to-reel tape machine, and then I figured out that if I got another one, I could go sound-on-sound, you know, before any multi-tracking sort of thing, you know? And I figured that out pretty early. I was like, you know, 10 or 11. So I've been an engineer as long as I've been a musician.

• 3:37Alec Baldwin?

  Do you think that's helped you as a musician? You know, you're talking to somebody who, your music is like so important to me.

• 3:44Speaker 07

  Oh, thank you so much.

• 3:46Alec Baldwin?

  You talk about me growing up when I was a kid, and you were very young then. I mean, Humble Pie, you were a kid, you know?

• 3:50Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:51Alec Baldwin?

  You know, when I was growing up, there was like The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, The Who, and Humble Pie. You don't want to know what I put in my body listening to "I Don't Need No Doctor." I mean, you don't want to know. But anyways, but my point is that, do you think that that work has made you a better musician? Because you are such a virtuosic guitarist, and such a great guitarist.

• 4:12Speaker 07

  Sound is very inspirational to me.

• 4:16Speaker 07

  I remember the reason that I wanted to learn guitar was because I heard the sounds of all these people on TV and on the radio, electric guitar, very young. And something, I have a very acute sense of sound, and I've always had that. If I don't have a good sound, I can't play very well. So I've always worked out what makes a good sound. How do you get a good sound?

• 4:43Alec Baldwin?

  Technically.

• 4:44Speaker 07

  Technically. And then, one of the first sessions I ever did, Bill Wyman of The Stones produced it. I was 14. And the first engineer I worked with was Glynn Johns.

• 4:56Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 4:56Speaker 07

  Who is, if people don't know, he's one of the most famous engineers of all time.

• 5:00Alec Baldwin?

  Stones engineer.

• 5:01Speaker 07

  Yeah. Zeppelin, Eagles, the band, just everybody, yeah, Humble Pie. And then, being a gadget freak early on, I just was over like a little birdie on their shoulder, and I was, what's that? What are you doing there? I just learnt how to engineer, so I really enjoy that part of it as well immensely.

• 5:24Alec Baldwin?

  How do you end up as a 14-year-old and Wyman wants to produce your track?

• 5:30Speaker 07

  Well, I started playing guitar just before I was eight years old, and...

• 5:35Alec Baldwin?

  Were either of your parents musical?

• 5:37Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 5:38Alec Baldwin?

  You grew up in England?

• 5:39Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 5:40Alec Baldwin?

  Where?

• 5:40Speaker 07

  About 12 miles south of London, in Bromley, Kent. And my mother was definitely, would have been an entertainer, she was, but my grandparents wouldn't allow her to become an actress. She wanted to be an actress. Her father was a singer. Yes, we have a lot of musical genes, and...

• 6:00Alec Baldwin?

  And your dad?

• 6:01Speaker 07

  My dad played, his teacher, an artist. He played guitar in a college dance band before the war, before the Second World War.

• 6:09Alec Baldwin?

  Did you grow up hearing him play guitar?

• 6:11Speaker 07

  He was more into his art. But he did, he was the one that taught me how to sing Michael Row the Boat. You know, with two chords, basically. And then Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley was another biggie for me. Then it was Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, and Our English, The Shadows, Cliff Richard and The Shadows. So that's how I started playing guitar because of American music, obviously. That's what we all did and we were all clamoring for American music before The Beatles. And then, so I was known locally as this young little upstart, good guitar player, very young. Ended up in a semi-pro band, still at school, that had the drummer, that was the original drummer of The Rolling Stones, called Tony Chapman,

• 6:55Speaker 07

  who introduced Bill to The Stones. He didn't end up staying in The Stones and Bill felt he owed him a favor, I would say. Said, "Look, put a band together and I'll produce it." And he comes into the music shop, I'm working on the Saturdays, when I'm about fourteen and restringing guitars for the guy there. He said, "I want you to be in my band," you know. I said, "Well, I have to speak to Dad," you know, sort of thing. First thing I know, we're in a van, we pick up Bill Wyman in Penj, who sits in the front, the van goes very quiet. We've got a Rolling Stone in the front seat. We go up to London and I meet Glen Johns and we make a record.

• 7:39Alec Baldwin?

  Man, like everyone is talking about So Do They, you know what I mean? What was the record?

• 7:44Speaker 07

  It was called Hole In My Soul. And it was a cover of an American song and...

• 7:49Alec Baldwin?

  What was the name of the band?

• 7:50Speaker 07

  The Preachers. So that was it and...

• 7:54Alec Baldwin?

  So music was your entire life?

• 7:55Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 7:56Alec Baldwin?

  You were in the guitar shop in Kent?

• 7:57Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 7:58Alec Baldwin?

  Fixing strings on guitars for people?

• 8:00Speaker 07

  Yes, shining guitars up.

• 8:01Alec Baldwin?

  And the next thing you know, Bill Wyman's in the car and you're off to go do Hole In My Soul with The Preachers?

• 8:05Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 8:12Alec Baldwin?

  What year is this?

• 8:13Speaker 07

  This is sixty-four.

• 8:15Alec Baldwin?

  So The Stones were and The Beatles were in full swing by then?

• 8:17Speaker 07

  Yes, in fact, we did that year. The Stones were given Ready Steady Go, they took over the show Ready Steady Go for one week. And each one of The Stones had their choice of act to be on, you know. And of course, Bill chose us, so I'm on TV when I'm, just before I'm, I turned fifteen.

• 8:37Alec Baldwin?

  Is there any footage of that? Do you have footage of that?

• 8:39Speaker 07

  If anybody's got it, Bill's got it, because he's the historian, you know. But that was pretty amazing.

• 8:46Alec Baldwin?

  Do you miss living in England? You're such an American in so many ways. You lived here for years, haven't you?

• 8:50Speaker 07

  Yes, seventy, seventy-five, I came to New York, actually. I miss my family, my brother and his family. I miss friends and stuff, but my children are here.

• 9:02Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 9:03Speaker 07

  When I first came to America with Humble Pie and I turned on the radio, I said, "I'm moving here." Just seemed like this was the place that was all happening.

• 9:13Alec Baldwin?

  That was the old and this is the new.

• 9:14Speaker 07

  Yeah, and I'd lived through the swinging sixties of London, you know. And that was exciting, too. And I love England, don't get me wrong. I just don't think I would ever live there again. I was just, I'd be too far for my kids.

• 9:26Alec Baldwin?

  This is home now.

• 9:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 9:28Alec Baldwin?

  So when you finish The Hole in My Soul on the show with Bill Wyman, he's your selection there on the show. What happens then?

• 9:37Speaker 07

  Then, I'm sixteen, it's school holidays in the summer of sixty-six. Big local band, The Herd, come to me and say, "We saw you in The Preachers and we're having a change around. Would you come and, and help us out for the summer?"

• 9:56Alec Baldwin?

  Sixteen, okay.

• 9:57Speaker 07

  So I say, "Okay." So it gets close to September when I'm going to go back to school and they said, "Here's an offer. We want..." You to be the lead guitarist and the lead guitarist going to play bass and we want to be a four-piece instead of a five-piece and would you join the herd? I said, "Oh, I've got to go back to school, do my sixth form, get my A-levels and go to Guildhall School of Music."

• 10:20Alec Baldwin?

  Let me grow up.

• 10:21Speaker 07

  That was my plan, to go to music college, you know.

• 10:22Alec Baldwin?

  Let me grow a beard.

• 10:23Speaker 07

  You're right, at least.

• 10:25Alec Baldwin?

  Let me get a few chest hairs here, then I'll call you.

• 10:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, I haven't even had a shandy yet.

• 10:29Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 07

  You know?

• 10:31Alec Baldwin?

  Exactly.

• 10:32Speaker 07

  So I went to dad and mom and I said, "Look, I really want to do this. It's a professional band, you know, they're great, they're a big band." And my dad said, "Well," and they knew that this was on the cards, you know, this was coming up, that they knew by this time I was going to be a musician. So he said, "Well, look, if you left here and you got a job at the post office, you'd get fifteen pounds a week. I want to get an assurance from this band that you're going to get fifteen pounds a week." I said, "Well, if you can do that deal, Dad, that'll be great. I don't think they earn enough to pay themselves fifteen pounds." He said, "Well, that's what you, I'm going, minimum wage for you." So that was the last deal my dad did for me.

• 11:15Speaker 07

  Because we started to become a little better and earn more money. Beginning, they couldn't pay themselves fifteen.

• 11:21Alec Baldwin?

  Eventually, it was a bargain.

• 11:22Speaker 07

  Yeah, because they paid me fifteen, they got fifty.

• 11:24Alec Baldwin?

  Your father was no Brian Epstein.

• 11:26Speaker 07

  So that was the end of him as a manager.

• 11:56Speaker 05

  Taken a deep breath? Maybe even turned off your phone for cinco minutitos? I promise, the memes will still be there. Sometimes self-care isn't candles and meditation. It's just saying no. It's drinking a little bit of agua. It's letting yourself rest sin pena. You don't have to prove anything today. Just be, breathe. Estás haciendo lo mejor que puedes. And yes, that's enough. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment,

• 12:40Speaker 05

  get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Hey, it's Lunchbox from the Bobby Bones Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla Sedan with the latest features in tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or an adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in, get a deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Hello? Hey, it's me, your wallet. Oh, hey. I was just wondering if we could maybe take it easy this week? Absolutely. Really? Yep, I'm shopping at Food Lion. Wait, you mean low prices? And MVP savings. Oh, you do care. Obviously. Okay, I feel better. Good, now let's go get some snacks. At Food Lion, low prices and MVP savings make it easier to shop for what you need without spending more than you have to. When your wallet needs a little TLC, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.

• 14:17Speaker 07

  Everything changed and The Herd became, had like three big top ten hits and and I became very well known in Europe as a guitar player singer.

• 14:30Alec Baldwin?

  Now, by the time you leave The Herd, you leave them in what year?

• 14:34Speaker 07

  The Herd, after the, uh, these three big hits and an album, we realized that we were losing money still and, um, there was no reason, because we saw the figures, what was coming in and what we were getting paid and all that, so we reached out and Steve Merritt and Ronnie Lane of The Small Faces said, "Look, we've been through this. We've been screwed, you know, by management or business manager, whatever." They clued us in, which was very nice of them, and said they'd help us produce a track or two on, on the next album we were gonna do, which they did. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in with The Small Faces now, at various functions and and wanted to join The Small Faces. That wasn't to be.

• 15:16Speaker 07

  Steve wanted me to join The Small Faces, but they weren't so thrilled with that. So, in the end, uh, Steve called me up and said, "Look, I've left The Small Faces. Let's form a band." And that's how Humble Pie basically formed in, right at the end of, in sixty-eight.

• 15:34Alec Baldwin?

  So the two of those things closely overlapped?

• 15:36Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 15:37Alec Baldwin?

  The end of, uh, The Herd and forming Humble Pie?

• 15:40Speaker 07

  Yes. And it was basically two ex Teeny Bopper stars. Steve Merritt was like the face of sixty-seven and I was the face of sixty-eight, sort of thing.

• 15:49Alec Baldwin?

  And by sixty-eight, how old are you?

• 15:50Speaker 07

  Eighteen.

• 15:51Alec Baldwin?

  Now, you're eighteen years old and you've been doing this professionally since you were fourteen years old, and you're in the world of rock and roll, and especially as we go from the sixties, from sixty-four to sixty-eight, it gets a little more grainy, if you will, in terms of, it gets a little more vivid in terms of drugs and my, my sense of the culture. Was that difficult for you to be the underaged, you know, man-child? I mean, you're the, you're, you're like Mozart, you're like this prodigy, but you're a kid. And you're in this room with some pretty, I would imagine, some pretty hard living people.

• 16:18Speaker 07

  Well, yeah, um, I, I was pretty much of a late bloomer. I had to really learn to drink, you know.

• 16:25Alec Baldwin?

  Do people expect you to?

• 16:26Speaker 07

  I think so, there is.

• 16:28Alec Baldwin?

  You're in demand, it doesn't matter your age.

• 16:31Speaker 07

  Didn't really like.

• 16:31Alec Baldwin?

  It's like you're in the army.

• 16:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. You gotta swear and drink, you know, and now do drugs. But I passed out so many times from anxiety attacks, from pot. I'm trying to get high, please. But anyway, I, I managed it in the end. But, um, not really when I was with Humble Pie.

• 16:52Alec Baldwin?

  What changed?

• 16:53Speaker 07

  I think it was my solo career and then getting to the point where it was surreal.

• 17:01Alec Baldwin?

  We're gonna get to that.

• 17:02Speaker 07

  Well, that was the time.

• 17:03Alec Baldwin?

  Right. So you're with Humble Pie and you're in England?

• 17:06Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 17:07Alec Baldwin?

  And you performed with them for how many years?

• 17:09Speaker 07

  Uh, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy-one, four years.

• 17:12Alec Baldwin?

  Well, how would you characterize that period for yourself? Did you enjoy it?

• 17:15Speaker 07

  Unbelievable.

• 17:16Alec Baldwin?

  They were very popular.

• 17:18Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 17:18Alec Baldwin?

  In the States as well.

• 17:19Speaker 07

  Yes, that band brought me to America.

• 17:21Alec Baldwin?

  Where'd you play?

• 17:22Speaker 07

  Fillmore East. That's where we started. I met, I mean, probably one of the first gigs, I met Bill Graham.

• 17:30Speaker 07

  You realize now when I look back, it was the beginnings of the creation of rock and roll shows.

• 17:37Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 07

  Truly. Bill Graham was the guy on how to do it live.

• 17:41Alec Baldwin?

  Where would you record Humble Pie? In London?

• 17:44Speaker 07

  We recorded at Olympic, in, in the, the famous Olympic where the Stones and Zeppelin recorded. And I did all my solo stuff there as well. Either there or Island Studios, which is Chris Blackwell's place.

• 17:56Alec Baldwin?

  So you never recorded in the US?

• 17:58Speaker 07

  No. No, the first thing we ever did was record the live album of, of Humble Pie at the Fillmore.

• 18:04Alec Baldwin?

  Right. And why did Humble Pie end?

• 18:07Speaker 07

  A couple of reasons. I was feeling claustrophobic in the band because we started off very democratic and doing all different types of music. And now our, our stage act was narrowing and we were just doing more, more of the heavy rock and roll, which I love, don't get me wrong.

• 18:31Speaker 07

  That's my riff, "I Don't Need No Doctor." That's me jamming at the sound check in Madison Square Garden. And Steve just jumped up on the stage and started singing "I Don't Need No Doctor" over that riff.

• 18:54Speaker 07

  He and I were very much-

• 18:56Alec Baldwin?

  That's him singing?

• 18:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:57Alec Baldwin?

  He's the one that says, "It's been a gas!"

• 18:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, "We go home on Monday."

• 19:02Alec Baldwin?

  "We go home on Monday, but wanna tell you, we're not out of gas this time. It's really been a gas." How old is he then?

• 19:10Speaker 07

  Oh, he was probably a couple of years old.

• 19:12Alec Baldwin?

  Okay, so he's the one with the kid. But you feel claustrophobic, why?

• 19:15Speaker 07

  Well, because we weren't, I wasn't, uh... Being able to do the music, all of this music that I wanted to do. Humble Pie started off really split between acoustic and electric. And also, I was coming into my own, and Steve and I fought like brothers.

• 19:31Alec Baldwin?

  The Glimmer Twins.

• 19:32Speaker 07

  Yes, that's, which, which is why Humble Pie was so fiery, I think. Because musically, it was phenomenal. You know, sometimes we'd agree, and sometimes we just wouldn't agree.

• 19:44Speaker 07

  It was very sad for me, because I knew it would upset them, uh, but I just-

• 19:47Alec Baldwin?

  You left.

• 19:48Speaker 07

  ...thought that I had to, it was time to go on, and-

• 19:50Alec Baldwin?

  Did you know where you wanted to go?

• 19:52Speaker 07

  No idea.

• 19:53Alec Baldwin?

  You didn't?

• 19:53Speaker 07

  I knew that I was, I didn't want to form another band, I wanted to become a solo artist at that point.

• 19:59Alec Baldwin?

  You did, why?

• 20:00Speaker 07

  Because I wanted to make all the decisions, because I'm a complete control freak.

• 20:05Alec Baldwin?

  Seriously, did you feel you wanted creative?

• 20:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 20:08Alec Baldwin?

  You wanted more Elton?

• 20:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, I wanted to try things that maybe other people wouldn't want to try, you know? I wanted to do it, and I have to say that it, it wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have had a solo career had it not been for Humble Pie. I learnt so much from working with Steve Marriott. I have to hand him a lot of the credit for the sort of things that he introduced me to listen to as well, Music Blues and Bill Black Combo and stuff like that. That was really influential. Sure to me, so that's why it was a bittersweet thing leaving. I wanted to leave, but I didn't want to leave. And then, of course, as soon as I left, the live album that I had a big hand in mixing, because I'm the gadget freak and the engineer, with Eddie Kramer,

• 20:55Speaker 07

  Rockin' the Felmore comes out, I've left, right at that point, and it zooms up the charts, it's Humble Pie's first gold record, and I'm going, "Holy crap."

• 21:09Speaker 07

  That's it, it's the first big blooper of my career, you know, I made a big mistake.

• 21:14Alec Baldwin?

  Seems like Dad's back on the job.

• 21:15Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 21:16Alec Baldwin?

  Oh, no.

• 21:17Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 21:17Alec Baldwin?

  Is he in the office again? I frammed him this time.

• 21:21Speaker 07

  Yes, absolutely. So then it was four studio albums before we did Comes Alive, you know, and a lot of touring.

• 21:29Alec Baldwin?

  And where are you living then? You still haven't moved here yet?

• 21:32Speaker 07

  I was still living in England until seventy-five, when I finished the fourth solo record in England and then moved over. I actually moved to New York and stayed at the Mount Kisco Holiday Inn on New Year's Eve of nineteen seventy-four.

• 21:51Alec Baldwin?

  Swinging.

• 21:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, was it?

• 21:52Alec Baldwin?

  Beautiful.

• 21:54Speaker 07

  And found Bob Mayo, Bob Mayo on keyboards from the live record, in the band at the Holiday Inn. It's a long story, but, yeah. So, basically, the first day of seventy-five was I was now living in America.

• 22:10Alec Baldwin?

  When you do Comes Alive, how much of the music on that is new music on that album? How much of it was stuff you mined from the previous four solo albums?

• 22:19Speaker 07

  It was basically all stuff that came from the four studio albums and Rock On from Shine On was a Humble Pie track that I'd written. It was actually from five albums, so it was like six years' worth of work mining that went into that one live record.

• 22:40Alec Baldwin?

  And for people who don't know, that live performance was recorded in multiple locations or in one?

• 22:46Speaker 07

  Most of it was one location.

• 22:48Alec Baldwin?

  Which was?

• 22:48Speaker 07

  Winterland in San Francisco, a Bill Graham gig, where The Last Waltz was filmed. Two nights before, we'd played the Marin Civic Centre and we'd done two shows there. So we recorded that. I think a couple of numbers came from there. "Do Be War" I think comes from there, maybe one of the acoustic songs. But "Winterland" was the first big headline show we'd ever done, I'd ever done with my name on the ticket. People were coming to see me because the album right prior to "Comes Alive", just Frampton, was the biggest one so far, biggest seller. It had done, sold like 300,000 copies, which was mega for me.

• 23:33Speaker 07

  That was better than all the others.

• 23:34Alec Baldwin?

  So things in that four album run, prior to the live album in "Winterland", things were getting better, the sales were going up.

• 23:41Speaker 07

  It was, yeah. They were. But that one was definitely setting me up. It was setting me up for something.

• 23:47Alec Baldwin?

  How many nights at "Winterland"?

• 23:48Speaker 07

  One. One show.

• 23:49Alec Baldwin?

  Okay, okay, okay. So stop. So, let's cut the bullshit.

• 23:55Alec Baldwin?

  Let's cut the bullshit. You're in "Winterland".

• 23:58Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 23:59Alec Baldwin?

  And would you say, and the show goes on, what time, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock? 9 o'clock?

• 24:02Speaker 07

  Yeah, probably, probably quarter to 9, something like that.

• 24:05Alec Baldwin?

  So somewhere between you pull up to "Winterland" and you go out a quarter to 9, the devil came in your room and made a deal with you, correct? You signed a deal with the devil?

• 24:12Speaker 07

  Absolutely, yes.

• 24:12Alec Baldwin?

  The devil showed up?

• 24:14Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 24:14Alec Baldwin?

  Poured himself a drink, sat down, said, "Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter", "Let's cut, let's cut to the chase".

• 24:18Speaker 07

  It was Peter Cook, actually.

• 24:19Alec Baldwin?

  It was Pizza Cook. And he said, "Let's make a deal".

• 24:22Speaker 07

  "I'm the devil".

• 24:24Alec Baldwin?

  And the devil makes this deal with you because what happened?

• 24:29Speaker 07

  First of all, there's probably, if I'm not mistaken, if there wasn't 7,500 people out there, then I thought they were set. But it definitely sounds like it. It's a big room. They go nuts when we walk out and it just takes you to a different level, you know?

• 24:46Alec Baldwin?

  It felt good.

• 24:47Speaker 07

  It was one of those shows, when you come off and you look at the band and you just go, "I wish we'd recorded that. That was like so good, man!". And then we went, "We did!". You know? "We did record that". We forgot we were... You see, the event was so much more important than the recording. I don't even remember the truck being there.

• 25:25Alec Baldwin?

  The recording is June of 1975 and it's released when?

• 25:30Speaker 07

  We're still mixing right up before Christmas and then it comes out, I believe, on like January 17th or something like that.

• 25:39Alec Baldwin?

  Of 76?

• 25:40Speaker 07

  January 9th or, yeah, of 76.

• 25:42Alec Baldwin?

  And what happens?

• 25:44Speaker 07

  Well, I knew we were going to tour the whole year, so right after Christmas, I went down to the Bahamas for 10 days and relaxed. Before I left, we had put one show on at Kobo Hall in Detroit, which is a big rum. And that's all I knew. And so I go away and I don't call anybody, I'm just on the beach and snorkeling, whatever. I come back, we've sold four shows out. And I said, "What happened?", you know? And the album has just started to be on the radio, you know? And that's when everything just went through the roof, you know?

• 26:26Speaker 07

  After all this time, people think it is overnight, but it's not overnight in the scheme of things.

• 26:33Alec Baldwin?

  It's a huge leap for you.

• 26:35Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 26:35Alec Baldwin?

  But it's not overnight success.

• 26:36Speaker 07

  But it is, it's a heady experience.

• 26:39Alec Baldwin?

  Is this still the highest selling live album of all time?

• 26:43Speaker 07

  It's in dispute, but yeah.

• 26:45Alec Baldwin?

  But it's up there?

• 26:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, because my record has only counted as one album. Certain other artists had it made so that you could count, if you released six CD live set, you can count it six times. Well, they didn't do that retroactively, so in my mind, it's still the biggest seller, yes.

• 27:06Alec Baldwin?

  And eventually, how many albums did you sell?

• 27:08Speaker 07

  We're up in the 17 million now.

• 27:10Alec Baldwin?

  17 million records have you sold?

• 27:25Alec Baldwin?

  This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Back in a minute with more of Peter Frampton.

• 27:32Speaker 05

  This mood check is brought to you by State Farm. Porque tu bienestar también merece protección. Que tal mi gente, Honey German checking in contigo. Take a second, literalmente, un momentico para ti. How's your corazón feeling today? If it's a little tired, a little oof, you're not alone. Have you eaten algo rico? Taken a deep breath? Maybe even turned off your phone for cinco minutitos? I promise, the memes will still be there. Sometimes self-care isn't candles and meditation. It's just saying no. It's drinking a little bit of agua. It's letting yourself rest sin pena. You don't have to prove anything today. Just be, breathe. Estas haciendo lo mejor que puedes. And yes, that's enough.

• 28:16Speaker 05

  Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability. Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Hello? Hey, it's me, your wallet. Oh, hey.

• 29:29Speaker 05

  I was just wondering if we could maybe take it easy this week? Absolutely. Really? Yep, I'm shopping at Food Lion. Wait, you mean low prices? And MVP savings. Oh, you do care. Obviously. Okay, I feel better. Good, now let's go get some snacks. At Food Lion, low prices and MVP savings make it easier to shop for what you need without spending more than you have to. When your wallet needs a little TLC, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.

• 30:11Alec Baldwin?

  When you come out of that experience of having this huge thing, I want to talk to you not about how it affected you career-wise, because obviously that wasn't important. How did it affect you personally? Were you married at the time?

• 30:21Speaker 07

  I had a girlfriend at the time. I don't think anybody can be ready for that kind of success. And I'm a pretty down-to-earth person. I take things as they come. As I said earlier to you, I was a late bloomer when it came to dulling anything. It was almost unbelievable, the amount of success. You get these phone calls in quick succession. You're number one in the charts. And I'm going, wait a second. Say that one more time. And who are you? And then, within three or four weeks of that, I get the call saying it's the biggest-selling record of all time.

• 31:05Speaker 07

  You've just outsold Carole King's Tapestry. And it's...

• 31:10Alec Baldwin?

  Was that the time you thought you had to start numbing yourself?

• 31:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, it was crazy, because people just wanted...

• 31:16Alec Baldwin?

  You didn't know how to deal with that?

• 31:17Speaker 07

  No, it was very hard.

• 31:18Alec Baldwin?

  You didn't know how to deal with how people treat you differently?

• 31:20Speaker 07

  Exactly. And being always respectful and never really thinking of myself as anything special, because I've never been a... That's just not my character.

• 31:31Alec Baldwin?

  And what good does it do you?

• 31:32Speaker 07

  I felt embarrassed that I was that. This entity became, it was me over here, you know. Yes, it was very hard to deal with, yeah.

• 31:42Alec Baldwin?

  But were you proud of the record?

• 31:43Speaker 07

  Oh, my God, yeah, I'm still proud of the record.

• 31:45Alec Baldwin?

  Because it's one thing when people become famous and have a, regardless of their, of the ramp up, regardless of the whole timeline of their career, and then they have some seismic event like that, and they don't really deserve it. And I mean, in your case, you're great, I mean, you really are phenomenal. But aside from your own gifts, who helped really, really make the record roll out that way? Jerry?

• 32:08Speaker 07

  Jerry, def- well, I have to say Jerry and Herb for sticking with me as long. They stuck with Humble Pie, too. They stuck with Police. They stuck with, well, Police happened pretty quickly, but there's a lot of acts in those days that-

• 32:23Alec Baldwin?

  Needed nurturing.

• 32:24Speaker 07

  Needed nurturing, and it was like a, um, a club, you know? You come over here, and Jerry and Herb never told us what to write or what to record. They let us do our thing and find ourselves. And I have to say, DeAnthony, the manager, was a great promoter. He wasn't terrific with finances, but especially mine. And then Frank Barcelona, the agent, who was, if you weren't with Frank, you weren't anybody, you know? That was premier talent was the place.

• 32:53Alec Baldwin?

  Who else did he handle?

• 32:54Speaker 07

  Everybody. Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, I mean, everybody, The Who, The Lot, everybody.

• 33:01Alec Baldwin?

  Did that plague you at that time about finances? Did you find that that, that you didn't get what you thought was fair?

• 33:07Speaker 07

  Well, I was ripped off. I mean, but, but I would go back and talk to Bill Wyman, you know, because he's sort of like my mentor, my, my older brother. He said, "Oh, we all get ripped off. Stones, The Beatles, we all got ripped off, you know, and then you learn and you go and do it again," you know? I, I'll tell you why it happens, it's because I'm a musician, I'm a creative person, I've never done- What I do for money. I'm stupid when it comes to money, you know.

• 33:38Alec Baldwin?

  You left a lot of money on the table.

• 33:40Speaker 07

  Yes, so I trusted people to look after things for me and they didn't. They took it.

• 33:47Alec Baldwin?

  Did that change after you had the number one selling album in the world?

• 33:50Speaker 07

  Well, that's when it happened. That's when it started. And some people it'll happen to over and over again, but I have a team now that I wish I had then, obviously. But and I've become, I actually tutored myself in math a little bit after that. No, but it's, you know what I mean? I have to blame myself as much as I blame everybody else.

• 34:09Alec Baldwin?

  I mean, you almost want to believe, as I do, that I couldn't do. You might not have been able to do the work you did on the level you did if your mind was on something else.

• 34:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, I, yeah. When something really big hits in the entertainment business, it's like feast or famine. It's either it's not a hit, movie, record, whatever, and nothing comes in. Or it's like a blockbuster and all this money comes in and it all comes into one place. And when you see a pile of money like this, it brings out thoughts that people didn't normally have before. You know what I mean? It's the, um, the availability of all that cash all at once, you know, that.

• 34:52Alec Baldwin?

  Well, especially in the music business, because there's nothing like the music business for making money.

• 34:55Speaker 07

  Except for the fact that music is free now.

• 34:59Alec Baldwin?

  Well, it is different now, yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 07

  I mean, you used to tour to promote the record.

• 35:05Alec Baldwin?

  And now?

• 35:06Speaker 07

  Now you make the record to promote the tour. The record is a giveaway. The CD is a giveaway.

• 35:13Alec Baldwin?

  The dollars are on the live performing?

• 35:15Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 35:16Alec Baldwin?

  That's how it is for you?

• 35:16Speaker 07

  Well, yeah, that's all.

• 35:18Alec Baldwin?

  And most artists.

• 35:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, and luckily my reputation is as a live performer, so it's been phenomenal for me. But it's hard work touring, but I love it, so that's not hard work for me.

• 35:28Alec Baldwin?

  You came into New York recently and you did that at the Beacon here in New York.

• 35:32Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 35:33Alec Baldwin?

  And how many shows did you do?

• 35:34Speaker 07

  For most of thirteen months, we were doing five shows a week and it's a three hour show. So we were doing Comes Alive first, which is an hour and forty. And then we were doing excerpts from everything else in my career as well for another hour and fifteen or twenty, you know. So it was, uh, we were killing ourselves.

• 35:56Alec Baldwin?

  How did it feel?

• 35:57Speaker 07

  Well, it felt great. The first show we did was in New Jersey.

• 36:02Alec Baldwin?

  The first time you did Comes Alive concert.

• 36:04Speaker 07

  First time we played it since seventy-six.

• 36:07Alec Baldwin?

  Okay.

• 36:07Speaker 07

  You know, and then the second show was the Beacon. The place went nuts, you know, they just went berserk, you know.

• 36:15Alec Baldwin?

  Are you gonna do it again?

• 36:17Speaker 07

  I don't know whether I'll do the entire thing again.

• 36:20Alec Baldwin?

  Will you do Comes Alive again?

• 36:23Speaker 07

  Not for a while.

• 36:24Alec Baldwin?

  God damn it.

• 36:25Speaker 07

  No, no, you may not. We filmed it.

• 36:28Alec Baldwin?

  You did film it?

• 36:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, at the Beacon and in.

• 36:31Alec Baldwin?

  What are you gonna do with that? Where's that going?

• 36:33Speaker 07

  It's gonna be a DVD. In fact, that's where I'm going on Sunday to go back home to my studio to mix the audio.

• 36:39Alec Baldwin?

  What are you gonna do with it? You're gonna release it as a DVD?

• 36:42Speaker 07

  DVD, yes.

• 36:42Alec Baldwin?

  Or in theaters or on TV?

• 36:44Speaker 07

  No, it'll probably just be a DVD and.

• 36:47Alec Baldwin?

  You don't wanna do this on TV?

• 36:48Speaker 07

  Oh, I'd love to, yeah. Have you got an in there, maybe?

• 36:51Alec Baldwin?

  Oh, I can't believe. If it's a doc, are there any backstage footage?

• 36:54Speaker 07

  I've got the story and it's filmed of when my guitar was returned.

• 37:00Alec Baldwin?

  What happened to that guitar? What's the story?

• 37:02Speaker 07

  Well, first of all, we're talking about the guitar that's on the front cover of Comes Alive, which I got given to me by Mark Mariana in nineteen seventy when I was playing the Fillmore West with Humble Pie. And I was having a terrible time with the guitar that I had that night. And Mark said to me, you know, I could see you having problems with that. You wanna try my Les Paul tomorrow? I said, well, I'm not really big on Les Pauls. But, okay, all right, anything's better than this. So he brought it to me. I played it. I don't think my feet touched the ground the entire night. It's the best guitar I've ever played, you know.

• 37:36Alec Baldwin?

  A fifty-four Les Paul.

• 37:37Speaker 07

  Fifty-four Les Paul. So then I played that guitar on Rock On and also of Humble Pie and also Rock in the Fillmore. That's the guitar I use on there. Basically, I use that exclusively. It's the only guitar I play all the way through all my solo records, including Frampton Comes Alive.

• 37:59Alec Baldwin?

  And you were never tempted to put that down and play? That was it?

• 38:01Speaker 07

  That was it.

• 38:02Alec Baldwin?

  You married that guitar?

• 38:03Speaker 07

  Yes, yes. It was just this one. I had a fifty-five Strat that I would always use for Show Me The Way 'cause I needed a cleaner sound, you know. So that was on Show Me The Way. So then we get to touring South America in 1980. We'd just finished playing Caracas, Venezuela, and we had a day off. And so we flew commercially to Panama, waiting for the gear to arrive on a cargo plane. Well, it never got off the runway in Caracas. It crashed on takeoff. My road manager came to me, I'm having this huge meal on my day off with my wife at the time, and he said, I got some bad news. And he says, the plane crashed on takeoff.

• 38:47Speaker 07

  I said, my guitar?

• 38:49Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Speaker 07

  He said, mm-hmm, and like six people, loading people, the pilot, co-pilot, loading inspector, all that.

• 38:57Alec Baldwin?

  So they were killed?

• 38:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, people died. So that took precedent over everything, then it put it in perspective, you know? And there's the pilot's wife sitting at the bar, who doesn't know yet. It was horrendous. So anyway, we limped through the end of that tour, basically with borrowed equipment, sent someone down, my guitar tech at the time, a week later to see what was left. Nothing was left, supposedly. And what had happened, the tail had broken off, guitars were actually in a trunk.

• 39:29Alec Baldwin?

  In cases.

• 39:29Speaker 07

  In cases. And the way the story goes is, they had a guard to guard the crash site, the debris site, till the insurance people came down, and he decided that the guitars would be much safer at his house.

• 39:42Alec Baldwin?

  No.

• 39:43Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 39:43Alec Baldwin?

  In Caracas?

• 39:45Speaker 07

  Yes, in Caracas.

• 39:46Alec Baldwin?

  This is 1980?

• 39:47Speaker 07

  1980. Two years ago, which is 30 years.

• 39:52Alec Baldwin?

  30 years later.

• 39:54Speaker 07

  I opened my [email protected] email, because anybody can email me, and I see them all. I open up this one, and there's a picture, a photograph of my guitar, slightly singed, but.

• 40:10Alec Baldwin?

  Gloriously singed.

• 40:12Speaker 07

  Right at the top, you know, slightly singed, but, but there it is. There's a picture, and I thought, could this be?

• 40:20Alec Baldwin?

  You see this picture where?

• 40:21Speaker 07

  In an email to me, from someone who'd got a hold of the guitar, as it happens in Curacao, which is a little island off the coast of Caracas. Someone had sold it to this gentleman.

• 40:38Speaker 07

  And he took it to someone who fixed guitars and they knew what it was. And it took two years of a very gray area.

• 40:47Alec Baldwin?

  And was he saying, like, I don't want to get processed, I want to get this guitar to you, but I don't want to go to jail?

• 40:50Speaker 07

  That was the thing. No one wanted to actually come.

• 40:53Alec Baldwin?

  It wasn't about money, it wasn't about him, he wanted to do.

• 40:55Speaker 07

  There, there was money involved, but.

• 40:57Alec Baldwin?

  He would have appreciated the gratuity.

• 40:59Speaker 07

  There was a reward talked about, but every time it would get close to someone coming in, they'd find something, reason why they couldn't come in. So that's why it took two years. And then in the end, the guy actually checked to see if we had booked him a hotel. Cause he just saw himself in handcuffs at Miami airport. You know, he knew who had it and the person who had it needed some money. And so he went to the tourist bureau of Curacao and said, look, if you lend me the money or give me the money to go buy this, I can find this, this will be a great tourism story for Curacao. And.

• 41:34Alec Baldwin?

  They did?

• 41:35Speaker 07

  And they did, and they came, and the two of them, the tourism, president of the tourism board from the government and the gentleman who found the guitar, knew where it was, brought it to Nashville. We had three cameras as soon as he walked in.

• 41:50Alec Baldwin?

  Waiting. And what happens?

• 41:52Speaker 07

  Well, the two gentlemen walk in and he's got it in this, probably one of the worst looking gig bags I've ever seen in my life, cheap old plastic thing. He puts it beside him, you know, and he tells the story in broken English of how this person had it and the whole thing. He hands it to me and he goes, feel it, Peter, feel it. So, and I know that he knows because it was the lightest Les Paul I'd ever played. So I just felt it in the case and I went, oh, this could be it, you know? Opened it up, I just looked at it and I just feel it like that and I go, it's my guitar.

• 42:29Alec Baldwin?

  How badly was it singed? Where?

• 42:31Speaker 07

  Just around the very top, it, it lost the binding around the, the headstock.

• 42:36Alec Baldwin?

  Did you get that replaced?

• 42:37Speaker 07

  No, I didn't. I left it, I've left it with its battle scars. I, Gibson made it playable. So we refreshed it.

• 42:46Alec Baldwin?

  You call that the Caracas kiss?

• 42:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 42:48Alec Baldwin?

  On the tip there. And does it sound the same? Does it feel the same?

• 42:51Speaker 07

  Oh my god.

• 42:52Alec Baldwin?

  It's not damaged at all? Just that singe?

• 42:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, and. When I first played it at rehearsals with the band, everybody had this like Cheshire Cat grin on their face because it has this sound and it sounds like Frampton Comes Alive.

• 43:12Speaker 07

  You know, you don't have to try too hard.

• 43:14Alec Baldwin?

  And you got that back when?

• 43:16Speaker 07

  I got it back just before we started touring in February and March for the last American leg. I used it a little bit at rehearsals and then I brought it out for the first night at the Beacon. I think the guitar is more famous than I am now, so.

• 43:32Alec Baldwin?

  But you were meant to play that music with that guitar.

• 43:35Speaker 07

  Yeah, and I remember saying to someone that before I went out that night, I just hope emotionally I'm going to be able to play it. And I brought it out for Do You Feel? And I messed up the first lick because I couldn't believe I was playing. How can you fumble?

• 43:53Speaker 07

  Me, I did. It was like meant to be, you know. And once I got, it was saying to me, come on, get it together. You know, and yes, it's, I'm back now, get over it, you know.

• 44:20Alec Baldwin?

  Peter Frampton has just completed his 35th anniversary tour of Frampton Comes Alive and says he plans to release the DVD this fall. In addition to celebrating his past, he's also busy with new projects, including a collaboration with the Cincinnati Ballet, which will debut next spring. What music do you listen to now? Who do you like?

• 44:40Speaker 07

  Um, right now, this week, Band of Skulls. My son turned me on to, and daughter turned me on to them. And I went to Coachella, I saw Radiohead. I still, I'm a Radiohead fanatic. I just love them. I think they're so not mainstream, but they became mainstream because they're just so unique. It was an eye opener for me to go to Coachella with my daughter, who's 16, and just have fun.

• 45:07Alec Baldwin?

  This is Alec Baldwin, and if you haven't figured this out by now, I'm one of Peter Frampton's biggest fans.

• 45:35Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.

• 45:44Alec Baldwin?

  With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. Whether you're leading a big project, planning an elaborate trip, or trying to balance work and life, ChatGPT can help.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Give it a goal, plus things like files, notes, or project plans, develop a trip itinerary with daily updates, or create a prioritized schedule. So you can spend less energy sorting out the details and more on bringing your biggest ideas to life. Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 46:11Alec Baldwin?

  This is Colin Cowherd from the Colin Cowherd Podcast. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability. All starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or a half-ton Tundra to a Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. For a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 46:45Alec Baldwin?

  My fresh detector.

• 46:46Speaker 05

  Uh, your what? There it is. What is it detecting? Fresh produce, fresh meat. Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 46:58Speaker 05

  Apparently, we celebrate. At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices. When your fresh detector is going off, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.

• 47:11Speaker 03

  Building with AI should feel simpler, not harder to navigate. The challenge is finding the right resources to move from exploring AI to building with it. The Microsoft AI Innovators Hub brings together code samples, guided labs, and practical guidance to help you move from exploring AI to building with it. Learn by building at the AI Innovators Hub. Visit aka.ms slash AI-dash-innovators. That's aka.ms slash AI-dash-innovators.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.