“People say, ‘You get great guitar sounds’ and I say, ‘Thank you very much,’ because if you give me a bad guitar sound, I sound like a beginner,” says Peter Frampton on a video call from his home in Nashville.
The 76-year-old musician knows what he’s talking about, of course, having blown our minds with his guitar prowess for the last six decades – and that experience is audible on Carry the Light, his first studio album in 16 years.
Loaded with guitar textures, Frampton’s 19th album ranges from sweet acoustic mellowness to the extravagant but controlled soloing for which he became known in his early band, Humble Pie – and even more so after the impact of his talkbox-heavy, eight-times-platinum solo album Frampton Comes Alive! in 1976.
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He tells us that his objective with the solos this time was to sound “sweet and just on the edge of distortion,” delivering the goods via the famous “Phenix” Les Paul, a black 1954 Custom model that was lost in 1980 and returned 31 years later (you’ll know it from the cover of Frampton Comes Alive!).
Elsewhere on the new album, Frampton and a cast of guests including Tom Morello, Sheryl Crow and H.E.R. (aka singer Gabriella Wilson), run through slow-building blues, understated balladry and all-out rock, the latter heard most clearly on Lions at the Gate, which features Morello’s signature choppy riffing.
The long outro of Islamorada is another highlight, featuring a blistering solo outro from Frampton, and yet another is Breaking the Mold, a subtle acoustic piece featuring Crow.
In GW’s chat with the affable veteran we cover a lot of territory, from the abuse of power, via the unlikely strength of an 18-watt amp, to the experience of playing at Star Wars HQ.
We also discuss Frampton’s ongoing struggle with inclusion body myositis, a muscle-wasting disease that may or may not prevent him touring the new album – but never fear, he’s not planning to retire any time soon.
Carry the Light is a hell of a record.
Oh, thank you very much. After not releasing any new material for the last 16 years, I knew it had to be good. I’m not as prolific as the next guy, maybe, so it took me at least six years to find all these songs, and my son Julian and I completed them all in the last year.
There’s a stellar cast of guests on the album. How did you meet H.E.R.?
We met when I played George Lucas’ 80th birthday in 2024 at his place up in California, Skywalker Ranch. Basically it’s a winery, right in the middle of hundreds of acres of wine. It’s just gorgeous. Lucky bastard! But he deserves it…
Anyway, H.E.R. was playing first, and then it was us, and then Don Felder played, and I sat in. It was weird looking out and seeing Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas looking back at us.
What’s your connection with Tom Morello?
I’ve known Tom for a while now – I keep bumping into him. We’re managed by the same person, and I’ve been a huge fan of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, and – rest in peace – Chris Cornell. I’m a big fan of his.
So a couple of years ago, I said to Tom, “If I had a song, would you…,” and he said “Yes!” I didn’t even get the question out. It was wonderful, and he said some lovely things about Frampton Comes Alive! and how it affected him.
He guests on Lions At the Gate. What’s that song about?
It’s basically about having too much power and money, which come together. It’s about the billionaires and their power and their influence. I didn’t realize it would be so topical, but the first verse is about sending our kids off to war.
The title comes from the first time I went to Los Angeles, which was probably in the late ’60s. We said, “Let’s go to Beverly Hills and look around,” and you’d see all these big mansions with huge lions on their gateposts. To me, that always made me feel like they were showing off their power.
Basically it’s a protest song, saying that we’ve got to stick together. There’s safety in numbers, and we’re a band of brothers, and we’ve got to fight this.
Your son Julian was your co-writer and also the album’s co-producer.
Yeah. The thing is, Julian knows me so well, that it’s like one person writing, which is so cool. I’ll write a song, and then he’ll come in and help if I need a line, or he’ll write a song and I’ll come in and do the same, or we’ll write a song 50-50.
I’m Sorry Elle is an acoustic showcase, for both rhythm guitar and solos.
That was the first song I wrote for the album. That one’s all me. A lot of the inspiration came from Covid and my daughter giving birth in the middle of Manhattan and barely being able to see her husband because of the restrictions in the hospital. I didn’t see her for four or five months because of the travel thing.
Islamorada has an incredible solo section.
Thank you. My son wrote that one. He wrote the verses and brought them here to Nashville because he lives in Los Angeles, and we’d spend three weeks at a time, and then he’d have to go back.
He also brought in the melody and the chords, which I really love, but he said, “I need a chorus,” so we wrote a chorus that same day – and that was it.
Does the Phenix make an appearance on this record?
Oh yes – on nearly all the solos, I think. When I got it back from Gibson in 2011, they had just made it playable. I said, “Don’t take any of the scars on the body away; just make it playable.”
CBS Sunday Morning News came down to the concert that night because they wanted to see it, so I didn’t play it for the whole show, and then right at the end, just before Do You Feel Like We Do, it all went dark. I pulled out the guitar and put it on the stage, and all the lights hit it.
The whole audience stood up and went berserk. I was thinking, “What about me?” [Laughs] No, the guitar was more important than me that night, because everyone knew it had been gone for 31 years. It was an amazing night. I only played it for Do You Feel… for a while, and then I gradually started bringing it back into the set, and I hardly play anything else live now.
Do you still have the Penta-Suhr you played on David Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour in 1987?
The one I played with David went in a major flood here in 2010, but John Suhr is making me another one, which is very similar. I love his work. Nearly all the solos and all the rhythm sounds on the new album come from a Suhr Badger, which is an 18-watt amp.
Only 18 watts?
Yeah! It’s amazing when you think of those huge sounds, isn’t it? I mean, some of them are really huge, but it’s just that amp with a 1×12 cabinet and Neumann and Shure mics, both the same distance from the speaker. That’s the sound, plus a couple of room mics and some pedals that I had laying around.
What about acoustic guitars?
I used quite a few. There were three different Matons, including the Tommy Emmanuel model and a small travel one, which I’ve recorded with before and is so good.
There’s my old Epiphone, and of course I have my own Martin D-42 Peter Frampton model from the Nineties: that’s a long time ago. I think that’s it. Martin, Matons and Epiphone, basically.
Will you be playing live, or does the myositis prevent that?
I’m fully aware of where it’s going, and it’s not great, but I’ve always been the most positive person. It mainly affects my legs, but it’s affecting my hands too
It’s making it more difficult. I’m not saying there won’t be some dates, but right now we don’t have anything on the cards. I wish there were, but I just have to wait and see how I do.
Because the condition comes and goes?
Well, we call it “progression or plateau.” It’ll progress for a bit and then it’ll plateau, and right now I’m in a plateau. It is what it is, you know. I’m fully aware of where it’s going, and it’s not great, but I’ve always been the most positive person. It mainly affects my legs, but it’s affecting my hands too.
How do you manage that?
In October, we did a little three-week tour, and I was going, “Okay, finger number two ain’t going to make it there in time: finger number three, you’re up!” I hate thinking when I play, but in this situation, I have to. It’s just a case of changing the way I play a little bit.
I can’t play at the speed I once could. Not that I’ve ever been a shredder, you know. It’s always been more about melody, for me. There’s definitely some shredding going on in Humble Pie and Comes Alive! and some of the other albums, but I tell you right now, it’s less notes, more feel.
You look well, though, and the solos on the record sound as dexterous as ever.
Thank you. Long may that continue. I have some great friends who are making music, and if I don’t have anything of my own to work on, I tell all of them, “Send me tracks, because I want to play every day.”
So right now I’m working on three different tracks: that’s what keeps me going. I love, love, love to play so much, and I’m not going to let it go. Until the last second I’m going to be playing solos and rhythm parts on people’s records.
What inspires you these days?
I listen to everybody for inspiration, like this guy. [Holds up Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue] Oh, my God. I’ve vocally learned the opening cut of Kind of Blue, So What, and then I’m going to learn it on guitar.
I’ve seen a woman online who sings Miles’ solos from that record, and it’s incredible, so that’s why I started doing it myself
I’ve seen a woman online who sings Miles’ solos from that record, and it’s incredible, so that’s why I started doing it myself. I said, “If I can learn to sing it, then I’ll be able to sit down and learn to play it.”
Is it true that when you played with Bowie, you used an electric sitar that once belonged to Jimi Hendrix?
Yes, I did. In 1977 I was finishing I’m in You at Electric Lady in New York, which was Jimi’s studio, and as we were leaving on the last night, the studio manager came out with a guitar case and said, “We’ve really appreciated you being here, I hope you had a good time. We have something here that we think Jimi might have wanted you to have.”
I was expecting it to be a Strat, but they opened it up and showed me this electric sitar, and I went, “Oh, my God.” Jimi’s road manager Gerry Stickells once wrote, “Jimi had three electric sitars. I know where two are, but I can’t find the other one.” [Laughs] I’ve got it here!
