A regional breakout can't happen today.
After taking quite a few years off in the 80s I started working again in '92 and basically just doing what I always did, and playing what I want to play when I want to play it.
All of a sudden, there were three generations of families at the show, and it blew my mind. The newer listeners want to find their own music, not be told what to listen to.
Anything I do from here on out is just gravy, and it took me along time to figure that out. I always thought I was competing with myself. I am never going to do anything that big again, it's pretty obvious.
At the moment I'm working on music, writing and recording music for an upcoming film that's gonna shoot in April called The Rogues.
Basically the newer acts can't sell the tickets we sell because we have a history of material and there are three generations out there that know it.
But going out live, apart from, say, Britney, it's classic rockers who sell the tickets. And not just to baby boomers.
But we go out as a band because we enjoy each other's company, first of all. And it's the payoff for me, to go out and play my art and still play guitar, which is my life.
Disney asked me would I be interested in doing a track for Tigger. A Tigger record. And I said yes.
For some of the stuff we tracked, I used the live rig which is basically the fully blown Marshall stack, I have a mono Marshall in the center cabinet and then on either side I have 2 effects cabinets.
Frampton's Camel, or Wind of Change, or Breaking All the Rules, these are albums that I am fighting to get released. That's a long story, but yes, I'm trying to make sure that it's still on course.
I did a few things that I shouldn't have done, career moves that other people thought were great for me but in the end I should have gone with my gut. I mean there I am getting my picture taken with one of the greatest photographers and I'm wearing these stupid clown clothes.
I find it very difficult to make up a story about something that hasn't happened. It's personal stuff that a song comes from, but you hope that whatever you've been through is a universal emotion.
I get a pretty nice sound that is good on its own but any tiny thing you can do with it via plug-in or effect on the board hopefully, used in moderation, can make it sound better.
I got into a position to headline and we were able to make a double album from it. And that's when all hell broke loose.
I just got back from Germany, and artists of all eras are played on the radio, and there's no separate box. In America, it's all down to marketing and the size of the country. It's also capitalism.
I mixed many of the tracks myself. We learned a lot about transferring from Analog to Digital, the right way. It was a journey.
I started off with some material for Almost Famous, and that led into the album. The stuff started coming out and lending itself to guitar issues.
I think here in the U.S., especially when something gets so big, they just get fed up with it. It's just overkill.
I'm a musician. You know I started out as a guitarist. I always wanted to just be the guitarist in the band. Because of the way I looked I always got pushed down front.
I'm going to be recording this film music within the next coming months, and then shoot the movie, 'cause I'm actually in the movie.
I've no idea how many shows I've done between Herd, Humble Pie and my solo career.
I've sort of gambled... the challenge of doing all the music for this film was too great. I couldn't let that go. Basically I've already been writing this, and we'll just hope it does all happen.
If only the record companies had embraced the internet immediately, we wouldn't be in the state we are today. But now that iTunes is there, thank you Steve Jobs!
It's a career so it's going to go up and down and it's been a slow build back, and I would imagine within a year or two will be commanding an amphitheatre tour.
It's one of those things where that record hit a nerve with people, that everybody had to have it at that particular time, and obviously people are still buying it.
It's the same with the labels. Everything gets very generic.
It's very difficult to get myself or Styx or Foreigner, the older bands, on the radio. There's not a spot for us anymore on regular mainstream radio.
My next project will be an instrumental record. It won't be a blockbuster but it's my art, it's what I do.
My objective is to snow them a little and sandwich the newer stuff in with the older. And its been going down really, really well.
Over 20 years, how many different hairstyles does everybody have? Unfortunately, with men, at a certain age, and it varies with different men, hair starts leaving. I didn't want to be one of those shiny on top, ponytail down the back.
People just think of me that put out that huge live album. Now when all that happened, yes then there was pressure, but now none.
Picasso didn't stop painting when he was 41 years old because he felt he wasn't relevant, but he kept going and the painting he made before he died are now worth 40 million dollars.
Staying vital and not resting on your laurels, there are some certain bands that just do their hits and that's it.
The film business, I'm finding, is a lot similar, and a lot of it is completely different from the music business. Here, they say they're gonna make a movie, and there's a million people that have to all be in synch.
The respect from the audience has kept this building process happening, and that's how I made it in the first place before Comes Alive, was thru word of mouth.
The secret was, I believe, the live audience. I did the same thing we did with Humble Pie and gathered enough material to make a good live record.
There's just something that comes out of me live that isn't there when I'm in the studio, which I find very restricting musically sometimes. There's a lack of self-confidence there. I'm learning to let myself go more in the studio. But I still like to hear that audience.
They actually want to see Peter Frampton live. It was the audience basically that got me back into it. I missed it but I didn't think people wanted to see it anymore.
They're going to cut budgets to record new bands. I fear that. So these record labels have these very high powered CEOs that I'm sorry to say have really been steering this the wrong way and paying themselves way too much and haven't cut back where they should.
To me, now, success has a different... the word means something different to me now. I've been there, done that, and I'm very proud of the success, obviously, and grateful, but basically the family always comes first now.
We do the hits plus stuff off the new record and we're going to do it whether they want it or not.
We don't rehearse those numbers unless we have to, but I still enjoy doing them live because I know that those people get a big kick out of seeing me do them.
We have to be more creative. We have to go out live, we have to do TV ads and all sorts of different things.
We were actually the first band to play Shea Stadium since the Beatles. So it was pretty historic for us.
We've been to Brazil, Argentina, Panama and Venezuela. We've had some wonderful tours down there and I get great letters to the website and I know they want us to come back. We will, I just don't know when.
You can read me like a book. If I'm not having a good time, which is very rare, then you'll know.
You never give up because you just never know what will happen.
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