Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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 would like to be No. 2 but never No. 1. When I was No. 1, all eyes were on me. No. 2 slips out the door quietly and makes another great record.
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.
I've never stopped making new music, and whether the audience wants to hear it or not, I'm going to play it. Because I'm an artist, and I create, and I've got new stuff.
But we go out as a band because we enjoy each others company, first of all. And its the payoff for me, to go out and play my art and still play guitar, which is my life.
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.
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.
A year before 'Frampton Comes Alive!' we had released the studio version of 'Show Me The Way' as a single - it was on the 'Frampton' album - and it totally tanked. Nothing.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
I acted in 'Almost Famous.' My album 'Fingerprints' won a Grammy Award in 2007. Even more prestigious, as far as my kids were concerned, I appeared in episodes of 'The Simpsons' and 'Family Guy.'
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.
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.
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.
The original concept of rock and roll... was supposed to be this young angst with mistakes and all. Four or five guys get together, get angry and that's really how it starts, and it's all this energy.
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.
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.
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.
Recorded music is basically free now. I used to tour to promote a CD, but now I make a CD to promote a tour. I've moved on and live with the new reality, but I do get frustrated when people do dumb things.
'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.
Detroit has always been a rock and roll audience for me and picked up on me and my performances long before a lot of other places in the country. I will never forget that. It's a home away from home. I love it.
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'll always be remembered for 'Frampton Comes Alive!,' but I've got so much other work that I've done since that, that I feel it's almost like after 'Frampton Comes Alive!' ran its course, my career - I'll say it - 'Petered' out.
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 sold more records than any other person in history with one album, at that point, in '76. It became a very scary place for me, because I didn't know whose advice to ask and lost my confidence in my own gut feelings about everything.
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 had always been a jazz fan - Django Reinhardt, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, the early George Benson. And I come from the Hank Marvin melodic upbringing. So blues, I loved, but I also liked jazz. Therefore, my style was more lyrical.
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.
I often explain it to people that if you listen to a Who record and then go see the Who live, it's like two different bands. That's how Humble Pie worked. We were definitely a lot more ferocious live because of the energy that the entire population of us had.
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.
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 didn't have huge expectations for 'Frampton Comes Alive!' My previous album, 'Frampton,' had sold about 300,000 copies - a decent amount but not mind-blowing. There was talk at the label that maybe the live record could go gold. I was hoping we could do it, but I wasn't sure.
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.
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.
The number of times that anything is overdubbed on 'Frampton Comes Alive!'... the rule was, if it didn't make it to the tape, then we can redo it because it needs to be done. If it made it to the tape, and it sounds good, we leave it. So nothing was overdubbed on that album at all that wasn't absolutely necessary.
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.
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.