Peter Frampton’s Next LP ‘Should Have Followed’ ‘Comes Alive!’

As Peter Frampton prepares to take his Finale – The Farewell Tour across the ocean next month, he’s talking about his next record, which he says will be “the album that should have followed Frampton Comes Alive!“

By that, the singer and guitarist means it will be a set of original songs written entirely by himself for the first time since the commercial zenith of Frampton in 1975. “I’m not saying there won’t be one cover, but there would not be more,” Frampton tells UCR. The LP will be the follow-up to last year’s Frampton Forgets the Words, which featured instrumental cover songs, and 2019’s All Blues, another covers set.

“[The next album] will be all me, my own music, all written on my own, like I wrote [1972 solo debut] Wind of Change – come hell or high water,” Frampton promises. “I enjoy co-writing and have done it for ages with various different people, and I always enjoy it. But I think when I wrote on my own, it’s much more unique and … uniquely me. I might do things in writing a song that other people would say, ‘Oh, no, you don’t want to do that. We shouldn’t go there,’ but on my own, I can be like, ‘Uh-uh, I’m going there.”

The one thing Frampton isn’t guaranteeing yet is a release date.

“I don’t know when I’m gonna finish it,” he says. “There’s no rush. I’m taking my time. I want every track to be something that gives me goose-bumps and I go, ‘I’m proud of that.’ There’s not gonna be any filler on it. It’s gonna be the best that I can do, and I’m very excited about it. I’ve got some great material. But this one might take a little longer.”

Frampton is again working in Nashville, where he resides, with Chuck Ainlay, who co-produced and engineered All Blues, Forgets the Words and other Frampton recordings. “So I have nothing to worry about the technique of making the record,” Frampton notes. “I have the best possible band, and if I use other musicians, in Nashville it’s hard to go wrong. All I have to do is make sure these songs are top-notch and ready to go.”

Frampton’s focus right now, however, is on his upcoming shows: eight dates in six countries, starting Nov. 5 in England and including a Nov. 8 night at London’s Royal Albert Hall. He had originally planned to tour there after the summer 2019 North American leg of the trek, and at this juncture, his inclusion-body myositis disorder has progressed to the point where he’ll have to play seated. “As much as I’d like to leap across the stage, it would be a leap too far,” Frampton, who recently posted a social media photo of him using a cane to walk with his granddaughter, says with a laugh. But he reports that his hands are still in good working shape.

“The way I look at it is, Until I’ve only got two fingers left, I’m OK, because [jazz guitarist] Django [Reinhardt] had only two fingers. So we’re OK.”

Frampton acknowledges that the tour is “a little daunting,” mostly because he hasn’t played a show since October of 2019, though he did perform as part of Buddy Holly‘s 85th Birthday Celebration in August in Lubbock, Texas. But he’s been playing every day and exercising, so, he says, he’s “very excited” about the upcoming shows.

“I’m playing good, but I’ve never gone out to do a show with my body being in this condition,” Frampton explains. “It’s the unknown for me: What’s gonna happen? What’s it going to be like? I just want to do the best possible show I can do. I don’t want to be the guy that goes out there and the audience goes, ‘Well, I know it’s his final tour. He’s not as good as he used to be.’ I don’t want to be that guy. I want to go out there and be able to fool them that I’m still as good as I ever was.”