May 2015 | view this story as a .pdf

Peter Frampton shows ME the way.

Interview by Colin W. Sargent

Maine State Pier will vibrate on June 27 with an open-air concert featuring two class acts: Peter Frampton and Cheap Trick. Frampton is in town more than you’d guess and is looking foward to it.

You’ll be performing outdoors when you come here, ducking seagulls. Any adjustments?

I’m used to it. In 2014, I wrote the title song and six others for the [pas de deux ballet]  Hummingbird in a Box. It was unusual, because I played onstage while dancers flew around me. The only other time I’d performed with dancers was with David Bowie on his Glass Spider Tour, where there were as many dancers as musicians. In the middle of “Let’s Dance,” a dancer stepped on my pedal and turned me off. Another time a dancer stepped on my distortion pedal and blew my sound completely [makes a looping, squelching sound].

But I enjoy coming to Maine. I’ve come up many times, because Bob Ludwig is in Portland. Once we were playing in the Man With Golden Ears tour, and I brought my whole band over there. Since the mid- to late-1980s, he’s done all of my mastering.

Do people try to fit you into a gorgeous box called Frampton Comes Alive? Is Hummingbird in a Box a response to that?

Before my brother was born, when I was under five, we’d go to my grandparents’ for afternoon tea and cake. My grandfather had been in the navy for two world wars. One day, he took out a very decorative wooden box. “I have something I want to show you. It’s magic. Open it.” It was a solid block. Sealed. There was no way to open it. I held it up and turned it around, looked at the wooden panels. “You have to learn the secret of opening it,” he said. “You have to make the right moves.” He slid one little piece of wood one way, then another. Inside the secret interior was a little drawer that concealed [a false] bottom. When he slid that open, there was a stuffed hummingbird. That was the prize. He’d picked it up during his travels to Asia. Later, I taught my brother how to open it. Now my brother has the box.

The songs in the ballet are full of reveals, too. So with you there’s no sense of, “Oh, no, he’s going to play his ‘new’ material.”

I’ve always wanted to write something that would be different from anything I’ve ever written before. It’s a selfish thing. I want to break new ground. It’s funny, they call it The Merchandising Moment when a musician plays new material. Or the T-shirt Moment. ‘Time to get a beer, hon.’ My audience knows they’re going to get at least one or two new songs whenever I come onstage.

You explore silences in “The Promenade’s Retreat.”

Silences are the best notes you don’t play. They make the notes you do play so much more important. Especially with “Promenade’s Retreat,” there’s a tension, an expectation, and you’ve just got to wait for it. A repetitive little riff just builds and builds and builds. Out of nowhere comes the chorus.

Speaking of boxes, your Huffington Post interviewer suggested “The seventies was sort of the beginning of teen idols…” Were you wondering, what about Elvis, Ella, Frankie…Wolfgang?

Mozart’s a good example of a teen idol. Yeah, we’re always going to have that. We’ve had Justin Bieber.

When, musically, did you become you?

I’m always evolving, but I think Humble Pie was when I became me.

What do you like to read?

I’ve been reading Stephen Hawking’s book. Not A Brief History of Time, but the one that came after that, The Universe in a Nutshell. I’m sort of geeky. I tend to read manuals.

Ringo lists you on his 2015 album. What’s he like?

It’s always fun playing with Richie. Because I played with him on All Things Must Pass, I’ve known him since I was 21. You used to go into the studio and work with him, but now his studio is at home. Him and an engineer and me and an amp, and there it was. He had the tracks already done. “Do you want to play on this one? How about this one?” I play on two of the songs. He’s one of the good guys.

What can you do now that you could never have done in 1975 or 1976?

Go out of my house. Depends on whether it’s 1975 or 1976. In 1975, I wasn’t really known that well. In 1976, I couldn’t go anywhere because it was a military operation if I wanted to get somewhere quickly. One day you’re nobody. Next day you’re a piece of meat. And I’m a vegetarian.