Peter Frampton bonus Q&A: 'David Bowie reinvigorated my career incredibly'

What happens a decade after you release what was — at the time — the biggest selling double-live album in music history?

Not much, in the case of Peter Frampton whose career was at a near-standstill in 1986, 10 years after the release of the 11-million-selling "Frampton Comes Alive" made him a star and a celebrity who became known as much for his poster-boy good looks as his music. That image was reinforced by the cover of his 1977 follow-up album, "I'm In You," which featured him in satin pants and an unbuttoned shirt that exposed much of his chest and midriff.

Frampton's two most recent albums at the time, 1982's "The Art of Control" and 1986's "Premonition" had come and gone in a near instant. So had he, as far as much of the public was concerned. His radio airplay had largely dried up. And the British-born musician's reputation had yet to recover after he co-starred with the Bee Gees in the 1978 movie, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," a box-office dud that received scathing reviews from critics ("indescribably awful," "a bad idea badly executed," "has the feel of an interminable variety show").

By 1986, Frampton appeared to be a has-been on a downhill road to obscurity. Or he was, until David Bowie came knocking on the door of his former classmate. Bowie's attendance at London's Bromley Technical High School for Boys overlapped with that of Frampton, whose father was Bowie's art teacher at Bromley.

Almost as fast as you can say "show me the way," Frampton accepted the invitation to be the featured guitarist on Bowie's 1987 album, "Never Let Me Down," and the "Glass Spider" stadium tour the same year. Neither the album nor the tour ranked among the best by Bowie, who in 1969 had been the opening act on a U.K. tour by Frampton's then-band, Humble Pie.

Regardless, "Never Let Me Down," and "Glass Spider" proved cathartic for Frampton, who welcomed the opportunity to get back onstage and play guitar, without having the spotlight on him and without having to sing lead vocals.

"David reinvigorated my career incredibly," said Frampton. "From that point on, people started thinking of me as the guitar player, instead of the (celebrity) image I had before. Because during Humble Pie and my early solo records — and even when 'Frampton Comes Alive' had first come out — no one really knew what I looked like and it was all about the musicianship.

"Then, because of the 'I'm in You' album cover and possibly the 'Sgt. Pepper's' movie, my image was transformed into that of a pop star. So, David was the saving grace and I thank him once a day, every day. Because he knew what he was doing, and I had no idea what I was doing! We'd played on the same stages in the same venues for years, but not in the same band. It was great to finally be in one together."

Frampton was interviewed at length ahead of a recent tour stop. Here is a bonus Q&A from that conversation.

Q: The back cover of Roberta Flack's 2012 Beatles' tribute album, "Let It Be," has a photo taken backstage at the 1977 Grammy Awards of her, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. When I interviewed Flack in 2012, I asked her what she thought of that photo, 35 years later, and she replied: "I wish I had worn a bra!"

A: (laughs uproariously)

Q: What do you think when you look at the cover photos of you on "Frampton Comes Alive" and "I'm in You?"

A: Well, I think I have nothing to say about the "Comes Alive" cover, apart from the fact I thought it was perfect for the time and a very exciting, blurred photo. As for "I'm in You," I had — and have — a total disregard for it. I hate that cover and should have been wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, without my hair done up.

I should have been so much more natural, but that was (a reflection of) the time. When that album came out, unfortunately, punk and the Sex Pistols had started up, so I was out of date (in just a year). The way I was dressed for the "I'm in You" cover, I thought that's what I had to do. Then, we had the ceremonial burning of the satin pants!

Q: You are on the ballot this year for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, for the first time, even though you've been eligible for induction since 1997.

A: People say: "You must have been upset since you've been eligible for so many years." And I say: "I never expected anything. I always worked for what I got, and this is something I can't control." I think the public was more upset than I was that I hadn't even been nominated until now. I've never thought about that. Do I personally feel I deserve it? Yeah, I guess so. But if I don't, as my mother used to say to us: "What is to be will surely come true."

Q: We last spoke in 2014. It was shortly after you had done a concert near Indianapolis, during which you grabbed the cellphone of an obnoxious fan who would not stop filming you despite requests to stop. You tossed his phone into some unoccupied seats behind the stage and the audience cheered. Have things improved or gotten worse in the past 10 years?

A: Most people turn the lights off on their phones now when they film you at your concerts, because they don't need the light on. So, that's sort of an improvement. We had a situation on this tour where someone was sitting in front of me, like, 6 to 8 feet away from the front of the stage. They were talking to the person next to them and never looked at me once during the first three songs, which lasted a good 12 minutes.

I lost it with him, and said: "If you want to talk, buddy, why don't you move? You're distracting me and the audience." In the end, the guy left. And the fact was that he was on his own and was chatting up the married women next to him!

Q: Music journalist Cameron Crowe wrote the liner notes for your "Frampton Comes Alive" album. He went on to direct and write the screenplay for his 2000 film, "Almost Famous," in which you are credited as an "expert music consultant." What exactly did that job entail?

A: Cameron called me, and — after we caught up a little — said: "I'm going to make a rock movie." I responded: "Cameron, we've always talked about how every rock movie is so bad, because they are so unrealistic. Like, it's supposed to be 1950 in the movie and they are singing in a microphone that wasn't invented until the 1970s." He said: "That's why I want you to help me get it right." So, I was able to double- and triple-check that everything was accurate and true to the times in "Almost Famous" — the drums, the guitars, the microphones, all the way down to what the (crowd) barricades at an early 1970s Black Sabbath concert were made out of! I called up my old stage manager, and asked if the barricades back then were made of plastic or wood. And he said: "Wood. It was always wood in those days."

Q: What about the actors who portrayed the band Stillwater in "Almost Famous?"

A: Billy Crudup, who played the lead guitarist in Stillwater, had several weeks of lessons on guitar before he met me. I sat down with him to teach him my solos on the songs we had done in preparation for the movie. Nancy (Wilson of Heart, who was Crowe's wife at the time) had written most of them, and I did a couple of more with Nancy, so that (in the film) they would all sound like the same band.

That was my job. And I remember Cameron asked me, before we did the big live concert scene where Stillwater was opening for Black Sabbath: "What would make a musician — a guitarist — be convinced that Billy was (playing as well as Jimmy Page or (Free's) Paul Kossoff, somewhere between the two?" I answered: "When his fingers are on the right notes as he's playing a solo and he tosses his head back, closes his eyes and doesn't have to look at what he's playing to play it right."

When we got to the live concert shoot, there was one solo where Billy tossed his head back, closed his eyes and soloed, and it was perfect! Cameron and I high-fived and did a chest bump!

Q: How did you come to be in the poker game scene in "Almost Famous" in which you played Humble Pie's road manager, Reg?

A: It was Cameron's idea. That's when I had to go to Billy Crudup, and ask: "Will you read my lines with me?" I wanted to be as authentic as an actor as I wanted him to be as a guitarist when I was teaching him. That was a funny scene.

Mitch Hedberg, the comedian, was in that poker game scene as the road manager for the Eagles. He passed away, unfortunately, in 2005. He had a line in his (stand-up) act where he said: "I did this scene in 'Almost Famous' with Peter Frampton. We played cards and smoked fake weed for a whole day of shooting. The only thing that would have been better than that would have been smoking real weed with a fake Peter Frampton!" Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, God!