Thanks to childhood friend David Bowie, things 
turned around with Peter Frampton in the 80s.
Frampton returned to the stage with a
vengeance, this time letting his guitar
skills speak louder than his voice.
Now, you grew up with David Bowie and you
came back and began 
playing with David Bowie.
Frampton: Yes.
Well, tell me about that.
Well, David and I went to school together. 
His art teacher was my father
and he was in my dad's class for three
or four years and along with Georgia
Underwood who was a phenomenal painter
artist - who did the Ziggy Stardust
cover. The three of us would sit on
the art block stairs at lunchtime and my
dad said, "bring a guitars to school, put
them in my office, I know you guys are
into music, lunchtime you can get him out
and you can jam." So we did, and that's
when I first started playing music
with David and what we were playing
Buddy Holly numbers, Elvis Presley
numbers, you know, anything
in American rock. And then we just went on
and went about our careers and the very
first time David saw me on Top of the
Pops, which was that other TV show in
England, he hadn't quite had the success
that The Herd had at this point and he
said, "I'm watching Top of the Pops." He
said, "then all of a sudden, I look up,
there's Pete, what's he doing there?
He should be in school." But he would catch
up later, dear Dave. We would play on the
same stage together but not at the same
time, same night sometimes. Humble
Pie had a package tour in England called
Changes 69 and Dave was our a special
guest. That year, he had "Space Oddity"
as No. 1 and humble Humble Pie had
"Natural Born Boogie" at No. 2 so it
was a great tour and he was always that
person that I looked up to and another
kind of brother figure. And so when
things started going wrong for me, you
know, we'd hung out, he'd come visit me
for dinner and stuff. And he saw what was
happening cuz he knew me mainly as the
musician, the guitar player, and in the
mid 80s he called me up and said, "I've
just heard your latest record" and he
said, "man, I've got to have some of that
guitar on my next record."
He said, "what do you think?"
I said, "let me think,
yes, I'll be right there." Because now
there is the first time since the art
block stairs that we're going to play
together.
So they are arc here, '76, you're at the peak
but it goes down quickly.
Mm-hmm
And now by the 80s, it's time your
old friend, David Bowie, called you
-- you're eager for something.
Mm-hmm
But this something now is going to 
be back to the guitar...
Frampton: Yes
Back to the music.
Yes.
This is gonna be cover boy shirt undone, long locks,
it's all about music.
Right, absolutely, I went to 
Switzerland. We made the record,
"Never Let Me Down," and while I was there, he said to me, "what would you think about
coming on the road? I'm gonna do a big
big tour, Glass Spider Tour. It's a huge
spider thing." And I said, "let me think
about, yes, I'll be right there."
So he could have anybody but he chose me. 
And I think what he did there,
knowing me so well and seeing and
knowing what I had been through, the arc
as you put it, he gave me the biggest
gift of taking me around the world in
stadiums and then again we did it twice
in arenas and reintroducing me as the
musician the guitar player and for that,
I will never stop thanking him.
Well, I'm interested, when did you...your hair was part of your identity, was part of your
brand for a long time. No, and in a very
good way. When did you decide, okay
enough with the hair, I want the
guitar to speak more than my hair does?
'90, '92?
Yes, I mean, David
said I should cut my hair then. He said,
"you should cut it," and I wouldn't do it.
I was just holding on, holding on, and then as
we get older, certain things on a man's
body leave and one of them being hair
an there was no arguing
with it at this point. So I tried the
extensions for a bit and that just
ripped out of my hair whatever I had
left and so I decided to be honest and
just...in mid to late mid 90s, I
decided to cut it off.
