“If I don’t accept what I have, I’m going to be mad for the rest of my life”: Peter Frampton on how his health diagnosis spurred him to keep playing guitar

At 59, Peter Frampton’s life changed dramatically when he started experiencing the first symptoms of Inclusion Body Myositis, a rare inflammatory muscle disease in which, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, “inflammatory immune cells invade the muscle tissue and concentrate between the muscle fibers.”

“Julian [his son] said, ‘Let’s run up this hill.’ Normally, I would beat him, and I didn’t,” Frampton tells The New York Times as he reflects on that faithful day and eventual diagnosis. “It felt like there were insects in my legs, like they were vibrating.”

Frampton didn’t let the diagnosis stop him, however. If anything, it has made him even more prolific. On May 15, the guitarist is releasing Carry the Light, his first album of original tracks since being diagnosed with IBM, and the first he’s worked on with his son.

“In my mind, I’m more successful than I’ve ever been – because I like myself, I like what I do,” he says.

“I’ve always been someone that didn’t think I was good enough, but I’ve reached the point where I don’t care what anybody else thinks. I should have felt that way a long time ago.” His Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2024 didn’t hurt, either.

Aside from this upcoming album, the diagnosis spurred him to craft his own versions of familiar tunes.

In the span of just a few years, he released three albums of reimagined songs: 2016’s Acoustic Classics, 2019’s All Blues, and 2021’s Frampton Forgets the Words. Writing wholly original songs took a bit longer, as it also involved finding the right producer, which turned out to be his son.

“I’ve never wanted to work with a producer, because I’m a control freak. It ends up not being me,” Frampton quips. “Whereas with Julian, it ends up being twice as much of me, because he knows who I am, what makes me tick, what I can do, what I can’t do.”

As for his philosophy moving forward, well, you can rest assured Frampton has much more to offer to the music world.

“People say, ‘Oh, you must be so upset,’ and, yeah, I am. But you can fix the little things,” he asserts.

“But big things never worried me, because the big things you can’t do anything about. If I don’t accept what I have, I’m going to be mad for the rest of my life.”

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology and how it is shaping the future of the music industry, and has a special interest in shining a spotlight on traditionally underrepresented artists and global guitar sounds. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Auf der Maur, Yvette Young, Danielle Haim, Fanny, and Karan Katiyar from Bloodywood, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her Anglo-Maltese, art-rock band ĠENN.