He Knows the Way

Peter Frampton will come alive yet again, this time Tuesday night at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks. The 1970s rock legend is on the road to sell his latest release, “Live in Detroit,” as well as to play all of his many hits, such as “Show Me The Way” and “Baby I Love Your Way.”

After surviving a number of kid bands, Frampton became a rock star as one of the long-haired hunks fronting Humble Pie. By the early ‘70s, he was on his own, touring like a madman, sometimes doing more than 200 shows a year. At the age of 26, the young guitar player hit the jackpot with “Frampton Comes Alive,” a huge hit and still the top-selling live album of all time.

Now 50 years old, Frampton lives in Cincinnati, is married with children, has a lot less hair but is still touring and making albums. He’s pretty much done it all.

Frampton has appeared on “The Simpsons” and has two of his songs featured on a recently released Disney project, “Tigger Mania.” Frampton’s music has been heard the world over, and he was honored this year with a Peter Frampton Signature Les Paul guitar.

He has stories to tell.

You’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, which is an eternity by rock ‘n’ roll standards. How do you account for your longevity?

Well, I don’t know, really. I don’t ever really let commercial success, whether it be there or not, affect my drive for my music. When I don’t have family things to do and everyone quiets down at the end of the day, that’s my time where I play every day for a couple of hours at night, and I’ve done that my whole life. It’s just something I have to do. The longevity as far as the audience is concerned, I guess, is that I’ve got a couple of tunes that have stood the test of time. Over the last four years I’ve really concentrated on getting back on the road, and whenever I start to do something live again, it reactivates my career because I’m the live guy. Sometimes, you know, you have no control, and other times, you still have no control.

When did you decide you wanted to be a musician?

The first time I saw Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly on TV on one of the very few rock shows we had around 1957 or 1958. Once I saw “Summertime Blues,” that was it. It was the guys with the guitars--that was what I liked. But my main man, who I am now friends with, was Hank Marvin from the Shadows, the English group that used to back up Cliff Richard. If Cliff wasn’t No. 1, the Shadows were No. 1 with all their instrumental stuff in Europe. They were sort of the Beatles before the Beatles in England, instrumental Beatles really. Hank Marvin & the Shadows were my teachers. Ask Pete Townshend or Jeff Beck or any of those guys and they’ll probably say the same thing. Hank Marvin was the man, then the Beatles came along and we all had to learn to sing.

How did the success of “Frampton Comes Alive” change you? What did that sell, a bazillion copies?

Yes, it’s up to a bazillion and three now. That album definitely put me on the map. Up until that point I was well-respected [as a] guitarist and somewhat [respected as a] singer, but mainly a guitarist. I think “Frampton Comes Alive” brought that to the general public, but it also brought with it the way I looked. Cameron Crowe said something like, “The best thing about Peter was that he was a good-looking guy with a lot of talent.” The point is, if you look too good, people don’t take your talent seriously. This has happened time and time again for both men and women. I’ve heard someone call it the Brad Pitt Syndrome, then again, Laurence Olivier once called it the Vivien Leigh Syndrome.

It’s been a few years since you cut your hair; can you go to Starbucks and get away with it these days?

Well, I used to, but since “Behind the Music” on VH-1 and all that stuff, people recognize me now with short hair. Maybe I’ll have to get a wig. To be honest, it was overnight anonymity when I cut it back in ’92 or ’93. Everyone knows that it’s the easiest way to change your appearance without plastic surgery. Bank robbers pull a job with a wig, then take it off.

Tell me a Humble Pie story.

Humble Pie was the best band I ever could’ve been in. It was great with me and Steve working together--he was my mentor. I was and still am a huge Steve Marriott fan, a man oozing talent from every pore of his body. Just to be around him and to be able to play and write with him was just a privilege. We didn’t get along that well, but we had a tremendous amount of respect for each other. Onstage, Humble Pie was dynamite. A lot of people thought I was just the sweet lyrical jazzy rock lead lines over the top of everything guy. Steve was more responsible for the R&B; side of it and I was more responsible for a lot, but not all, of the rock riffs that became Humble Pie songs.

You were in the hilarious “Homerpalooza” episode of “The Simpsons.” What was that like?

First of all, it was a terrific honor to be a part of that show. Because there were so many artists in that episode, like Smashing Pumpkins, we didn’t do a table read. Basically, I just went into the studio and they told me the situation I was in, and I did some ad-libbing, which they later animated, which blew my mind. There’s been very few people that have been on that show that are not super superstars. So it’s an honor for me to be one of the alumni.

What’s the strangest gig you ever played?

The strangest thing that ever happened to me was when we went from doing daytime shows on a white stage to nighttime shows on a black stage at a racetrack in Hartford, Conn. It was an all-black stage with no light and no white line at the edge of the stage. I ran right off the front of the stage and 40,000 people groaned. The stage was a biggie and I landed on the crash barrier [and got] all scraped up; and as they pulled me back up onto the stage, I split my satins from seam to seam and mooned the first 40 rows. That was probably the strangest thing that ever happened to me. Then, of course, I had to change pants on stage in the piano case.

What advice would you give to aspiring guitar players?

Just do as I do still, listen to as many new people as possible. Try and find old people you haven’t heard before. Just listen to as much music as possible and steal from as many guitarists as possible. And I mean that in a complimentary way. One thing, you can’t slow the CDs down like you used to be able to do with the records. You could put them at half speed, which lowered them an octave, and I’ve slowed down many a solo in order to copy it. It’s just a matter of taking in all you can, then heading off for your room to practice, and hopefully one day, you’ll come downstairs and it’ll sound like you and not everybody else.

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DETAILS

Peter Frampton at the Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday; $50, $40 and $30; 449-2787.

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Big Chili 2000 promises to be a raging party Saturday at Lake Casitas. In addition to enough fresh chili to create a fire hazard, those Ventura legends Raging Arb & the Redheads will be playing their second gig of the new millennium. This event is sponsored by, among others, two bars, Wine Lovers in Ventura and the Deer Lodge in Meiners Oaks, which makes the scenario pretty obvious: eating, drinking and dancing.

More than 40 brands of chili will be on sale at this event, making this the biggest, baddest and probably hottest of all chili cook-offs. This event is aiming for a full-fledged carnival atmosphere. Diversions will include free pontoon rides, a mechanical bull, a rock climbing wall, a three-story slide, a horseshoe tournament, pony rides, a petting zoo, face painting clowns and even a red hot chili pepper eating contest. Camping is available nearby for those who have too much fun.

While the big news is the rare appearance of Raging Arb & the Redheads (with all six original members), they’re not the only group on the bill. Maxxx will play some classic rock and JT & the Zydeco Zippers will play exactly what their name promises.

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DETAILS

Big Chili 2000 with Raging Arb & the Redheads, Maxxx and JT & the Zydeco Zippers at Lake Casitas, 11311 Santa Ana Road, Oak View; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; $7 general and children under 10 free; 646-4170.

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The The will be playing at the Ventura Theatre on Monday night, offering a tune-filled alternative to the weekly City Council meeting. Much like Nine Inch Nails, which is basically Trent Reznor’s one-man project, The The is the brainchild of Matt Johnson.

“NakedSelf” is The The’s ninth album and Johnson’s first in five years. “It’s partly an attempt to get away from this sanitized, over-digitized, computerized sound that a lot of people are doing,” he said. “I was using manual typewriters to write the songs and old equipment to record it.”

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DETAILS

The The, P.J. Olsson and House of Marisol at the Ventura Theatre, 26 Chestnut St.; 8 p.m. Monday; $22; 653-0721.

Bill Locey can be reached by e-mail at blocey@pacbell.net.