Why Peter Frampton Is Still Working To Get Better

Peter Frampton may have had one of the best-selling albums of the '70s, but he'll be the first to tell you that he's never stopped trying to improve who he is as an artist.

"I've always thought and I think it's true of most people that I admire that are great musicians or great artists or whatever is that they never think they're good enough," he shares in a new interview with Jeff Pilson and Luis Maldonado of Foreigner that you can watch below.

"The ones that are narcissistic and think, 'I don't need to practice anymore, I'm hot s--t,' you know, those are usually not [musicians who are necessarily as good as they think they are]," he adds. "I think that those people that want to improve are humble because they know that, 'I'm not where I'm supposed to be.'"

"It's always the same, you know. The worst night you have on the tour, someone comes and says, 'Man, I've never heard you play like that, that was so fantastic," he continues. "And you go, 'I could be so much better than that.' I think it's just something I got from my parents that I've always been modest about what I do."

Peter Frampton and Foreigner in Nashville 2026 — Foreigner / YouTube

Peter's New Collaboration With Foreigner

The Grammy-winning guitarist can be heard on "Trouble," a previously unreleased track from the upcoming expanded box set for Foreigner's 1979 album Head Games.

It's one of the songs that Pilson and the other band members surfaced from the archives and worked to finish. "Trouble" was recorded during the original Head Games sessions at Atlantic Studios in New York and was coproduced at that time by Roy Thomas Baker.

Original Foreigner founder and guitarist Mick Jones revealed in 2024 that he'd been dealing privately for several years with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease which had caused him to step away from touring with the band.

With Jones unable to participate in the recording sessions for "Trouble," Frampton stepped in to record a guitar solo for his longtime friend. It capped a long association that stretched all of the way back to when Jones was working with French vocalist Johnny Hallyday in the early days of his career.

Listen to Foreigner's 'Trouble' Featuring Peter Frampton

"I couldn't believe you asked," he told Pilson during the interview, which was recorded at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. "It was wonderful."

The Important Lesson Frampton Learned From Foreigner

Though Peter never got a chance to tour properly with Foreigner back in the '70s, he found out something very important years later when he finally got to share the stage with the classic rock legends. "The only time we did shows [together], I realized I never want to go on after Foreigner," he laughed.

"I remember us doing a show with you....and I know you did 'Black Hole Sun,'" Pilson shared. "I remember Mick and I talking and he was like, 'God, I hate playing guitar after Peter plays!'"

Watch Peter Frampton Discuss His Career With Jeff Plison and Luis Maldonado

What's Next for Foreigner?

It's been a busy year of road work for the band, who spent part of the summer playing concerts with Lynyrd Skynyrd on the Double Trouble Double Vision tour. They're still out there, playing an ongoing series of headlining dates celebrating the 50th anniversary of the group.

Original members Lou Gramm and Al Greenwood will appear on selected dates of that 50th anniversary run and the band is already prepping for a busy 2027. They have a hefty stack of concerts that have been booked for the new year, including a special series of gigs in the New York and New Jersey area

"New York is where Foreigner began, so there could be no better place to celebrate 50 years of our music," Mick Jones said in a press release announcing the 50th anniversary dates in the area.

They recently released In the Eye of the Storm, a live album and film recorded on New York's historic Ellis Island, featuring all three vocalists of Foreigner, past and present, Lou Gramm, Kelly Hansen and Luis Maldonado.

Watch Foreigner Perform 'I Want to Know What Love Is' With Lou Gramm on Ellis Island

Peter Frampton Has Also Had a Busy Year

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee released Carry the Light, his newest solo album, earlier this year. The record features collaborations with a variety of artists, including H.E.R., Tom Morello, Graham Nash, Sheryl Crow and others.

Frampton worked on the whole album with his son Julian and as he told UCR, "Lions at the Gate," which features Morello on guitar, was one of the songs that came along early in the process.

"It was the very first track that I recorded for this album, at least four or five years ago and it was just a trio of us," he reflects. "I just had this riff, but I'd written it on a baritone guitar, so it was halfway between a bass and a guitar, you know -- and I'd even tuned it further down, so it was even more halfway between a bass and a guitar."

"And I just got inspired, because if you stick that through a dirty sounding big amp and maybe [add] a little bit of distortion on it, that thing sounds humongous," he shares. "All of a sudden, you're [Cream bassist] Jack Bruce, with the really distorted bass lines and everything. All of that inspired the riff where I began to write 'Lions at the Gate.'"

Longtime bandmate Rob Arthur was behind the camera for the new career-spanning documentary Frampton, which premiered earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in June. The film features former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, Nancy Wilson of Heart, Crow, Herb Alpert, Morello, Cameron Crowe and numerous others sharing their stories about working with the guitarist.

But even with his life now officially documented for the silver screen, Frampton isn't resting on his laurels. As he told Pilson and Maldonado, he's already looking to his next chapter.

"[Julian's] coming back...and we're going to do another two weeks [of working on new music]," he shared. "We already have six tracks that we didn't use [and it] was very hard to choose what to leave off. I was very happy with all of them. We want to write another six, you know. So I've got the bits ready, you know."