Rock and Roll Hall inductee Peter Frampton on making new music and a documentary

Legendary rocker Peter Frampton walked on stage at the Gibson Garage in Nashville recently with the assistance of a cane. But once he sat down with a guitar in his lap and began to play — all signs of inclusion body myositis (IBM), the autoimmune disease Frampton has — vanished.

The muscular degenerative disease thankfully hasn't taken its toll on Frampton's fingers, which is why the "Frampton Comes Alive" guitarist and singer is heading back out on the road this September for a string of live shows and why he continues to release new music.

The Tennessean spoke with Frampton recently from his home studio in Nashville that he referred to as his "mad laboratory where all the magic is made," about his new music, the documentary he is making, life in Nashville, being a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and his latest honor, the Les Paul Spirit Award.

Frampton honored as an innovator just like Les Paul himself

Frampton was born and raised in England and started playing music in band at 16. After a stint with the band Humble Pie, Frampton went solo and in 1976, recorded "Frampton Comes Alive! " which is widely regarded as one of the greatest live albums of all time. It generated hits such as  "Baby, I Love Your Way", "Show Me the Way", and "Do You Feel Like We Do" and earned eight-times platinum status from the RIAA. Frampton’s use of the talk box to create a hybrid sound was unprecedented in the music industry.

But this is only part of the innovation that earned Frampton the Les Paul Spirit Award. It's an award presented to individuals who exemplify the spirit of guitar legend and creator Les Paul through innovation, engineering, technology and/or music.

"Les Paul was not only a tremendous guitar player, he was a technician in electronics," Frampton told The Tennessean. "He invented multi-track recording. He was a techie guy and I've always been a techie guy too."

Frampton remembered telling Les Paul at a party years ago about how he, too, experiments with sound-on-sound recording.

"To do sound-on-sound recordings, I needed to buy another tape recorder," he said. "So I had one to record the rhythm on, then I'd play the rhythm guitar back and I'd pass it over to the second one and I played the lead guitar on top of it. But I didn't have any echo or anything, so I took the speaker out of the radio downstairs, much to my parents' chagrin, and I commandeered the family bathroom and had a microphone on the windowsill, and I would send my guitar sound or my voice through the bathroom and pick it up."

'Frampton Comes Alive' still 'makes you smile' nearly 50 years later

The career-defining album for Frampton is arguably as popular today as it was when it was released in 1976. We asked Frampton what it was about that record that gave it such staying power.

Well, obviously I have no idea, otherwise I'd be doing it for every album, but my theory is that, first of all, it was six years worth of material. So the stage act was a live best-of everything I'd done. "Shine On" from Humble Pie all the way through my four solo records, and then for the fifth one being the live record."

Even Frampton himself, realized during a recent Atmos remix of the album that hearing it still gave him goose bumps.

"I was like a little kid again, listening to it. I said, 'listen to that band.' Oh my God. It was a phenomenal band," he said. "I'd get goosebumps thinking what this album means to me and to everybody else, you know? Nowadays, wherever you put the needle down on 'Comes Alive,' I think it makes you smile."

Robert Plant called last time he was in Nashville

Frampton said Los Angeles used to be the place to be if you were a musician. There were so many artists and musicians there. But after relocating to Nashville for the first time in 1994, Frampton said he thinks Nashville is the place to be.

"Two days ago Robert Plant calls up and says, 'I'm in town, you want to get a coffee?' So I go with him for coffee. It's amazing."

But rock star coffee dates aren't the only reasons he loves it here. After initially living in a downtown condo, he and his service dog, a golden doodle named Bigsby, moved outside the city.

"My daughter and one of my granddaughters live six minutes from me," he said smiling. "So they are here every day, you know, after school, before school, and that makes a huge difference."

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Frampton is writing new music, playing live — and documenting it all

Frampton isn't letting a little age or his IBM slow him down. He's heading out in September for a two-week tour "if all goes well with the fingers," he says, he's been working on writing another album of all new material and he is headed back to England to continue work on a documentary about his life and career.

"We are headed back to interview my brother and go to the house where we grew up, the school we went to, where I met Bowie, all the things."

Frampton started his film company Phoenix Features and Rob Arthur, his keyboard player band leader, is directing the documentary.

"We have been doing our own little video interviews for a few years now and Rob is very, very clever," Frampton said. "He's artistic as a painter as well as being a phenomenal musician and singer, writer, whatever. He got into cinematography over the last two or three years and so we bought cameras and lights and everything. He and I think pretty much along the same, he knows me so well, what I will do and what I won't do."

He said he hopes to have the documentary finished by the end of the year.

The new album has been in the works for a few years. That's by design.

"I'm coming up with some great stuff." he said. "It's got to be the best thing I've ever done apart from 'Comes Alive.' It cannot be just a couple of tracks and some fillers. That's why it's taken me so, so long because every track's gotta be 110 percent and give me goosebumps."

He said he settled on music he wasn't happy with before in his career and he has regretted it.

"I have been pushed into things in the past, but no one pushes me to do anything now. That's a good place to be. For me it's never been about the money or fame, but about people enjoying my playing and my singing."

Frampton enjoys adapting to his new normal

While his IBM continues to make its way down his arms and into his hands, he says he is not letting it slow him down.

"It is affecting my hands now and my arms, but I'm adapting and because I'm the positive type of guy, it sounds weird, but I'm enjoying working out how to adapt."

He sees it as learning something new, just like the days of commandeering the family bathroom for optimal recording sound.

"You never finish learning. I'm always learning, till the day I drop. So it's very exciting for me to still be going out there and doing stuff that I'm enjoying and I'm still enjoying what I'm playing."

His only regret?

"When I met Robert Plant for coffee, we didn't take a selfie."

Nashville Rocks is a series by music writer Melonee Hurt that explores all of the people making rock music out of Nashville. We’ll share can’t-miss stories and go behind the scenes with the artists, writers, producers and players keeping rock alive from Nashville. Tune down, turn it up and dig in.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville resident, rockstar Peter Frampton comes alive with new music