Peter Frampton Uses Alcoholics Anonymous Lessons to Keep Playing

Peter Frampton said he was relying on lessons learned at Alcoholics Anonymous to keep playing guitar as his health battle continues.

He announced he was living with muscle-wasting disease IBM in 2019, and although he’s continued to work – recently confirming 2025 tour dates – his issues are becoming harder to deal with.

“It’s getting more difficult, I have to admit,” Frampton said during his appearance at the NAMM trade event last week (via Guitar Player), where he used a walking cane for balance.

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He continued: “The worst thing about playing for me is when I’m soloing, I have to actually think about what I’m playing. I don’t want to think – I want it just to be coming from my heart. That’s how I always played.

“And now I do have to think a little bit, because I’ll be in the middle of the passage and I’ll say, ‘That finger is not going to get there in time!’ So I do a regroup and I use one finger for many notes that I used to use three fingers for.”

Peter Frampton Enjoys the Challenge of Outrunning His Illness

He cited the example of jazz icon Django Reinhardt, who lost two fingers in a fire in 1928 and had to develop a new playing technique. “That’s what I’m doing,” Frampton reflected, “because I enjoy music so much. It sounds weird; you’re losing the power to play… but I’m working out – and enjoying working out – a different way of playing.

“People say, ‘Aren’t you depressed?’ You know, you have to accept the things you cannot change. I learned that in AA, and in many other places. … What I have is not life-threatening, thank God, but it’s life-changing, and I’m going with the flow.”

Frampton revealed that he’d been working on a new album, which he aims to release this year and follows 2021 covers set Frampton Forgets the Words. He explained: “I keep saying, ‘Oh, that’s the last one; that’s the last one. And then, of course, I go, ‘Can we do it again?’ So we’ll call this one Let’s Do It Again.”