Peter Frampton on the new documentary about his life: ‘It was quite amazing to see it all in one go’

Frampton, a documentary about Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Peter Frampton, will premiere Thursday night at New York City’s Tribeca Festival, and Frampton himself will make an appearance at the screening.

The documentary covers Frampton’s entire life and career, and features commentary from Bill Wyman, Roger Daltrey, Tom Morello, Cameron Crowe, Sheryl Crow, Nancy Wilson of Heart, Alice Cooper and Ringo Starr. While there are plenty of high points — like Frampton Comes Alive! becoming, at one point, the best-selling album of all time — the doc covers many low points as well, like the car crash that nearly killed him, the period when he was flat broke, and his life today, living with a degenerative muscle disease.

Frampton jokes that he was “exhausted” after seeing his whole life onscreen.

“When you see it all in one hour and 50 minutes … it’s a lot of stuff,” he tells ABC Audio. “Y’know, it’s 60 years’ worth, basically, of career and life, and so yeah, it was quite amazing to see it all in one go.”

At one point in the film, Cameron Crowe describes one of Peter’s Frampton Comes Alive! concerts as “the peak of rock.” Frampton says that wasn’t necessarily good thing.

“I knew it was the peak of rock for me,” he laughs. “You can’t get much higher.” But, he admits, “It just got too big for me. The #1 in the charts, the stadium shows — so exciting. But when you become the biggest record in history — I’ll take #2, not #1, in anything, because there’s so much pressure on the #1. And so for me, it was very hard at that point.”

Seeing the results of that pressure is one of the things Frampton wants fans to take away from the documentary.

“I’ve always wanted people to know exactly what was happening at various times when they were just [putting] that album on and [playing] it over and over and again,” he says.

“And also how it affected me, as opposed to them. I think it gives everybody a really good sense of how the business was back then.”