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Peter Frampton revealed his new instrumentals set, Frampton Forgets The Words, took far more thought than just running through a handful of classic songs on guitar. Frampton, who’s always been methodical when it comes to his studio work, told us that there was a definite process of trial and error to see if the songs he and his band tackled passed muster as an instrumental track worthy to stand alongside the original.

The album — billed to the Peter Frampton Band — features the Grammy Award-winning legend’s new takes on Radiohead‘s “Reckoner,” Lenny Kravitz‘ “Are You Gonna Go My Way?,” David Bowie‘s “Loving The Alien,” Stevie Wonder‘s “I Don’t Know Why,” Roxy Music‘s “Avalon, ” Jaco Pastorious‘ “Dreamland,” and George Harrison‘s “Isn’t It A Pity,” among others.

We caught up with Frampton who sketched out how he and his band work-shopped the tunes before committing to them: “I was nervous as hell to do these songs — but I picked ’em! (Laughs) Y’know, so the band and I made long lists of great songs that we thought might make great instrumentals. But, I would listen to them and I’d go, ‘No. I can’t turn that into an instrumental.’ I just didn’t feel certain ones. . . And there are a couple of — or more than a couple — and we tried and (thought). . . ‘No. this isn’t working. We’re not doing this justice.’ So, only the ones that really lent themselves to my style of guitar interpretation of the vocals made it onto the record.”