Classic rock stars react to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions: ‘I’m a little bit in shock’ (2024)

It’s been a long wait for Peter Frampton.

With the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees announced, Frampton has waited 26 years for this as a solo artist, and the thrilling news “hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

“I think I’m a little bit in shock, and speechless,” Frampton told Billboard from his home in Nashville. “I never expected this. People always said, ‘You should be in.’ I said, ‘Eh, what is to be,’ y’know? So mixed emotions, because it’s something that I just never expected, whereas other people did for me. It’s wonderful.”

Frampton was also quite thrilled that he finished second in the fan vote with 528,000, second only to the Dave Matthews Band.

“You never quite know how you are regarded,” Frampton explained. “I don’t think about that; I just do my thing. But ending up in the number two position blew me away, actually. It’s an honor people regard me in this way. I’m just honored and blown away.”

Frampton also lent fans a helping hand when it came to voting. During his most recent concert tour, he spoke about his nomination and projected a QR code on the video screen, which immediately took fans to the voting site.

“That was wonderful,” he recalled. “Every night when I said, ‘I got this phone call a couple months ago…and my managers told me I’m being nominated for the Rock….’ I never got out ‘Fame’ — they just went berserk, the audience, every night, and it made me feel like, ‘Well, they think I deserve to be in.’ So that was very, very nice from the word go. It’s quite uncanny we would be touring during the public voting, so every night I could hopefully get a few hundred out of the couple of thousand, three thousand that were in the audience. And it made a difference.”

Frampton – who began as a teen star in England before achieving worldwide fame in the band Humble Pie and then later with his “Frampton Comes Alive!” album in 1976 – regards the 2024 Rock Hall lineup as “a wonderful class to be involved with.”

Also excited about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction is Foreigner leader and guitarist Mick Jones.

“I think it means more to me now than perhaps 20 years ago,” Jones explained to Billboard. “I’ve had a great career, and this is like the whipped cream and cherry on top. It’s something I will savor over the years. It’s a great honor to be included amongst all these great artists that have been inducted over the years.”

Rick Wills, Foreigner’s bassist from 1979 to 1993, was also thrilled about the great news.

“We’re more than thrilled. It’s been over 20 years since we’ve been waiting for this day,” he said to Billboard. “I suppose we were frustrated, to be perfectly honest, but we tried to hide it as best we could because we didn’t want to appear like we were sad people (laughs). I mean what else could you do but what we’ve done already with our music, and what people have appreciated and enjoyed? We didn’t understand why we didn’t get that recognition.”

For years, the Hall of Fame just always seemed out of reach, as the band never had a nomination prior to 2024 despite a successful career, chart-topping hits and more than 100 albums sold.

“Occasionally it might have entered my mind,” Jones said. “I certainly haven’t been overly consumed by it. Every year was the same thing, so eventually I didn’t really worry about it.”

The continuous snub was blamed on Jann Wenner, a co-founder of both Rolling Stone magazine and the Hall of Fame. In a separate interview last year, original singer Lou Gramm mentioned that Wenner once said, “It’ll be a cold day in hell before Foreigner gets into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

Once Wenner was kicked out from the Hall’s board of directors after inflammatory remarks he made about Black and female artists, Foreigner finally received their first nomination.

Other Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees under the Performer Category include Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Kool & The Gang, Ozzy Ozbourne, and A Tribe Called Quest.

The category honors “artists who have created music whose originality, impact, and influence has changed the course of rock & roll,” according to a release, per Entertainment Weekly.