Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Mike Campbell's "Heartbreaker: A Memoir" - A Deep Dive Review [Episode 270]

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Mike Campbell's "Heartbreaker: A Memoir" - A Deep Dive Review [Episode 270] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On this episode of Booked on Rock, a deep dive
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: into Mike Campbell's new memoir Heartbreaker, his lifelong friendship and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: musical partnership with Tom Petty, the stories behind Petty Classics,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Refugee Breakdown, American Girl, You Got Lucky, Free Fallen, and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: many more Coming up next, We're.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Totally rocking roll.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: I meant to leave you.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: You're reading.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Little Hands says it's time to.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Rock and roll up.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: I totally booked.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to book don Rock of Eric Sanitch, legendary
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Tom Petty, and the Heartbreaker's guitarist Mike Campbell has a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: brand new book out now called Heartbreaker, a memoir Mike
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Campbell with Ari Sertival here to talk about the books.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: My good friend Kevin Brown, host of the Tom Petty Project.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: What's going on? Man?
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Not much? Man. You contacted me asking me if I
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: wanted to talk about this book, and of course I
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: want to talk about this book. Hell yes, yeah, yess
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: my local indie store and it was one of those
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: and I thought, well, I'll give myself a couple of weeks,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: a couple three weeks ahead time just to sit with
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: it and digest it, and finished it in four days
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: because of course, like once you pick it up, you
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: can't put the damn thing down.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: So it's great read. He says in the introduction, Nobody
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: would ever have imagined it would be me, of all people,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: to tell the stories of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: being the host of a Tom Petty podcast and keeping
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: up with what's going on. Did you know he was
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: writing a book? Was it a surprise to you? What
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: was your reaction.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: I think we first heard about this about I mean
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I obviously the same times everyone else, but it was
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: only about, I want to say, about four or five
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: months ago. And he's right that you wouldn't expect Mike
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Campbell because Mike Campbell doesn't really put himself out from
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: the center. Who's always the guy, always the side guy,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: always happy, you know, supporting the career of someone else.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: So to get this story from his perspective, I think
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: was a little bit of a surprise for a lot
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: of us. But yeah, it was sort of bruined in
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: the background. But when he said did the big announcement,
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Everyone's like, well, what, We're finally getting a biog from
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: one of the actual band. This is amazing.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I want to do is I'm gonna read
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: some excerpts from the book, So I want to start
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: in the beginning, in the introduction. Right away. I love
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the book because it gives us some insight into Tom Petty.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I think straight away, you know, through the introduction and
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: then the entire book, really you do get the sense
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: that this is a memoir. It's not an autobiography front
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: to back. It's not just Mike's story. It's Mike's story
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: as a musician. And of course the most significant part
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: of that story is Tom Pain and the Heartbreakers and
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Tom pay specifically, and benmont Tench and you know Randall,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: you know, all the guys who are in Mudcroatch, all
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: the guys in the Heartbreakers, and then everyone else he's
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: worked with. But there really is a focus on his
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: relationship with Tom and his relationship with Tom's music, which
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I think is a really smart editorial choice, just on
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: the sort of on the writing side, to really give
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: you that very solid framework that people know enough of
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: that story, but you can sort of tack all these
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: little anecdotes and these remembrances onto that and give it
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: some structure and give it some form. I think it
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: was a really smart idea to do it that way.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, So I'm sharing the screen. You're able to see
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying here, right, Yeah?
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Cool?
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Okay. The Heartbreaker started in Los Angeles in nineteen seventy six,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: but we all came from Gainsville, Florida. I was the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: guitar player. Stan was the drummer. He was wild and funny,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and there was Ron, a sweet and sensitive guy and
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: an incredible bass player. Rock and roll is not always
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the best line of work if you're sweet and sensitive,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: so for many years we had another bass player named Howie.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: It was a hard job for him too, but in
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: different ways. Benmont was there from the start. He was
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: from Gainesville too, but he was a little different from us.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: He was younger, came from a good, loving home, and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: he was a genius. He could turn two chords into
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: booker t playing Beethoven symphonies. I would say he became
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: one of the greatest rock and roll keyboard players of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: all time. But he was about as good as he
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is now when he was seventeen. Tom used to say
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that about me, that I was a good guitar player
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: when he first heard me, as I was when we
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: got famous. The first time Tom ever heard me play
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: was in nineteen seventy in a shack outside Gainsville that
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: had lived in when and I had nowhere else to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: go and I didn't know what to do with my life.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I can't say the same for Tom. He was pretty
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: good when we met. He had been playing in bands
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: for a couple of years already, and then he got
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: better and better and better. But even early on, when
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I couldn't fathom, not in my wildest dreams, how far
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: he would take us, he never doubted it for a second.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: He once told his dad that if he would just
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: get off his back, he would be a millionaire by
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the time he was thirty five, and he was right.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Tom was a songwriter too, like me, but also not
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: like me. I could give him a tape of three
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: chords that I recorded to play over while I practiced,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and he would come back with lyrics thousands of people
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: would sing with tears in their eyes. He wrote songs
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that gave people great courage and comfort, And sometimes he
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: would give me a few verses over two chords, and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I would write a guitar part that made it a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: hit that maybe people rolled down the windows and drive
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: faster when it came on the radio. Sometimes I would
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: write a guitar line like that and try to throw
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: it away, but he'd save it time after time. He
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: heard things in me that I couldn't hear in myself.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Tom never doubted that we would make it. When all
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I knew was that I had nowhere to go. Tom
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: knew we were going to the top. Nothing was going
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to stop him. He was little and he was skinny,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: but he could be unbreakable. He could withstand pressure like
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: nobody I have ever seen. Tom Petty was one of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the toughest people I've ever met, but it could make
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: him hard on people, and then he would feel bad
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: and get down on himself. He worried a lot. Sometimes
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: he made me so angry I couldn't look at him.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: But nothing could ever split us up. We were brothers
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: from the same muse. Early on, before we even knew it,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: we made some unspoken deal that we were going down
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the line together no matter what, Me and him, full
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: speed ahead from the very beginning to the very end.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: The first place Tom and I ever played together was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a topless bar on Route four forty one outside Gainesville.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: We played Credence covers to a bunch of drunk rednecks
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: who threw empty slits cans at us if we blocked
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: their view of the dancers. The last place we played
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: together was the Hollywood Bowl. The last song we played
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: together was an American Girl, the last song on the first
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: album we ever made together. It was the end of
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the show, the end of the tour, the end of
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the road. And at the end of that song, there
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: is one of those guitar parts I was telling you about,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: this little guitar riff I played over the outro when
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: we recorded it. I played it just as a placeholder
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: until I thought of something better. Tom wouldn't let me
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: change it, He said, are you crazy. For the next
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: forty years, whenever I played that little guitar riff at
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the end, people cheered. They cheered for me, the poor
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: kid from across the tracks, the quiet kid in the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: back whose dreams somehow all came true. They cheered for
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the luckiest guy in the world. The crowd rose to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: their feet that night when I played it at the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Hollywood Bowl. As the song crashed to a close and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: the last notes we would ever play together rang in
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the air, I glanced over at Tom. He was beaming,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: his eyes were full of joy, and he shot me
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that look. He had that smirk. If you know him,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you know the look I'm talking about. He gave me
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: that look as if to say, I told you. As
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the band left the stage, Tom was down front, waving
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to the crowd, signing some autographs. Backstage, I sat down
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and caught my breath. But I wanted to catch him
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: before he left. I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to tell him how much I loved him, and how
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: proud I am of what we created together, and how
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: grateful I am for everything we went through, even the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: hard times. But I missed him somehow. I turned around
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and he was gone, I'll tell you instead.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: The hell of an intro, isn't it?
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: You know, And I think that obviously there's there's an
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: author involved our reshoot of all. Like you said, is
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: the ghost rider for this. And I don't know if
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: Mike Campbell alone would have been able to put the
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: story together in this way, but it's so artfully constructed
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: that you get that almost that end to end right
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: off the top right and in just very very bullet
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: point form. But he gives you the shape of what's
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: to come. So even if you're only a casual Heartbreakers fan,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: you know what's coming in. Of course, that last little
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: section where he's talking about the fortieth on the show
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: in September at the Hollywood Ball, I mean is that
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: was hard to read, you know when you because you think, Okay, yeah,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to deal with that at the end
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: of this book. Clearly Mark's going to talk about this,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: and so I'm gonna have to deal with processing my
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: emotions again at losing Tom because obviously, you know, we
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: then any story like this and we get into so
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: much detail about the relationship as well as the music,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: you couldn't get invested in the characters, even if it's fiction,
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: right when it's fact on fiction, get invested in the character.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: So knowing that that dark clouds on the horizon and
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: it's heading towards you, when you get into those later chapters,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: it's heavy, man. I found that really heavy, very in
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: the last half of this book, you know.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Very heavy. And it turns out that he had a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: broken hip. He was walking around with a broken hip,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: standing on stage for two plus hours with a broken hip.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The pain that that must have given Tom Yet he
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: would not take I guess what he would have needed
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: as a year off surgery and a year off he
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: would still be here today.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of those waters should
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: have cut her. I mean, you never know. I mean
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: that he could have been it could have been hit
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: by a buzzycause there's all those things growth through your mind.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: And I know that there's a sort of a weird
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: subset of the fandom that kind of hold it against
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: him in a way where they they sort of they
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: think that he did the wrong thing by doing that.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: But of course he's just not to know, right, you don't.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: He felt he was doing the wrong thing by by.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Canceling, And yeah, exactly right.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: He was thinking about the fans. He was thinking about
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the people that work on the road, that they that's
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: their job.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: So that's interesting and that's another thing that I think
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Mike ends up talking about that in the book as well,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: about you know they it felt a real obligation to
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: that crew because you know, and as you know, you
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: you've spoken to so many writers and about so many
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: bands that when you get to that stage where you
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: your forty year career or you this huge stadium or
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Arena act. That's a business now as well. You've got
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: a lot of people whose entire livelihood depends on you touring,
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: and Tom always felt that responsibility to make sure that
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: everyone was looked after and everyone had work. And what
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: it really impressed me was the fact that he said
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: that everyone, you know, they knew that once everyone finished,
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: whenever the ride finished, that everyone had pensions, everyone was
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: looked after. They knew that all the crew, all the
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: road people, all the business managers, they were all looked
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: after financially, right. So Tom made sure that all those
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: people in his employ were looked after. And of course
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: that care that he gave to us fans, I would
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: argue is he did the same thing with the fact
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: that the quality of the music all through his career.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: You know, Mike doesn't talk about the last three albums
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: in too much detail, but the quality of the album is,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: the quality of the product that he gave to was
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: never that never flagged either. So it sort of shows
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: that that focus on being a good musician, being a
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: good professional, being a good person permeated throughout the Heartbreakers,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: So it didn't just come from Tomic Kim, from Mike
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You know, and for those who may not know the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: inner workings of the Heartbreakers, Mike was mentioning first names only,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: so we should run through them. He mentioned Benmont Tench
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and Benmont was yeah, he was the founding member of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the band.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, well, I mean, so the story there is that,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: you know, Tom had gone to LA to try and
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: get signed with his band mud Crutch, and which Benmont
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: wasn't a part of it that time. So when they
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: got to LA and they're working with Denny Cordell, they
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: just couldn't get They were cutting it with, you know,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: different songs, and they couldn't quite get something that would work.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: They weren't really happy with it, and eventually Denny Cordell said, well, okay,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: really you're the star. So we're gonna go with Tom
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Petty as a solo act, and we're gonna bring in
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Doug Dunn and all the you know, Jim Calton, and
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: we'll bringing different people to play the play the backing
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: parts for your songs. But it's kind of you. But
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Tom never wanted that, right. Tom Petty wanted to be
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: in a band, and he knew he needed Mike Campbell
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: because him and Mike have been playing together for years
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: in mud Crutch, so he sort of surreptitiously kept bringing
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: them all back. And then one night had gone over
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: to visit Benmont because Benmont had moved. And then when
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Mudcrutch got dropped, Benmont tent stuck herround in LA and
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: tried to form his own band, tried to get something going.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: And so when he went over there, Tom was he
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: was playing with Stan Lynch, he was playing with Ron Blair,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: and Tom said, yeah, I'll have these three, and that's
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: how they sort of ended up becoming with Mike Campbell
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: became the Heartbreakers. They go back to Dennie Cordell play
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: a couple of songs in Cordell thankfully recognized, Yeah, actually, yeah,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: this works now. Whatever it was, whatever wasn't working with
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: mud Crutch, it is working now with these guys and.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Ben Man keyboards, Ron Blair bass, Stanlen's drums, Howie Epstein
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: replaced Ron Blair and then Royan Blair came back and bass. Yeah.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: So after her promises for the Long After Dark album,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: that's when how He comes in. So Tom is working
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: with Del Shannon producing his record and says, I think
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: I got to take how he and Dell's pleading with him, saying, please,
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: don't just don't take how he don't apartment anyone else,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: don't take how he but Tom says, sorry, I got
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: to have him. And so then how he joins the
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: band sadly, how he passed away in two thousand and
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: two from heroin overdose. And then Ron. So that's the
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: good bit in the book too, I didn't know about
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: sort of. One of the things that Mike reveals is
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: that it was Mike actually who said to Tom, well,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: our bass player is Ron Blair. Just get Ron back, Yeah,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: because Ron was alway kind of kicking in. Mike had
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: been jamming with Ron on and off through you know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: all through down the years and did done the you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: the the Blue done the Blue Stringers at that point
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: they might be as after but the MAJA he said, yeah,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: just bring runback because Ron knows all our stuff and
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: he's the right guy and we know him. And so
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Ron Black goes back. And so that's unusual too, hey,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: where one guy leaves and comes back after a long time,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was interesting, and the story of how he
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: is just sad, tragic, very sad, a sweet guy. Drugs
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: took him down and there's one word that really stands out,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and he mentions it in the introduction, grateful. Mike Campbell
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: was grateful for what he had, but how he seemed
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: to resent or focus on the resentment of maybe what
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in his mind, maybe he could have gotten more, maybe
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: he could have gotten paid more. I don't know, or
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: he was talking, he was saying something to Mike Campbell
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: about being replaced on bass with a few tracks here
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: or there in the studio, and how that just pissed
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: him off, Like yeah, thirty years later and Mike Campbell
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: was like, what are you talking about. Mike just seemed
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: to be level headed and again grateful for what he had.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: And if there's ever a secret to a long successful career,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: be grateful for what you have, because you could very
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: easily obsess over what you don't have.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that thing in modern society where success is
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: measured by sort of how prominent you are. And I
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: always think, you know, if you look at sort of
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: the big sports players, if you're looking at Lebron James,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: or you're looking at you know, Sydney crosbusiness, everyone focuses
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: on them as individuals, where really I always think of
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: all my favorites musicians, all my favorites athletes. They're all
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: good team players, you know, And that's I think Mike,
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: that's part of his DNA. Mike would rather be part
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: of a great team than be headlining, but not necessarily,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: you know, the main guy. But I think also part
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: of that is that Mike is a pure musician. And
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: I always got that sense that Tom surrounded himself and
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: managed to shroud himself with those guys who the thing
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: they cared about more than anything else was always writing
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: the best song they could write, every single time. And
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: that comes through in this book right where Mike continually
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: says that you know, he's going off working with someone else,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: or he's giving the song to Don Henley and he's
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: working Don Henley, and he's he's got all these opportunities,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: but really what he wants to do is right with Tom.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Because musically, that that symbiosis, that thing that they have
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: between each other, it's rare, right, I mean, you can't
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: replace that. It's the same thing. You know, we're both
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: big Van Halen fans, that thing that Eddie and Alex
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: had even though they were brothers, they were also musical brothers.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: And you take one of those elements out and it
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: just doesn't work. You know, you've got it. You need
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: that that interplay between two people, and between Mike and Tom,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: it was, it was just perfect.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Remember Mike talking about Tom Petty was getting overwhelmed because
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Mike kept sending tapes. Tom like almost an upstage. I'm like,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: oh you think you could write what about this? And
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Tom Petty' said well slow down a second. Yeah. Talk
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: about Mike's childhood. He didn't come from privilege and money.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: He moved to Jacksonville after his parents got divorced, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: he lived in a low income neighborhood. And not at
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: all surprising to hear you like the Beatles. They inspired
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: him to want to play guitar, love the Beach Boys
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: as much as the Beatles. So your thoughts on the
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: early part of the book in his childhood, any surprises,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: anything interesting that stands out.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: I mean I didn't know about his dad, you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: sort of being in the army and going away in
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: that whole situation. So I think that you know, when
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: you've got to when I come from what they used
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: to call a broken home. You know, my mum and
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: dad divorced when I was young, so being living with
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: my dad and then living with my mom, that sort
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: of tension of only having one parent and sort of
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: feeling like you're kind of a bit of an outsider
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: just because of that. That definitely creates a bit of
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: an f you attitude. It can do, And I think
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: that that hardness, that little bit of hardness where you
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: have to be self reliance and you have to sort
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: of look out for the people early in your life.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: I think that maybe sort of if you've got that
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: sense of you know, fairness and rightness in life and
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: work ethic, I think that that can bolster that. So
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I think that, you know, Mike's one of those kids
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: who was lucky that it didn't break him and push
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: him down the bad path, which a lot of kids
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: end up going down, and it was sort of reinforced
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: ob Okay, well I got to work hard and I
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: got to make my own way through life. So I
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: think that that grounding thin he's with some of that.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: I think that's some of that work ethic comes from
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: probably booked podcasts.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: We'll be back after this.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Your honor like to ask for a recess.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: We get stories of a Ton Petty's childhood was like
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: his mom and grandmother seemed to be like sweet people.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: But his dad, Earl, he scared the shit out of Tom.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Although and I want to have you listen to and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I was going to send you the link earlier this
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: week before we recorded. There's a great interview Mike Campbell
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: did with Brian Hyde of Rolling Stone and it's Rolling
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Stone Now and it runs on Serious XM, but they
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: also have the podcast version of it. He did say,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: he goes, you know, Earl, He said, you know, Earl
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't all that bad. He goes, he said, I got
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: along with him. He was just a character, you know.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: But still I think Tom was a little intimidated by
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: his dad. I mean there are stories about he's punching
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Tom so hard he knocked him off his chair, went
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: after him with his belt. I mean that's rough to read.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I believe Tom was pretty open at that. But was
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that in his later years? Did he reveal that relationship
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: in his book and interviews?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you get some of that in the
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Warren Zanes biography doesn't really get into as much with
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: with Paul Zolo, but in the Zayes barography, some of
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: that is in there. And when I was reading that too.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about that as well, because when you
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: hear he wasn't that bad of a guy. And of course,
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: you know socially, if you're not his kid, you can
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: be wonderful with you. We all know those guys who
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: you know, you drink with or whatever, and when you
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: find out, oh, they've been beating the wife, you think, really, oh,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: it just seemed like a pretty cool dude. You know.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: That's that's off, man, that's really crazy. So I think
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: there's a part of it might be that where if
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: you're not sort of really experiencing that, I'm not exposed
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: to it, and you only seeing the other side of it,
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: where it's just this kind of happy, gol lucky drunk,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: which is what was right. He was a drunk. He
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: was a just not a great guy. But to be
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: hitting your kids, to be punching your kids, I just
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: think straight away that's it's sort of very deemable. I
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: don't know how you.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Well in the interview, because that's unforgivable. There's no question
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: he said that. Yeah, yeah, Well, he shows up one
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: night with some girls where he like two or three girls,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: he's drunk, comes back from the bar and Tom and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Mike are hanging playing tunes together, just jamming a little bit,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and he and his father had a few He starts
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: bullying Tom and Mike and when and Tom told him,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: he told his dad, yeah, he should probably get going, dad.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: No.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: And here's where this is the story. I'm so curious
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: if you knew about this one. This is where Earl's like,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: don't do me like that, boy. And as I'm reading that,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like, huh, don't do me like that. I wonder
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: if that's a connection. Sure enough, that was it? Like
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Tom remembered that don't do me like that. Don't do
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: me like that, son, that he would say to him.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, all the great songwriters do that, right, They
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: crib all those things where those little lines, all those
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: little phrases. I think you see on Bill Graffiti. It's
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: just like it all goes in and they all eventually
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: comes out of. It's good, right. And yeah, I definitely
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: knew that one. I'm not too sure if that was through.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: That might be through Paul Zolo's book. I think he
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: maybe talks about it there, but I have to go
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: back and read that. But yeah, I mean, and.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: That's what Mike realizes he's a good songwriter. This this
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: this kid right.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Well, even even prior to that, you know, when he's
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: epics in the Sundowners and everyone, Petty had a reputation
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: around Gainsville. People knew he was right. You know, he's
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: this kind of lank, scruffy, weighs about twenty pounds in
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: a wet Parker kind of kid. But kid can play,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: you know, he kid can plain kicking right.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Those early mud Crutch gigs. They landed a six week
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: gig at a bar and grill and they they wanted
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: out the first night because they realized this place, this,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: this is a this is a ship hole. They had
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a gun pulled down him. That's page one ten. I
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: think i'll look for the excerpt if you want to
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: comment on that.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Because you get in all those all those shows at
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: dubs and all those shows at these these dive bars,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: and they said they get sent down to Tampa or
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: something where of it, which whichever Caidy it was, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: they're they're like said the same thing. They get there
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: and they're like, oh my god, this is this is not
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: a good And you know, then you're having to play
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: covers as well, because you've got to give the people
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: what they want, so they'll keep drinking the Normans, the Originals.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: If you some scruffy bound from Gainsville, you better be
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: playing you know, whatever's on the radio at the moments,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: and that gets I guess a bit wearing, especially if
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: you're right in your own songs.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen. We pulled up to the place late in
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the afternoon. It looked like a rusted tin shack on
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the edge of the water, with a corrugated tin roof
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and a door barely hanging on to its hinges. We
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: walked in together, blinking in the darkness from the brightness
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of the sun. The smell hit us first. It was
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: like a low tide of piss and spilled beer had
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: receded and left the ruins of this place in its wake.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: The owner was behind the bar. He didn't say hello,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: he didn't smile. He said set up over there. The
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: place was empty except for the bar, where three of
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the oldest, grimiest fishermen I had ever seen sat and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: crusted on their barstools like barnacles. They perched toothless and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: scowling over small mugs of flat, warm, ten cent draft beer.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: We set up the gear and went outside. There was
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: nothing around. We walked along the water for a little bit,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: not talking. Then we waited in Keith's van until it
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: was time to play. Who is Keith? Was that their roadie?
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: It was one of their friends who had a van,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: and it would just kind of told yeah right.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: When we walked back in, the place was still empty
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: except for the fishermen, who had not moved. They had
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: been joined on the last stool at the bar by
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a very small, very heavy set, very drunk woman. She
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: could barely stand, but when she managed, she couldn't have
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: been more than four feet tall. When we walked in,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: she was yelling, buy me another, one of you bums,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: buy me another. One of the fishermen nodded at the owner,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: who poured well bourbon into the double Rocks glass. She
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: clutched with her thick, small fingers. All right, let's see.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: They played a little Wing, and when they started playing yeah,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a few songs in we started little Wing. One of
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the fishermen approached the woman and held out his hand.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: She took it and slid off the stool, led her
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to the floor, and they slowed danced awkwardly out of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: time to the band. We went back the next day
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: around noon to get our gear and get out of there.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Now this is their gear. Keep in mind, it was
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: dark and empty when we walked in. Nobody was behind
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the bar. I went up on the stage and started
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: unplugging our PA while Randall broke down his drum kit
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and Tom and the other guitarist carry dams down. I
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: wasn't looking when the owner called out, asking what the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: hell we thought we were doing. Tom went down to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: talk to him. He said, it didn't look like it
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: was going to work out. We had to cut our
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: engagement short. Tom turned and walked back to the stage,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and the owner pulled a pistol from the small of
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: his back and held it on us. He was drunk.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: He took the safety off, his finger was on the trigger.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: He told us to put those goddamn amplifiers back. We
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: weren't going any goddamn where. We booked six weeks and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: we were playing six weeks, and if we took one
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: more step with our gear, he'd kill us where we stood.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: He told us he didn't care kill every last one
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of us, feed us to the gators. Don't believe him,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Try him, just try him.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: I love that because it goes on to you're talk
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: about because they end up going to the police about this, yes,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: and the police is just got like, oh god, he's
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: do it again. So it's like, this guy's clearly got
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: formed with this. But it's crazy, right when you think
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: about that and think about these bands and the young
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: men going around, you shouldn't be taking your life in
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: your hand's trying to get a gig, you know. But
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I'm sure that so many of those bands worked so
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: many of those shitty gigs for so many, so many years.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Those are the how serious do you want to be
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: a musician exactly?
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: But it's also where you learn your chops, right, and
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: that's where I think, you know, that's where you know
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: your idols these days and those kinds of things. I
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: know it's an easy, sort of low hanging fruit, but
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: if you haven't done the five hundred crappy gigs, you
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: haven't played for fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred crappy hours in
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: front of people, learning stagecraft, learning you know, a set
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: of songs, learning how to play your instrument, learning how
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: to do all those kinds of things that when you
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: do get your chance. I think that's those bands that
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: do make it. Part of it is because they've had
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: all that experience of working it up and getting the songs,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: shining them up and making sure they're all good, to
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: make sure everyone's tight. Man, you can tell a tight
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: band right. When you see a tight band, it can
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: be in a crappy little pub. And we've probably seen
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: bands like Petty and Mudcrutch were when they were just
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: starting out. We think, man, these guys are good, they're
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: a tight band. Well, they've probably played six seven hundred gigs.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Elliott Roberts, this guy, Yeah, he became the band's co
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: manager in nineteen seventy nine. How much did you know
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: about him before reading the book?
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Only a little bit, And I know that he was
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: one of those guys who really was sort of hyper
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: business focused, didn't My sense of it was that he
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: just didn't really care all that much about the music.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: He was only word He was only concerned about the
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: business side of it, and so talked exclusively in sort
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: of business speaking. There's that great anecdote about him talking
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: to Stan right and saying, Stan, there's rich, there's famous,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: and there's hot. Right now you're hot, I'm sort of saying,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: tell him that you've got to keep working, and you'll
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: only get rich and famous if you keep doing this pass.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: So I mean, in one regard, he was definitely sort
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: of an influence on saying stick the course and keeping
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: everyone sort of expectations in check. But on the other hand, yeah,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: you could be I think always think when those guys,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: he could be a little bit more sympathetic, you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: it could be at a little bit more empathy as
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: a human pain.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Which he did not seem to have. Yeah, when first
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: he first met with Stan and Mike, I think it
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: was just Stan and Mike meeting with it with Elliott.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I think in this scene that we're gonna get to here, right,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: he says, well, fellas, it looks like God has to
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: come down and pull this big fat dick out of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Tom's ass. It was quite an opener, is what Mike writes.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be a few changes, and we all exchanged looks.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Stan spoke first, of course. Stan said, gee, it sounds
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: like we missed the meeting, and Elliott regarded Stan with curiosity,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: How do you mean, Stan, sounds like the real meeting
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: already happened, didn't it. Elliot smiled that Stan's sincerely impressed
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: with how quickly he got it. Stan, You're absolutely right.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: This isn't a band meeting. This is you telling us
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: how it's gonna be correct. This is fucking bullshit. Ron agreed.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: So Ron was there too. Yep, Stan, Ron, you guys
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: have a condition. I've seen it before. It's called Sideman syndrome.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: What is that supposed to mean? You think you're as
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: important as Tom? You are not? Elliott explained. Tom was
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the star. Tom was the front man, Tom was the songwriter.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Tom did all the interviews. Tom worked with Tony every day.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Who's Tony again?
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Tony did metiotists, he was their manager.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yes, and you want the same amount of money
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: as him for playing bass, for playing the drums. Elliott
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: said he didn't think so. Yeah, guys, He explained, it
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't reality. He wanted to disavow us of these fanciful
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: notions because they would destroy the band. Resentmentswood fester, and
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: they did with some of them, you know, with Stan.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, never, st never got over that. Yeah, you know,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: that's clear. That was kind of the first wedge that
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: got driven in the relationship between Stan and Tom. And
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: obviously they went on to a success from every and
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: everyone else. But I don't think I don't think Stan
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: have a really full forgave Tom for that. And what
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: I suspect though, the thing that you know, from everything
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: I've read and heard from the stand, it wasn't necessarily
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: so much that the decision was made. It's the fact
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: that Tom didn't tell them, you know what I mean,
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Because you would expect that these guys, you've come up with,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: these guys, you've done the hundreds of gigs with them,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: that you've played with all these years, and that you've
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: roomed with and you've rolled with and all that kind
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: of stuff. It really probably is your job to go
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: and say, hey, look, on the business side, we've got
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: to change the relationship here because I'm doing nine percent
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: of the heavy lifting, and I'll you know, you're essentialist
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: part of the band. I got to be paid more
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: for doing more of the work, which is it is fair, right?
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: I mean that is if you're if you were doing
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: all the interviews and you're writing all especially if you're
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: writing all the songs. I mean, come on, it is
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Tom Petty's band, you know.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Sure. I can't understand why Tom didn't want to do it. It
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: was probably really hard for him to do, but it
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: made it worse to have somebody else do it for him,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: because definitely, you know, then it's then it's just you know,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that wasn't cool, but it's a
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: tough spot for Tim to be. And that's one thing
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: about time, Betty, though. You could see why he survived
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: as long as he did because we know with his
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: battles with the record labels, he was tough like business
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: top Yeah.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as soon as MC screwed him over the first time,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: that was never happening again, right, And then you got
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: that whole issue with down the torpedoes and hiding the
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: tape so that the lawyers can't get him. And then
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: you have the situation with our promises in the eight
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: ninety eight and all that kind of stuff, you know,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: not wanting to overcharge for albums so that kids could
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: actually still buy them. So I know what I like
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: though about the book is that Mike backs him on
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: that right where he says, you know, we had our
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: doubts about it, and we weren't happy about it, but
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: he sort of recognized in the end that yeah, it
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: was fair, it was just maybe not handled in the
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: optimal way.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Wasn't Elliott the one who told Stan Lynch don't worry
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: because someday you're gonna You're on your way up right now,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: enjoy this rise, even though you're not making the money
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: you want. You will someday. And then when the Greatest
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Hits album came out, Stan Lynch got a check that
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: was so big it was like he was set for life. Yeah, right,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: because Stan, I think he it's publishing, is he on?
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't remember the credits on all these songs.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: If it's yeah, I'm not.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Esily, He's definitely not. He's not cold writing on any
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: of them. But I think, I mean, I mean, Greatest
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: States went twell times platinum. So any cut you're get
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: into a tall Toms Plottin record is gonna be a
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: big cut, right, So.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure he and he was set from that point on.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: And we're gonna get into him a little bit more
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: about the battles that he had podcasts. We'll be back
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: after this.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, out come out wherever you are.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Kevin Brown is the host of the Tom Petty Project podcast,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and we're talking about Mike Campbell's memoir, which was released
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in March called Heartbreaker. I love getting the stories behind
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the songs and the albums, and we'll have to. I'm
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: preaching to the choir here because that's what your podcast
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: is about, breaking down the songs, right, Yeah, so let's
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: get to those from the first album we have breakdown.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: What's fantastic is having because obviously we've got a lot
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: of this information. That's one thing I was gonna say
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: general about book is, as you know, the hardcore fans,
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: we know a lot of these stories already, but we
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: don't know them from this angle. Right. So either we've
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: just heard Tom talking to Paul solo in conversations with
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Tom Petty always sort of heard, you know, in interviews
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: and those types of things. But getting MIC's angle on
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: it and his perspective, whether it either confirms what we
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: already know or challenges it slightly or sheds a little
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: bit more light on it, it's fantastic. Of course. Breakdown
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: was a nine minute, nine minute jam basically, and the
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: little lick that you know, did the lud, that little
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: lick that he plays was tagged onto the outro like
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: it wasn't even and then I think it was Jeff
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: or Marty Gerard came in and was saying, like, dude,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: you that little lick at the end, that's the hook
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: for the song. So they get everyone out of bed
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: and they all come back in the studio and then
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: they build the song around that little lick, which is super.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Cool and the Bob Marley influence. Here's the segment from
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the book. The third song were recorded with the three
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: guitar lineup was a sparse, moody two chord vamp with
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the bare sketch of lyrics. Tom had written it on
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: piano the night before, and I could tell what had
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: inspired it seeing Bob Marley. It wasn't reggae, but it
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: had a similar slinky groove. Tom sang it with breath
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and space in his phrasing as he had lived over it.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: It was called Breakdown. We jammed on it Stan, Ron, Benmont, Tom,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Jeff and me. But Stan was having trouble finding a
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: beat for it. Suddenly Jim Keltner appeared. It's all about
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the groove, Stan, just find the groove. I'm trying, Jim.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to put one arm behind your back. Stan
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: put his arm behind his back and played. He found
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the beat. He looked over to say thanks. Keltner was gone.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: It's funny, right, because Keeltner ghosts sitting a couple of
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: times in this book where where Mike so describes him
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: as he just he's just there.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Was he recording in another room? What was?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I believe? So? Yeah, and I should say to it
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: was Dwight Twillie actually, who had sort of mentioned the
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: lick at the end. I just looked at it to
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: confirm I'm terrible with names.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Look, yeah, that's a good story. American Girl one of
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the all time classics from Tom putting the Heartbreakers.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: You got to think too that. You know, if you're
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Mirke Campbell and you're Ron Blair and Stanlynch and Ben
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Moon Tench, when you hear American Girl, you must think, Okay,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: this is we're getting into a different level. Now, We're
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: getting into something that's not just you know, every man
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: rock and roll. It's not not everyone can write that song.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I would say, I would argue breakdown, it's kind of
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: in the same vein. But American Girl, you think, not
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: only is that just a hit you can smell hit
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: all over that song, which that didn't end up being,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: but also it's brilliantly crafted you know, and Standlinch was
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: a huge part of why as well.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: But when he sang the first line, we thought he
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: might be sending up all the patriotic slop that had
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: been blasting from every radio and television for months, all
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: leading up to today America's big, booming birthday. Then he's
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: sang the next line, and nobody thought he was joking.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Tom played us the song and looked up for our reaction.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Nobody said anything. For a moment. We were a tough crowd.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Tom would go on to sing that song for millions
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: of people, and it was probably a breeze compared to
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: singing it for the four of us. It was great
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and we all knew it, but it wasn't American Girl yet.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: We took our instruments. Drenched in sweat in the stifling room,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Stan sat behind the drums as Benmont went to the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: organ Ron and I picked up our instruments. How Stan
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: heard in Tom's sparse acoustic folks strumming Bo Diddley, Of
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: all things is beyond me, but that's the beat he found.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Almost instantly, he picked up his sticks and started pounding
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: out Bo Diddley against Tom's triplets. It was perfect. I
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: almost never worked out guitar parts before we recorded. If
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: they didn't appear spontaneously, they felt stiff. To me. It
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: was inspiration and improvisation that made anything I had ever
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: played special. I wanted to find a way to keep
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the song as spares what Tom had played, but that
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: built the tension to the beat. We didn't have a
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: twelve string, so I tried to fake it on the broadcaster.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I held down the high eastring at the tenth threat,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the G string on the seventh threat, and I let
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the open D string drone. I muted the other three
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: strings and strummed hard against stans beat. Jeff stayed close
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to Tom's part, trying to find a lane for his playing
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: in the arrangement. I could tell he didn't love it.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: As we were working out the introduction, Noel walked over
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: to Ron. He said he had an idea, Ron, can
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you be the mice? I thought I was the elephant,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: you are, you are the elephant, but what if the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: elephant was the mice. Quite a conversation. Ron smiled and said, yeah,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I can be the mice. He entered the song with
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: a beautiful three note melody high up on his base
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: then placed his fingertips gently over the frets and let
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the harmonics ring out like bells. Benmont fell in. We
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: all backed off to give Tom room to sing. I
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: played power chords, just the root and the fifth on
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the bee and high he strings and let them sustain
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: for a whole chord. You need the root, the third
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: note of the scale, and the fifth note of the scale.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: But when I eliminated the third, everything resonated more clearly.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Less was more. As it built toward the chorus, I
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: walked into the chord changes with little bluegrass runs. This
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: is great stuff for musicians. This is inside bay. We
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: worked it out quickly, all our parts falling into place.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: It just happened. There was a little talk about a
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: guitar solo and I said, no, no way. Tom said,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: maybe throw something in at the end. We recorded the song,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and at the end, figuring we would just fade it out.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Before we got there, I played this little hammer on
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: country rock rev. I was almost joking. I thought it
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: sounded like the end of Freebird. When we finished and
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: listened back, I shook my head at it. Don't worry,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I'll change that. Tom looked at me, Are you crazy?
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Phil Seymour from the Dwight Tilly Band came in and
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: sang the falsetto last all night and the high harmonies.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: We wanted the long ah at the end to go
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: on forever without pause, so Tom and Phil stood together.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Tom sang a long, sustained high D until he was
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: completely out of breath. Just before he couldn't hold it
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: any longer, Phil sang the note with full force as
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Tom drew his breath. When Phil couldn't sustain the note
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: for one more second, Tom came in and sang it again.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: We called it the laser note. It led into the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: ringing D and F sharp pattern. I played the pedal
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: point technique I learned in my music history class in Gainesville,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and that led into the burst of guitar flash that
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I played without thinking the time saved. That made people
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: cheer for me for decades. All of that together is
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: what made an American girl.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it says it was you know, it was
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: our by far, our best song at the time, and
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: maybe the best that we ever did. And I would
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: definitely argue with it being the best they ever did.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: But it's got such a you know those when when
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: bands released their debut record and you've got a song
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: like that on there. There's just something about the rawness
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: of it and about the sort of the the immediacy
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: and authenticity of it that really lands right. And one
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: of the other things too about that song is they
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: miked up stand Linch's drums really weird because that whole
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: drum part is just coming through two overhead mics, so
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: that the kick isn't mic, so it gives it this
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: really weird, crisp, almost kind of flatish thing where they
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: get a little bit of reverbminent but it's such a
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: cool drum sign and it's so unique because they didn't
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: because they've just thought, well, fuck it, we'll just we'll
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: just use the offheads. But it gives it that distinctiveness.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's one of those things that you
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: can't replicate it. And it's the same thing with Mike
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: talking about playing just the just three of the strings,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: a mutant and three of the strings. If you play
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: it with the big open chords, as a lot of
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: people do, you're playing it wrong and it doesn't sound
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: quite right. So it gives it that very distinctive jangle
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: that we get.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Try coming up with a song that you would say
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: as Tom Petty's most famous or most iconic. You could
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: go with American Girl, you could go with that Won't
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: back Down. You can go with free Fall, and you
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: can go yeah.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Right, dream, you can go dream. There are a few candidates.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know they're there are quite refugee, you know, refugee. Yeah,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: it's it's hard to pick one. All right, let's talk
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: about next song would be picked out? Excerpt on a
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Little Moron, Don't do Me like that see page two
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: fifty eight. Towards the end of the sessions, an engineer said, hey,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: what about that cool stop start one you did? I
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: really liked that one. They listened to it and Tom
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: told Jimmy he planned to give it to the Jay
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Galls band. Jimmy hit the ceiling. He demanded it go
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: on the album. We redid it and it came out
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: as a testament to Shelley Yak as an engineer. It
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: was masterfully recorded, and once again benmontin standstole the song
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: with a beautiful interplay between the drums and the organ.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Benmon plays the first four bars on the piano and
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: when he switches to orgon and Stand settles into the groove.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: You can practically hear their friendship.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: They demoed don't do me like that with Mudcrutch, and
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: that is kicking around. If anyone won't hear that, you
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: can find it online. And so it's really interesting to
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: see where it lands from where it started because that
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: whole thing with Benmont with the organ stuff, that's kind
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: of a new development later and it is definitely for
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: me what gives that song gets its character.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Jimmy said there was a trick to making a song
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: better when you were working with a keyboard player like
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Danny Federici of The Eastreet Band or Benmont Tench. He
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: said it worked every time turn them up. Jimmy pushed
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Benmont way up on the song for the first time,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and it was a big part of how full enrich
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the record sounded.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: That was something that I've talked about on the podcast
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: that I hadn't actually read anywhere. So it was really
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: kind of gratifying to hear Mike talking about it that
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: they turned Benmont up, because when you get to Damn
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: the Torpedoes the first two albums, you don't really hear
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Benmont that much. Is in a few key parts, you know,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: and obviously the Breakdown's got a he's a big sort
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: of presence on that one. But apart from that, you
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: don't really hear him. But he's such a huge part
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: of the Heartbreakers sound, and he was such a big
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: part of Mudcrutchy's sound coming in. So the fact that
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Iven recognized that, well, you've got this great keyboard player,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: let's let's get him pumped up, and he's all throughout
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: down the Torpedoes and then on throughout the arrest of
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: the Heartbreakers careering. I think that that's one of the
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: reasons that they One of the things that set them
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: apart really was because they had this great keyboard player
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: in there as well, who could play piano, could play organ,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: play anything with the keys.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Danald duck Dunn played bass on He.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: Played based on a few Yeah, which that was the
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: weird one to me, because Woman in Love to Me
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: is the one that you don't need duck Dun on
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: because it's not a like it's a pretty straight part.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Because Duck shot this great shuffle and he's on a
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: song called Hometown Blues, which is kind of a shuffle.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: You know, it's got it's got the shuffle thing, So
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: that's perfect for Duck Dunn. And then he played on
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: the second album as well. I'm pretty sure what was
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: it he played on. I'm pretty sure he played on
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: three Heartbreakers tracks You Tell Me from Down the Torpedoes
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: and then, like I said, women, I love so what
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: a great guy to have around.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: But that's how he was resentful about. That was one
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: of the examples of why did why didn't he need me?
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Why didn't they want me?
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: For the other thing I liked about that I didn't
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: know about Mark telling us that Duc Dunn actually stuck
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: up for Stan because Jimmy Iovien used to give stand
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: the gears all the time, telling him he was a
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: shitty drummer and telling him he was a bad person,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: all this kind of stuff, and they, you know, Sam
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: was out of the band and back in the in
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: the band. Yeah, but I love that Doug dund to
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: call him sticks and said lay off him, like you're
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: doing the same thing that they used to do to
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Bill Wyman in The Stones. There's no need for He's
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: a great drummer.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Podcast will be back after this.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: During our brief inter mission, Let's take a flying trip
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: from landa fantasy to every day Life.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Damn the Torpedoes was the album that's where the battles
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: with Jimmy I and Stan real. I mean, he rode
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Stan hard and then things get really heated with Tom
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: and Stan. This is I think when it all starts
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: with Stan or with Stan always kind of budding heads
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: With Tom.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: It was always it was always bit like. He's a
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: strong character, very strong willed, right and obviously knows his
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: own mind and likes to get his own way as
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: well as Tom does. So when you get two personalities
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: like that in close proximity in the band, it's always
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: going to be fireworks. Thankfully, they more or less manage
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: it most of the time. But the whole thing with
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Down the Torpedo Sessions was that Iovine's coming in right,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: so he's done, I think, born to run, he engineered,
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: and he's coming in now. This is his first real
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: job as full producer, and there's a big responsibility on him.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: You know, this record's supposed to be the big record
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: that's going to take and the heartbreaks to the next level.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: So he comes in and he wants he wants everything
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: done his way and it's got to be done perfect.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: So they marked up the drums, and they tested fifty
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: different snares, and they'd stand sitting there for days on end,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: just hitting his snare drum, just kicking his kick drum,
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: just hitting the symbols to get the you know, the
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: exactly the right sound that Jimmy Iven wanted, which is
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: anyone off exactly.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: He's on the spot, like Mike Campbell said, he's.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: A live player. He's a live player. He's a field player.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: He's not a machine. Right, so yeah, right right.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Because Mike says, here on the fly, Stan would come
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: up with idea after idea. The snare roll that kicks
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: in Refugee as powerfully as the one that opens like
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a rolling stone, the fills that sound like fireworks, leading
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: into the choruses of even the losers, the rumbling answer
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: to the slash chords of Don't do Me like that,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: the swing he brought to the walk this way drums
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: on my demo for Here Comes My Girl. Stan came
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: up with all of it on the spot. Now Here
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: is the part that just blows my mind. So when
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: they're recording Dan the Torpedoes, it was like Stan was
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: the goalie. He got no credit when we won. It
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: took all the blame if we lost Fire the Drummer.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: It's that simple. I didn't know what Jimmy and Tom
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: were looking for. One take didn't work because Shelley heard
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: something off. Nobody could figure out what it was that
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Shelley heard or didn't hear. We checked every mic placement,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: every instrument, every amplifier. It turned out that a pile
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of scrap wood that had been in the far corner
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: of the room had been removed. Shelley could hear the difference.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. We had to go find scrap wood
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: to replace it. Fire the Drummer, It's that simple. We
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: started to turn on one another. If a take didn't work,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Stan would point his fingers at Ron and claim Ron
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: was speeding up. We bickered and argued. Benmont got needled
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: and teased. It was like a psychological experiment gone haywire.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Everybody yelled at everybody else while I sat quiet and
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: blamed myself. It was all my fault, if only I
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: was playing better. I closed my eyes and take deep
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: breaths and picture myself walking on the beach in Santa
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Barbara with Marcy, that's his wife, and try it again.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Stan started pushing back harder. To Stan, it was all
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: about the band. These specific pick five guys in a
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: room playing together. That was Tom Petting and the Heartbreakers.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: That was what we sounded like. And Stan Yell's put
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Deputy Dog behind the boards. We're still gonna sound like us. Yeah,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: here's let's see. Stan began expressing complete contempt for Jimmy.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Stan told him to stay on the other side of
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the glass where he belonged. Jimmy gave it right back.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: He told Stan he was two things, quote, an asshole
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and a shitty drummer, and neither are useful to my productions.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, I mean it's it's that's the thing where
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: I think that you know, when you've got these people
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: who are creative, you know, the word genius gets bonded around,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: but you've got creative genius or really high level creatives
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: in a room together, and they've all got a very
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: specific thing in their brain, a specific way something should be.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: You're always gonna get this, you know, because that's what
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: I was.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Gonna ask you.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, wait, admit it, Stan fucking Lynch,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: come on, come on, what is And Jimmy Iveen is
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: a freaking legend but what is it that you're listening
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: to that you're not liking.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I don't get it.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, my my take on that is that he
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: just didn't like him, and so the way you get
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: back and him is to call him a shitty drummer. Right, Yeah,
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: that's that's simple. That's just needling someone, that's just having
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: a go with someone, trying to get a reaction, right,
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: and maybe maybe if you can get enough of a
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: reaction from Stan, maybe Tom will turn around and fire
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: him for him, and he gets rid of the problem
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: as he sees it, right, and by the same talk,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: And I would also I would also say that, And
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: I wonder if Stan's talked about this that there's a
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: little bit of naivety there about you know, put deputy
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: dog behind the board but still going to sound like us. Yeah,
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: but that's not really the way a record works. You know,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: if you capture a live performance, it's really difficult to
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: capture how a band sounds. You need to sort of
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: you need to have a really good engineer and really
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: good producer to do that. You need the performances, of course,
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: and everyone needs to be tight, which the Heartbreakers are,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: but you still need to capture that, and that's where
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: they seen the whole thing with Shelley Yakas. They find
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: this this wood in the corner of the room. The
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: real top level sound engineers, they can hear those differences.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: They can tell that the reverberations off. They know the room,
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: how it sounds, and if they're not getting it, they'll
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: change it. Which, of course, if you stand Lynch and
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: you want to play drums and you want to play load,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: and you want to play live and play by feel,
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: that's just the exact opposite of how you want to work, right,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: So of course that's going to be tension.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: So yeah, he could see Tom and Jimmy off from
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: the distance talking secretly about something, and Stan new they're
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: talking about me. You want to you know, Jimmy's trying
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: to tell Tom I get rid of this guy. Yeah,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I just, I just I just blows my mind. I mean,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: I guess stands a difficult guy to work with. I
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: don't know, but I just I love his drumming and
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: as much as I enjoy the post Stan Lencieria, you know,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Steve Ferroni is great drummer, but Stan just had his
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: own feel and as a drummer, you can maybe maybe
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: ye may it better than I.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Well, he's a very very musical drumm, right because also
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: a musician as well. He plays guitar and he writes
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: songs himself and came up.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: With It's loose but heavy and aggressive. But there's that
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: looseness there with the symbols, and he's almost like playing
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: behind the beat. It's just like his own great changed.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Like even Mike says in the late in the book,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: when he's not there and Steve Erroni's there, the whole
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: sound of the band shifts. It's more mellow, it's softer,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: it's a little more, which is where Time wanted to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: be at that point in his life. So I get it.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, and great drummers are going to
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: bring parts right as well. That's the other thing Mike
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: already said with the American girl bringing in the bold
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: Italy the dump, the dump but dumb, but bringing that
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: into that song is exactly what that song needs. And
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: so a great drum is gonna, you know, probably pick
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: up on it maybe after two or three different versions
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: of something, but Standing Nails is straight away, here's it,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: so he can hear, he can hear the song and
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: he can get inside the song, which he did again.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: I mean all throughout the his tenue with the Harbor,
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: because he always played the right thing.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Let's talk Refugee see page two sixty one. Here we go,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: let's go to Refugee now all right. One day, as
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Tom and I were listening to a playback of Refugee
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: with all my parts at it, Jim Keltner appeared. Jim
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: just appears out of nowhere again. I love the story
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: he played on the Traveling Wilbury's albums, but he was
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: so humble. They're like, we'll make you a Wilbury. He's like, no, no,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I'm good. Yeah, he said no, no, right right right.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I turned around and he was standing in the doorway.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: You know what the song needs?
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: What?
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Jim held up a little egg shaped shaker, a Latin
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: percussion instrument that sounds like a Morocca. He shook it
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: to the beat. It filled out stands drums and sat
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: perfectly in the mix. Jimmy added it to the track
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and then started adding percussion all over the record, making
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: it even thicker and denser. Refugee got so thick it
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: felt like there was no air in it, so I
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: asked for an accordion. At the pre chorus, I played
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: long swells on the D and then the be You
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: could barely hear it, but suddenly it felt like the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: song was taking a deep breath. Another great story, Jim Keltner,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: just coming and going, just showing up out of nowhere.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: Funny too, right, is a wisdom. Yeah, And that's the
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: thing with that. Kelton is another one of those there's
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: the reason why that guy's played on a million records
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: for a million different people, because again, he's one of
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: those guys who can hear a song and he just
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: knows intuitively exactly what it needs. And keelt is one
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: of those guys who will come in, he'll nail his
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: part first time every time, no hassle, He'll be pleasant
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: to be around. He's a good hang. You know. That's
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: why these guys have these these careers as a session musicians,
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: because they're really, really, really good. But I was gonna
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: say too, like you read that about a shaker, It's
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: like everyone thinks, oh, anyone can play shaker, like it's
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: just easily gotta do his keep time. Now, baby, those
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: things have a very specific way. Those little things move
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: around inside the egg and if you don't get the
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: rhythm of it exactly right and just a little bit
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: harder or a little bit softer, and each time it's
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: gonna sound that wee bit different. So again, good percussionists,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: they're not to be sniffed at all.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Right, here's the great story on Even the Losers pre
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Internet era. I always wonder who is there. It's just
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the normal noise isn't here. It als sounds like a
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: New York accent or somebody from Long Island. So in
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the beginning of that song, if you're a petty fan,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: you know that's what you hear. And then it goes
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: into even the Losers. One day, this is Mike. One day,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Tom and I stumbled across in exchange on my original
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: demo for Here Comes My Girl, and we busted out laughing.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I'd had the four tracks set up at home and
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: was trying to record the guitar part, but the washing
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: machine was running every time I put on my headphones
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: to record. I thought he heard it squeaking. I called out,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: irritated to Marcy in the other room and asked her
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: what it was, but she didn't answer. I called out again,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: what is that I'm trying to record. Marcy shot back
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: that she didn't know what I was talking about, and
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: she said, it's just the normal noises in here. She meant,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: we are not in a recording studio, we're home. What
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: do you think you're listening to? This is what Holme
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: sounds like. If you were ever here, you'd know that
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: that cracked us up. It seemed pretty fitting. We added
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: that to the beginning of Even the Losers, that part
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: of making the record was really fun. There were other
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: fun parts too.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's yeah, but it's great too. That so Mike
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: Campbell The Dirty Knobs obviously Mike's current band that he's
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: very good, very great, but Marshy comes on stage sometimes
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: when they do Even the Loser, she'll come out and
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: she'll say, it's just the normal noises in here, and
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: then she walks and everyone just loses their minds of course, right.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: So well, that's one great thing about this book is
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: it's giving exposure to The Dirty Knobs because I hadn't
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: listened to any of his work with the Dirtey Nabs
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Okay this past weekend with to Spotify, so let's give
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: it a listen, and the most popular song, and the
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: most stream song is that guy. Fuck that guy.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: That guy. Yeah, it's amazing, brilliant song. But I mean
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: he's External Combustion. That was the album for me where
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: because his first album was It was good, but it
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: was sort of what you expect from a Mike Campbell album.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: It was very blues rocky. It was sort of, you know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: kind of down and dirty. And I would say maybe
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: simplistic in a lot of cases where you think, okay, well,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: you know, he's not got Tom there to write lyox
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: and everything. But then when you get into External Combustion
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: and you get into Vagabond's versions and mist of it's
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: like always find his own voice. Now, yes, he's actually
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: writing songs that are a bit they've got more depth,
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: they've got more complexity, and he gets closer to, you know,
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: what he was doing with Tom. And of course there's
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: Will end up talking about that passage of the book
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: about what Tom said to him about his songwriting. Well,
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: he's so far beyond that now. And of course he's got,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: like you said, those thousands of hours of tape kicking around.
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: He can always go back to him find out that's
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: a good riff. I can I can build something around that,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: you know, you.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Know as crazy as when you listen to the Rolling
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Stone interview or listen to any of his interviews. Boy,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: he sounds like Tom Petty, it's taught the same, but
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: he also is a little bit like it's like a
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: combination of Tom Petty and Dan Henley. Yes, it sounds
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: like a little bit of each. He had a great
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Somebody was telling him too, he said, somebody was telling
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: him to follow your influences until you find your own voice,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: and you will out of that. Yeah, and that's with
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: anything with writing, broadcasting, whatever, painting, whatever, whoever is influences
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: you just take from them. You're not copying, You're just
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: that's your template. But then from there, out of that
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: comes your own voice.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: I remember, I can't remember it was who the quote
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: came from, but one of my favorite quotes about that
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: is I was listening to an interview with the musician
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: and someone had said, like, what are your influences? And
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: he said, everything, everything I hear influences me, whether it's
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: influencing me not to do that or influencing me to
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: listen to this to get some ideas. But everything you
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: every single piece of music influences you And I always
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: liked the idea that you know, you listen to I
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: don't know, Mega Death, or he listened to Metallica, or
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: he listened whatever it is. And then there're be an
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: interview and the said, well, what are your influences And
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: it's the Beatles and it's Chuck Barr and it's like,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: we don't hear any of that in the music. Yeah, well, no,
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: that that's a good thing. If you're taking your influences
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: and absorbing it into your own sound, that's really the
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: point you want to get to.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Right, sure, all right? Next song is The Waiting. Tom
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: looked for flashes of inspiration, and he could be incredibly prolific.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: If one song didn't work, he would just write another.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: But he knew this one was something special. He just
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: didn't know what it was. He felt like he was
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: waiting for it to reveal itself, and he hated waiting.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: It made him remember this thing. Janis Joplin said in
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: an interview. She said, I love being on stage. Everything
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: else is just waiting. And then suddenly he had the
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: title The Waiting, and then the chorus came to him.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Over the next few weeks, playing it over and over.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: He wrote the verses, Yeah, and that's the one that
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: Tom would play constantly. It just came with that progression
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again, to the point that
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: next Donable will be banging on the wall. He quit
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: playing that damn song. Was sick of it?
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Bo podcasts. We'll be back after this. Heavy.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: There's that word again, heavy? Why are think so heavy
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: in that future? Is there a problem with the ears?
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Gravitational pull? Let's go to you got lucky? By the way,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Any songs here, Kevin that I'm not getting to and
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about? By all means, I just
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: picked the ones. I tried to pick a lot of
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: the hits.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: You know, so people I don't know you're doing this
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: is great because you're you're serving them up and I'm
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: just getting to sitting back court and hit him back
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: to your fantastic Isn't it great.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Being a guest? You know, you just get to have
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: all the fun. I was just on Corey's podcast to
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: do the movie Fletch with with him. You know, yeah,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I can't. That was one of the funnest interviews I've
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: ever done because I was just sitting there and he
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: you know, he was doing all the work. I'm sitting
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: there just laughing my ass off talking.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: About flatche Corey is such a pro, right, like it's
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: podcasting with him.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, absolutely, that's uh. By the way,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: let's give a plug to that podcast. He's got three
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: of them, right, Cory Morrissett. By the way, Corey, what's up?
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: He's probably listening to this. What are Corey's three on
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: the podcast?
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: Will Rock?
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I know?
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: In the entire Van Halen catalog. He also does the
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: Ultimate catalog Clash with Me, where we break down an
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: artists catalog once per season. And then his new show
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: or sort of re up show, The Power of Positive Peeking,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: which is the one you were on talking about movies
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: and you know TV show.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: And he's got another one of the works right, the
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: rock Court Rock Court.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: So it's yeah, he's a creative guy. It's a lot
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: of fun.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's see, So You Got Lucky that's the
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: next one here, so page two n Neo morricone. Yes,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: this is a great story. I remember this from long ago,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: but always worth retelling. Let's see. I wrote the music
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: for You Got Lucky, and when we cut it, Tom
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: asked me to add a guitar solo. I reluctantly agreed,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: but I didn't want to play some big lead guitar squall.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Tom said, play like Clint Eastwood. I plugged in an
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: old strat, cranked the reverb, and played tribute to Ennio
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Morricone's longtime collaborator, guitarist Bruno Battisti de Mario. Do I
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: get that right?
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: I think so well, dude, Europe me in New York,
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: you should.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Have everybody can whistle his guitar part in the good,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: the Bad, and the Ugly, but nobody knows his name. Yeah,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: that's another great story on the guitar solo. Let's see
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: what we got here. The video for Don't Come Around
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Here No More. I thought this would be fun to read. Yeah, yeah,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: this is awesome. This is about when he walks into
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: the studio and looks around what is going on here?
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: The days of Tom's home studio finally wound down. Tom
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: titled the new album Southern Accents. Don't Come Around Here
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: No More was chosen as the single. As the label
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: ready the album for release, we all descended on Sir
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Studios to shoot the video. I walked into the soundstage
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: and a screaming pink piglet ran by, chased by a
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: production assistant and then another and then another. Nobody could
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: catch it, and everybody was afraid it would shit all
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: over the gleaming checkerboard floors of the set or knock
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: over the towering fake mushrooms that had been constructed. I
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: asked somebody on the film crew why there was a
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: pig running around. She turns into a pig, who turns
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: into a pig. Alice? Who's Alice? The director Jeff Stein
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: explained the super fun and trippy concept to the band.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: It was an Alice in wonder thing. Stein said he
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: had been inspired by that wonderful top hat Tom had
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: taken to wearing. I glanced at Stan and had to
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: look away. He was beaming with amusement. I love this part.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Tom walked out, dressed as the Mad Hatter, tiny under
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a giant purple top hat and an oversized bow tie.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Dave followed him, dressed like some kind of bug with
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: tights tucked into his boots. That's Dave.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Dave Stewart.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Dave Stewart, Yeah. And they sat him on top of
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: one of the mushrooms with a burbling hookah and a sitar.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: I was more than happy to dress up like a
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: theme park pirate, steal a cupcake and eat a cookie
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: shaped like a teacup.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: So good he walking into sat though. If you if
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: no one's prepped, you like, we're gonna we're gonna go
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: shoot the music video, you think, okay, well we're probably
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: gonna stand their und and play our instruments. And suddenly
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: walking in there's a pig running like, whoa, what's going on?
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: And how about the quote unquote controversial part where Alice
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: turns into a cake and they all eat her somehow
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: that was controversial so they had to they they cut
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: that out. I think, right, that's not in the No,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: it's no, there was another part of it though. There
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: was there was another part they were going to have
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: in there, like it was gonna be chocolate sauce coming
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: out of it or something, and they were like, nah,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: looks like something that was alluded to the blood or something.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things that when
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: you think about it now, like in terms of you
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: know that the videos that are on MTV or not MTV,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: but videos are online and you're like, well, this is
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: tame I mean, this is this is it isn't it is?
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: I mean it's cartoon, it's a nursery rhyme, and it's
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: just I think I get frustrates with that. You know
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: it obviously it's not real. It really it's in there,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: just calmed down like it's just a party. Every single
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: you think about it. Right, we all grew up watching Roadrunner.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: We get what this is. Oh, you not to conascendos.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: You know the Three Stooges.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: I remember Remo talking about that in an interview in Cleveland.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: There were these nuns or somebody that complained, so they
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: pulled the Three Stooges off the local television station. It's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the Three Stooges.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy slapstick.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: It's just slap one. All right, let's talk about one
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: that's not a Tom Petty song, but it's one of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: the greatest songs ever period. Boys of Summer, Don Henley
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: what a notch on his belt?
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: Mike Campbell, Well, and so this is where you start
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: getting into the Heartbreakers, starting to work with other people
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: as well, right, which we should say that for those
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: people who don't know. If you go and look at
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: the list of credits for not just Mike Campbell, benmont Tench,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: Stan Lynch, Howie Epstein, but also Tom Petty and everyone
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: in that band. They've all collaborated with some of the
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: big serious heavyweights, and you don't always know that they've
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: coll written, or they've played on different albums or whatever
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: it might be. You know, people don't necessarily know that
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: tomp And and the Heartbreakers were. They were the band
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: on Johnny Cash's second American Recordings album for the entire album,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: not just you know, I mean, they did the whole
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: thing with him. So they've got this sort of and
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: they were Dylan's backing band. You've got this set of
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: guys who not only have they got this Hall of
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: Fame career as a band, they're also continually working. When
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: they're not it's on tour with their own material.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Here's the excerpt on The Boys of Summer. I went
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: home and sat at the kitchen table and called the
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: number somebody.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: Gave as was looking for songs.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Yet, yes, okay, Don Henley answered. I introduced myself. I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: had seen the Eagles once and thought they were great,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: but I'd never met down before, I said. Jimmy mentioned
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: you might be looking for songs. Don said he was
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: his second solo album was almost done, but it needed something.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Do you want a ballot or a rocker or and
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Henley said, I'm looking for an image maker. What an
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: image maker? Something epic? You got anything like that? I
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: thought about it for a moment. Well, I said, now
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: that you mention it, Don wanted to hear it right away.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: He didn't live all that far from me. The next morning,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: I grabbed a cassette of the song and drove over
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: with the windows rolled down. It was a sunny September day.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: The air was crisp, with the first cool air of fall.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: I could feel the change of seasons coming. At the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: towering gate at the end of his driveway, I leaned
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: out my car window and pressed the call button. I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: heard a crackle. I started to say hello and who
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: I was, but the gate parted slowly as I was
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: mid sentence. I drove to the top of his driveway
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: and parked near the house. Don walked all the way
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: to the opposite head of the table must have been
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: twenty feet and sat down next to a small casseppe plator.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: He popped the tape in and pressed play. Leaned over
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the player and stared at it. The beat started. The sharp,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: sliding guitar notes rang out. The three note keyboard melody
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: rolled in like waves. The guitar phills caught around them.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: A cold gusts of electric drums settled into the song's
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: driving beat. Don sat stonefaced inscrewtable as he listened. I
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: had changed the alleged jazzy chord a minor seventh to
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: a power chord. It rang out to kick off the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: big anthemic chorus. Don had no reaction. When the song ended,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Don reached over and pressed stop. He didn't say a word.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: He stared at me for the end of the table
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: with his eyes narrowed, then said okay, thanks for coming, Mike,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: and then he got up and led him to the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: front door. That's so Don heavy. After he said goodbye,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: I stood on his porch for a minute and thought, Wow,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: that didn't go well. I drove home slowly, hoping Marcy
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't home so I wouldn't have to talk about it.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: I came to the front door, sat down on the
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: couch and stared at the ceiling. Mercy looked over. How'd
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: it go? I shook my head. I couldn't even must
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: don't ask. The phone rang now what. My hand rested
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: on the handset for a ring or two before I
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: answered Hello Mike, Yeah, Don, Hey, Don, sorry if I
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: have just written the best song of my life to
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: your music? I sat forward, What I have just written
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: the best song of my life to your music? How
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: it sort of wrote itself? Don said, I got so
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: inspired by that track. It just came screaming out of me.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: What's it called? The Boys of Summer?
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: That's so cool? Yeah, it's so cool, and it's that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: thing of you know, because he played that for Tom
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: and so that was on one of the cassettes he'd
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: given Tom and Tom and said that he just didn't
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: feel like it was the ry kind of sign for
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: them at the Tom of the Coast you in Southern Accidents.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: That was a bit of a tumultuous period for the Bond,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: and obviously Tom wasn't necessarily in the best headspace and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: definitely regretted PASSIONI, which is why you get Runaway Trains on.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: Let me profad enough. That's where that song comes from,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: because it's a similar vibe. It's got that drum machine
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: kind of thing, and obviously Patty's like, well, I'm not
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: letting that one go. I got that song, great song.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: I love that track too.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I remember when he was in the car.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Petty and Mike Campbell are in the car and boys
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: and summer comes up on the radio. It was, it
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: was on the radio all the time. You couldn't ye
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: And finally Petty's like, you know, I gotta gotta hand
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: it to you. Man, that's good, that's that's good. Yeah, you
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: can just picture tam got handed. You did a really
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: good German. Well.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: The thing about that one too, is that again, I mean,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: obviously people noticed the Don and Handley song, but that
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: literally was they they wait, he changed the key. You
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: re recorded in a different key because Handingly wanted to
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: sing in a different key. But it's literally Mike Campbell
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: doing everything and then Don Hanley singing. That's literally it.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: That's all that song is. It's all drum machine and
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: then just guitars lad over top of it. And for
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: how good it sounds, for that ultimate of one person's brain,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: can you imagine unbelievable?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: You know, Booked on Rock Podcast. Will be back after this,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: never ever, ever, under any circumstances, say I'll be right
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: back because you won't be back. I'm getting out of
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the beer.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: You one one, yeah, sure, I'll.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Be right back. How about Full Moon Fever having no
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: hit potential? That's what NCA.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: Said it first, right, and then we don't hear a single.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: And there was a different guy that came in, I think,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: and took over. And because of the Traveling Wilbury's success,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Oh suddenly, hey, you know this is gonna be great.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's what changed it.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: The Traveling Wilbury's success. MCA changed her mind about Full
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Moon Fever.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because Full Moon Fever was recorded and finished before
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: they started Traveling the Traveling Nobray's album, and then that,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: like I said, that comes out and then said okay,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: But I think it was Larry Wonka two over at
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: Warner Brothers that said, Thomas at some partia or other
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: and they played you know, I think Jeff Lynn or
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: George was there and said, well you should play that,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: you should play that free falling song. And they got
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: out the guitars and played it through and they're talking
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: about and and Tom says to Larry says, yeah, I'm
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: a record. So they don't want to put an eyelid.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: They don't hear a single, and I guess he says
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: to him, I'll fucking release it, Yes.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: And speaking of free falling, here's the excerpt from that
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: jeff Lynn in my studio recording a song like that.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: It was so good. I loved the simple, soaring melodic
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: refrain that ran through the whole song. And when Tom
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: sang the big I'm Free, I knew it would be
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: an anthem. I knew it would be one of Tom's
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: most iconic songs. I couldn't wait to be a part
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: of bringing it to life, but my ego was bruised. Nonetheless,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I had been writing songs for Tom for a decade
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and never once had he invited me to actually sit
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: down and write with him, nose to No's like he
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: kept saying. But now he bumps into jeff Lynn and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: they are songwriting partners. I could have let my feelings
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: get in the way and say I wasn't in the
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: mood to record, or that I was busy, But why
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: what else was I going to do those next few hours.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I could have recorded another one of my songs, or
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: walk the Dog, or taken a nap. Instead, we recorded
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: free Fallin'. I'm so glad we did again, there's the
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: part of eight full. Yeah, his head's on straight. He
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: could have said, fuck you, I'm out of here. Yeah right,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: he could have pissed Tom Petty off at that point
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: and fine.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he is on free fall and he plays acoustic guitar,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: and it's like, I mean, there's so much guitar, and
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: it's funny because you don't think of filming Fever as
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: a guitar album, but it is stacked tits the tail
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: with guitars. You just don't hear it because it's so
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: well mixed.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: What I love about that too is that, you know,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: the story is that they they were done free falling
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: and they left Mike just mixing it a little bit,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: and Tom and Jeff went off in another room and
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: wrote I won't bite down, you know. So you have
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: two enormous songs just going on so organically and so naturally.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Just whipped it up. Yeah. Mike pokes his head in
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: the room when they were working on it, and Tom
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: was stuck for a line. He says, what rhymes would
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: back down? I've already got stan in my ground and
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: turned around and Mike says, maybe something about not letting
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: the world drag you down, or don't let the world
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: push you around, maybe something like that. They worked a
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: little longer on it, then came out of the room
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: and played me I won't.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: But that's again, I mean, that's that it's weird, right
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: because Mike's saying that, well, why are you not writing
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: with me that way? But it's just different with some people.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: I want the way that we work best is you
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: bring me stuff and I try and write to it,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: and then we'll work for her in the studio. Obviously
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: do you get that kind of stuff too, But with
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: jeff Lynn, it's just a different relationship. And I can
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: sit down and I think there is some maybe some
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: part of TOM two that didn't necessarily yet consider Mike
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: an equal on the songwrit inside, where jeff Lynn's coming
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: in with a pedigree for melo, of course, and he's
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: got a million hits himself and top ten singles and
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: number one singles, So I think there's maybe just a
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: little bit more difference to someone who he conceives or
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: perceives has been a little bit more, you know, on
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: his own level.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Sure, two generational anthems in one day, Yeah, mind.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: Was not crazy. One day they wrote those two songs.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, regarding most of the Heartbreakers not being on Full
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: Moon Fever, that's interesting because.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: That wasn't good.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Guys didn't realize that Petty was even recording. Yeah, they
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: found out later.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And again that comes down to it's the same
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: thing with the with the contract stuff and the money stuff. Right,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: It's like, Okay, that's fine to go and do your
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: own thing, and you know, you can't sort of say,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: unless you're you know, metallic, and you're telling you bass player,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: you can't go off and playing a different band. It's
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: kind of a weird thing to say, no, you've got
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: to be exclusive to us, but just come and tell people.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: I think though, my sense of that is that Tom
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: writing with jeff Lynn, it was more about it was
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: just fun. It was a break, it was just having.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: It just all came so fast and so naturally that
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: Tom didn't even really think about, oh, I should I
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: should check in with Benmont, I should check in with
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: how he should check out with his stand. I don't
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: think it entered his brain. I don't think it was
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: a sort of an exclusive thing. I don't think he
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: was actually trying to push anyone out. I think it
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: was just well, let's get this done with the people
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: here now. You know, we'll get Jim Calton to come
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: and play on a song, and we'll get this, you know,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: someone else to come and play on a song, and
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: we'll just get it all done. And really you don't
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: need anyone other than jeff Lyn anyway, because he can
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: play everything else himself. You know.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well Stan was in Florida, but Howie and Benmont
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: were right across town.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: Yep, why were right there.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: How he did come in and add background vocals to
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: free Fallin'. Ben plays eventually an apartment song right right now.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: He was going through a rough period, so the best
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: he could do was what he does on apartment song.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: He was, I think, just out of rehab.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: Benmont was a big drink, big big drinker, A huge drinker.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was, thankfully, but really bad shape like he was.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: He was pretty much on his way out, like he
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: was going to check out.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And Mike talks about a little bit about that,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: about Benmont being sort of in a bad place and
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: thankfully got through it. But he but I like that
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: he doesn't sort of there's no judgment in when he
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: tells that story, and he just sort of explains his
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: perspective and what he saw his friend going through. And
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: what I love about it too is he sort of
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: says that, you know, and I think we've all been
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: in that situation. Until we know about addiction, to what
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: we turn on about mental health or whatever, we tend
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: to be a little bit judgmental. But he said it
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: was years later that he realized and after seeing how
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: we go through, how he went through, that this is
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: an illness and that person actually probably needed my help
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: at that time when I was just pissed off that
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: they couldn't record.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: You know, wasn't Benmont for the most part sober, but
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden started to drink.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: He My memory of that is that Benmont from fairly
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: early on like to drink, but it got progressively worse
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: to the point that he needed to check into rehab
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: and get himself clean. Right.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: So yeah, started in nineteen eighty eight. Benmont was not
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: in good shape. By early nineteen eighty eight, he was
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: careening toward an ever deepening bottom of alcoholism and addiction,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: the long, lonely slide into sickness and isolation and misery.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: But maybe it was how he then how he was
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: a guy I don't think really was doing much and
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden he found heroin.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we believe that.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: Was yeah, because he was the last guy i'd think, right, Yeah.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Podcasts, we'll be back after this.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: Oh time my lunch.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: Let's see Mary Jane's Last Dance, which is sadly the
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: last song Stan Lynch ever recorded on.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've read. I don't think it's in Mark's book,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: but I've read, or maybe it is, but he's he
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: I think it was maybe in in this ansbiography, Tom
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: saying that basically Stan came in and Rick Ruben was
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: hard on him as well and saying, I don't want
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: you to play that. I don't need I don't want
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: to hear any drum fills. I don't want this, I
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: don't want that. So Stan said he went in, nailed it,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: and then left and they never saw him again, like
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: until obviously years later. But that was it, he said,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: he put his sticks down after after that take, left
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: and that was it. He was done. He was out
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: of the Heartbreakers.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: But that's still Stan right in the beginning.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's him, pure Stan Lynch.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Tom didn't want to cut the tracks, the two
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: tracks Mary James Last Dains and Something in the Air.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Something in the Air with Stan he wanted he wanted
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: Steve Farroni on it, but Rick suggested that Stan play
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: the drums because there would be alongside all the other
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: hits that Stan. So credit to Rick Rubin for talking
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Petty into that that was great. Studio Times booked. Stan
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: flew in from Florida. Hadn't been in the studio with
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: us for two years. He knew we were recording with Steve,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: but nobody had told him anything directly. That sucks. Then
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: he got a call asking him to show up at
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: the studio. Stan walked in ready to play his ass off,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: and he did. Did the Something in the Air cover
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: and let's see, Oh yeah, here's the Mary Jane's Last
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Dance part. There was another song just to sketch re
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: le verses with no chorus. It was called Indiana Girl,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: and the chorus was something like, Hey, Indiana Girl, let's
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: go find a world. It was pretty watery sauce, but
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: because of the approaching deadline and the dates Stan would
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: be in town, Tom focused on it and pulled the
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: chorus from a song he had with no verses, he
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: put them together and it became Mary Jane's Last Dance.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: I've talked about this with other people. I think that
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: that's one of the maybe one of the only song
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: songs on the Greatest Hits album that was recorded for
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: a Greatest Hits album that actually belongs on a Greatest
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: Hits album, because he usually is the new tracks, you
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: know what I mean. But that's one that you if
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: that was a song that was released a single or
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: was on an album that's going on the Greatest Hits
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: album because it's amazing.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Petty was on such a role at that time.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: Oh unstoppable.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, after hit after hit. Yeah. And I love how
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: Mike Campbell words did here and Mary Jane's Last Dance
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: was the last song Stan Lynch ever recorded with the Heartbreakers,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: and it is the sound of him saying top that.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. When I've heard Stan talk about that, and he
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: says like he when you know, after going in and
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: being sort of feeling aggrieved, and I think probably rightly so,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: that he was being dragged in to play on one
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: last song while they're recording an album without him, you know,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: it's a little bit fraught. But he said like my my,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: I went in there with the intent of just knocking
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: their socks off and giving him a big fuck here
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: as I walk out the door, and he said, I
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: I felt that that's exactly what I did.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to have get a book from Stan,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: and I'd like to know more about him. What made
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: him tick? What was what was he outspoken? Did he
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: just tell it like it is?
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he seemed don Henley saw something in him
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: that was perfect. And it was really cool because he's
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: the one who said to Stan, you're a songwriter in
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: the making. You just got to work harder at it.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: I think that that was what the story is, and
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: and Stan said okay, and he when he had this
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: great relationship with Henley over the years.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: He produced I think two or three of Henley's albums,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: you know, and co wrote with him on them.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, And it's weird with Stan leaving Petty.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: It was like there was no sit down with Stan
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: saying hey, look it's not working out. It was just
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: kind of fizzled out. And then this weird Hey, we're
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: doing the greatest hits album on don't you come in
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: and record? Okay, and he already knows that they're looking
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: for another drummer. Yeah, here's the comment on Steve Ferroni,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: and I always thought it was Feron, but it's Fernie
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: Steve Ferronian Wildflowers. There's an interesting comment on that, which
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: I alluded to already, about how the sound of Petty's
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: he's a change just by having him in the lineup.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Foreroni comes in from you know, he's
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: played with the average white band again, another big session player.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: He's played with like everyone under the sun. But he
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: comes in. He's not really an out and out rock drummer.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: He's got little bits of jazz in there, and he's
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: got a different feel and a very specific time. But
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: the one thing that Mike and Tom Bull said is
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: that this guy would give you metronomic meter, Like if
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: you need to sit down and play one hundred and
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: forty beats a minute for twenty minutes while you work
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: something out, he's got your back, he's got your covered.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: So he sits in and he's just got that film.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: Of course, you know, you don't know how it feels.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: As soon as he lays into that sort of the song.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: They said, as soon as he had played that song.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: Tom's like, Yep, that's the guy we need. He gets
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: that was exactly what we're going for.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm trying to find the excerpt, but basically he
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: was saying that, yeah, the songs became a little more mellow, lush,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: a little a little more uh yeah, mature.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: But.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: Mature is exactly the right the right word though, worry
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: because I mean I know that you know you're a big
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: Kiss fan, and I've been sort of I've got I've
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: got a complicated relationship with these days. I think there's
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: a there's an issue if you're if you're forty five
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: years old or forty three years old and he's still
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: talking about wanting to rock all day and party every
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: night and and do COO. I mean, this is just
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: something that comes off as insincere about that if it
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: is sincere, like you need to grow up, dude. So
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: I think that moving into that next stage of your
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: career where you are being a little bit more introspective
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: maybe or you are talking about things that are that
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: are beyond that, I think that's a good thing. I
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: said that you should mature as a person, you should
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: be sure as a songwriter and Patty definitely did.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Sure, here's a good story on you, wreck Me. This
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: is this has to do with Mick Jagger. This is
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: a good story. Let's see. A few weeks later, my
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: mom was visiting from Jacksonville, spending time with the kids.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: She'd become setting her ways, but we were able to
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: coax her out of California a couple of times a
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: year to make a fuss over her. My mom was
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: the best. She had been staying with us for a
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: few days when Rick called. Rick Rubin called and asked
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: if he could stop by. He was producing Mick Jagger's
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: solo record, Wandering Spirit and wanted to hear that song again,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: referring to wreck Me. We were sitting in the kitchen
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: having coffee when the doorbell rang. I pretended to be busy,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: quiet in the dogs, Mom, could you get that for me?
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: I slipped into the living room to watch. Mom opened
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: the door and Rick said hello. He introduced himself, barefoot,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: with his long beard and wild hair. My mom smiled.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: She said she was Mike's mom, but to just go
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: ahead and call her Helen. Rick said okay, He smiled
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: and stepped to the side. Helen. This is Mick from
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: behind Rick. Mick Jagger stepped forward, tan wiry, impeccably dressed
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: and radiant. His lips pulled back into a wide smile
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: that made his eyes squint. The diamond in his front
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: tooth sparkled, Hello Ellen. Down in the studio, I loaded
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the instrumental track and played it loud through the monitors.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: Not four bars into it, Mick jumped up and worked
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: the little room like it was Madison Square Garden. He
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: did all the moves. The rooster walked with his hands
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: on his hips. Dude, that's like Twilight Zone. Shit, no, no,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: no finger the two headed point point point, the little
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: half kick. A few moments of loud guitar transformed him
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: from a dapper, charismatic Englishman to Mick Jagger. When the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: song ended, he looked over at me and smiled, I
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: can't write to it unless I can dance to a
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: dalance to it. It's like if it's a Mick loved
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: the song, but the next thing I knew, Tom said
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: he wanted it first record. I thought, what a coincidence,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: what interesting timing. But I was happy I would have
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: gotten a kick at having written a song for Mick.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: But that's where my songs belonged on Tom Petty Records.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: I couldn't wait to hear what he had done with it.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: Tom wrote lyrics and brought it in a few days later.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: We set up with a whole band to run through it.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: I asked Tom what it was called. It's called you
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: rock Me. I stared at him. It's called you rock Me.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: I know, I know. We played the song through with
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: the whole band. It sounded great. Benmont looked over at Tom.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: Are you singing you rock me? Yeah? You rock me baby? Yeah.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: Ben Mont looked appalled. That's just Benman shook his head.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: You can't sing you rock me baby. You just can't.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: And Petty's like, guy, I know, I know. Tom came
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: back a few days later and he said he'd fixed it.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: Steve kicked us off and we launched into the song.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: Tom stepped up to the mic and sang every word
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: was the same, but when we played the chorus, instead
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: of singing you rock me Baby, Tom sang you wreck me.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: Huge difference, right, Yeah, I mean it's the arts of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: what I like about those who's clearly that was a
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: place all of photomy. He's like, yeah, I get it,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: I get it. It's shit lyric. We'll fix fix it later. Yeah,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: and that's not discipline of well, could go with what
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: you have until you get get the words you need.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: And yeah, just one syllable, one letter, one vowel change
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: just changes the whole song. Because you rock Me would
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: be I mean, I've talked about this on my podcast.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: It would still be a good song because that riff
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: is just contagious. Oh yeah, but it wouldn't be a
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: great song, which is with you wreck Me exactly.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one song that really has stood the test
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: of time. Oh and the one. And there's songs that
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I think I told you this before, but there's songs
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: that just started to rise above the rest from that
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: album that when I first listened to it, I like,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: now I love Yeah, and that would be there's one
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: song about I think it's just he's singing about middle age. Well,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: time to move on.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: I always loved but I mean top to tail the
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: album is just.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: Only a broken heart is one? How did I not
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: love that right away? To find a friend? There's another one?
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: How did I not love that right away? Crawling back
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: to you? Oh my god? Yeah, like what's wrong with me?
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: What's wrong? With the nineteen ninety four me Like when
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: I heard that, and I was.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: Just like, yeah, old even nineteen ninety four. How old
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: are ninety two? Yeah, so you don't get it right,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: You're not old enough to really get walk blubbers. Yeah,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: it just lunds differently when your middle aged r.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, I was like, shit, that song's awesome. Booked
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: on podcast. We'll be back after this.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: But time has come for someone to put his foot down,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: and that foot is me.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: So let's wind down chapter fifty. So we start reading
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: about what led to Tom's death, and then Mike takes
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: us up to the last moment saying goodbye to his
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: longtime friend and banned me.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: Getting into those last chapter is when you see where
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: the books head and you know Mike is going to
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: talk about it. There's that sort of sense of apprehension, right.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: I had the same thing when I was reading Alan
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: Rickman's diaries, which were released by his by his wife
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: or his widow a few years ago. Fantastic if you
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: never read them, it gives a real insight on again,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: a different type of creative person, but another sort of
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: genius in his own way. But as you start slow
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: March toward when you know he died, you get a
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: sense that, okay, these are diaries, it's going to be
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: even more jarring when the diary entries just stop and
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: then you get the last word from his his wife
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: and everything. But that I had the same thing when
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: I was reading this or I thought we're getting to
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: the end here, and I don't necessarily want to read it.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, but boy, I just I wondered
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: what was going on with Tom at that time, because
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: I still just it's like it's it's just still it's
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: been how many years now, it's been a while since
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: he passed.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what year was it, twenty seventeen, twenty seventeen, yep,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: I mean that's eight.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: Years ago, and I felt like it was eight weeks ago.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as the tour progressed, so he's referring to that
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: final tour. I caught Tom wincing in pain as he
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: changed guitars or turned back towards zamp. I saw his
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: left hand shaking as he held down a chord. Tom's
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: voice sounded incredible as usual, and despite his ailments, he
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: was as happy as I had seen him in a
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: long time. Night after night, the audience's response was so loving,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: so rapturous, it was impossible not to be moved by it.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: These were our true fans. They knew every song, they
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: sang every word, they cheered every solo. I would look
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: over at Tom during a show and he would be smiling.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: He even seemed humbled by the response. One night in Vancouver,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: as Tom sang the first verses of Learning to Fly alone,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: strumming his black Gibson acoustic under a single spotlight, the
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: audiences singing felt like a force. It lifted us all.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: I played a Rickenbacker electric mandolin, so instead of the
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: loud slade guitar solo on the record. When the band
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: came in, Ben Man played a beautiful, delicate piano part.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: I was so moved I reached out and placed my
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: hand on the top of his piano to feel the
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: notes he was playing. Tom led the audience to the chorus,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: and as they saying that they were learning to Fly,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Tom answered them, over my troubles, over my sadness, over
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: my worry. It hit me right in the heart. When
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: the song ended and the applause reigned over us, Tom
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: turned to me, nothing can touch us up here, and
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: that beautiful.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's that thing too of you know, even
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: after they're on the fortieth anniversary tour, you know, or
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: whatever stage they're at, they're still there's gonna be all
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: the trouble and they'd be fighting over contracts something else.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: But not one of those bands. As soon as they
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: hit the stage, when they became that band, that was
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: all that mattered to him. And you can see it
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: anytime you watch those guys live. They are not faking it.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: And you can tell when a band's faking it right.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: You can tell when a band is just going through
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: the motions or there's something going on. They don't like
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: each other because they stay away from each other when
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: the heart breaks are on stage. You can just see
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: the little looks they give each other about this. On
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: my show, one of my favorite moments is when they
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: play Walls at the PB, especially when Tom's were in
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: that big black polo neck right, and there's a bit
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: in the middle of the where they're playing Walls where
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: Benmont takes a piano solo and both Mike and Tom
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: are just they're just looking over and they're just watching
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: Benmont play, just for the pleasure of watching their friend.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean, Like, that's a that's a
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 3: really beautiful moment that and again you get that pepper
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: throughout this book.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: I was just watching that on YouTube, that show that.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 3: Performed so good Man.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: So yeah, on let's see the last night they would play.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: That night, Tom added a song. Normally they played the
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: same set, but that night the crew had requested that
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: they play Breakdown. That was a song that saved us
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: after the first record had died and sat and cut
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: out bins unsold for nearly a year. It was Breakdown
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: that broke through at radio stations and gave us our
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: first hit. It was a wonderful show. We were also
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: proud show that tour forty years and here we were
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: still standing, still together, still friends. We took our bow together.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: I left the stage to cheers and the last notes
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: of American Girl, the last music Tom and I would
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: ever play together. Still ringing in my ears, I glanced back.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: Tom was straining with his hip as he moved to
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: the front of the stage to say hello to fans
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: and sign autographs. Backstage, I sat and caught my breath alone.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: Then I stood and went to find Tom. I wanted
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: to tell him, good show, good tour see you soon.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: I wanted to tell him a hundred things. I looked around,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: Where's Tom. One of the crew members looked over. Tom's
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: already gone. Marcy shook me. And now that we jumped
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: to the moment they find out the petty is passed. Yep,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: Marcy shook me until I was awake. I sat up
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: in a daze. She pulled my arm. Get up, Get up.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: We have to go to the hospital. We have to
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: go right now. I could tell something terrible had happened.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: I prayed instantly, Please God, not Darien, not Kelsey, not Brie.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: Those are his children, right, yeah. I sat up in
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: a shot. The room was pitch black. All I heard
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: was Marcy's voice. It's Tom. Now we get to he's
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: bedside by Tom. Oh man, We.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 3: Should say too that you know three because we're obviously
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 3: we're focusing on the music and the fox and on
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: the heartbreak is his career and everything. But the other
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: thing that I find really beautiful throughout this book is
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: he was He was with Marcy from very very young.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: He married Marci in his mid twenties and they've been
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: together ever since. And you can tell that that relationship
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: is just rock solid, and she is his anchor in
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: a crazy world of being a professional musician, and just
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: one of those people who was just completely supportive because
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 3: they just have a very deep love for each other,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: which is really a beautiful thing to read.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: Right, We got off the elevator and we walked fast
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: down the hall. We turned a corner and stopped like
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: we hit a wall. Everybody was standing together outside Tom's room.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: They all turned and looked at me. They all fell silent.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: I saw Dana, I saw Adria. I locked eyes with Benmtt.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: Now Dana was.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: Tom's was his second wife?
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Adria daughter? Okay, Yeah, I reached out from Marcy's hand.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was falling. Tom had gone straight
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: home from the show at the Hollywood Bowl. He woke
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: up in terrible pain. In the days ahead, he saw
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: a doctor. He got X rays. Over the course of
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: the tour, the hip injury had developed into a full break.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: He had been performing with a broken hip, taking pain
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: killers to get through the shows. As the hip break worsened,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: he must have taken more. He just wanted to be
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: able to play. It had only been a week since
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: our last show. He'd had a quiet night. He was
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: happy to be home. I'm sure he just wanted to rest,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: but he was in terrible pain. I'm sure he just
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: wanted it to stop. At some point during the night,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: he closed his eyes and stopped breathing. He suffered an
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: accidental overdose. We didn't get this. Just to set it up,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: he had a period of heroin addiction. So yeah, after
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: any drust, Yeah, it's never smart because you could take
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: one and it becomes two, and it becomes five, and
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: it becomes you know, you just the pain. He must
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: have been in a broken hip.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy, man. I mean it to think. Then
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: when you watch those last performances, you can see that
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: something's not right. And I spoke to lots of people
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: who I just won, to people who rat that last show,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: and they said they could tell that something. He wasn't
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: moving freely. It didn't look quie, they said he was,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: but he was on like he was still Tom Petty
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: right right, And I think that's just that again. It
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: unfortunately suffered for his professionalism.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: You know, in the hospital, the doctors were keeping him
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: on life support, so everyone could say goodbye. Oh shit.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: We gathered together outside his room. People stood in small
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: groups talk softly, wept openly, and then it was time.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: It was quiet as I walked alone into his room,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: and when cold as I realized this was goodbye. Tom
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: lay still on the bed. Machines drew his breath. Oh God,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: that couldn't be Tom. His eyes were closed, and the
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: soft beeping of a machine was now his heartbeat. I
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: sat beside him. That wasn't Tom lying there. It wasn't.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: It couldn't be. But it was in that room, in
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: that crushing moment, it was just him and me. Our
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: music was not there, our band or saw our records,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: our shows, none of that was there. It was just
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: Tom and me in the quiet, dim room. I sat
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: with my head bowed at his bedside, with all the
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: words we had never said to each other floating in
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: silence between us. A terrible sense of finality fell over me,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: heavy and cold, and I realized it was just me there,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: that I was alone. It was the unmovable, and I
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: placed my hand on his shoulder. I closed my eyes.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: I finally told him, I love you, brother.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was a It was a tough read man,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: and it's tough thinking. My breath in my chest, and
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: I was just thinking about that all right, having to
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: because you know, we've talked lots about the music, and
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: we've talked all about the origins. But you know, Mike
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: and Tom were they were for a long period. They
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 3: were close friends. They were tight. You know, they lived
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: at Mudcrutch Farm together. They ate and slept and everything
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: all the time, always together on the road, all over
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: the place. So apart from the music, you know, it's
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: not just to lose a band mate. You're losing it
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: was one of your best friends. You know, That's just
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: that's hard. However, whichever way you cut it, And the book.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: Continues after that, it does talk about where, well, what
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: happened afterwards, and things have worked out really well for Mike.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: He joined Fleetwood Mac and he's got the dirty knobs.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: I would love to see an album recorded with Fleetwood Mac.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's gonna happen.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: But I don't think so. No.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was an interesting tour with him and
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: Neil Finn.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 3: And did you see that tour.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't see it seeing clips. They pulled out some
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: cool stuff like oh well, and I think maybe even
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: bear trees. I mean they were pull out some of
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: the cool Fleetwood Mac stuff. So but things have turned
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: out just fine for for him, Mike, but there's gotta
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: be that sense of just every day because it just
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: happened so quickly.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: So yeah, that was the.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: Band that I just could see being around, like The
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: Stones playing into their eighties.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: So for all of those guys, it was just an
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: instant like what am I going to First off, you
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: got a more in the loss of this longtime friend,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: but then what am I gonna do?
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: What's next? And he had to start playing in a
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: little small clubs again. Now now he's playing theaters.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and see again. That's another thing that speaks to
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: me just about Mike Campbell's character as a man but
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: as a human being, is he's no ego about having
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: to go and do that, about gunning playing in front
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: of five hundred people or three hundred and fifty people
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: or whatever it might be, because at his heart is
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: just a musician and he loves music so much that
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter whether he's playing to sixty five thousand or
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: sixty five people. He's gonna go out and he's gonna
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: give you his absolute a game every time he steps
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: out on stage, and you speak to anyone who's seen
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 3: The Dirty Knobs live and they say it's a hell
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 3: of a show, like it's an absolutely fantastic show. Mike's
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: Great podcast will be back after this. That's it. Can
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: I go? No one?
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: All right, sit there, I'll be right back.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 3: We got to tell what we've gotta tell one last
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: Star'm gonna tell one last story. So you know, there's
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: a million great Dylan stories. This is a didn't now
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 3: being my favorite, So I just wanted to amazing. So
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 3: he's talking basically about the drum machine. I guess he's
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 3: they're in the studio with Bob working on it. Shot
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: of Love they were on I think maybe, and Dylan says,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: boys are some of that's a big hit? He said
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 3: he still got it, And Mike says, the drum machine, yeah,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 3: same one. Yeah, oh yeah. Why don't you bring it
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: next time? He said, okay, So he says the lind
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 3: drum beat started and Bob strummed along. We all fell
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: in with him. After a minute or so, Bob started
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 3: to fall a little behind the beat. Within a few
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 3: more measures, he was way off. Nobody knew whether to
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: stay on the lin drum or to follow Bob. We
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: sounded like three pairs of sneakers in a dryer. Bob
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: raised his arm to bring the song to a close.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: I stopped the beat on the line drum. Ben Mont
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 3: and I exchanged the look. Bob nodded he wanted to
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: hear it back. The engineer rewounded the tape and press player.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 3: We all watched Bob. He listened, nodding his head softly.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: Then he heard his guitar go off beat. He looked
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 3: at me and throwed his bro He cocked his head
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: and listened closer. When we got to the part where
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: he'd strayed badly, Bob had the engineer stop the tape.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 3: He turned to me that it right, No, I agreed.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: Bob waited for me to expound. There was a tense silence. Well, yeah,
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 3: you kind of went off the beat a little there, Bob.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: You've got to stick a little closer to it. What
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: do you mean when you've got to follow the drum
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: machine a little closer? I have to follow it. Yeah,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: it doesn't follow me, No, Bob, it doesn't. Bob shook
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 3: his head. But what good is it?
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: It's so Bob Dylan.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: It's so Bob Dylan. Hey, Like, if you had any
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: sort of just sum up Bob Dylan, is that one?
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: Use is it that? If it's not following me, it's
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 3: no used to me.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: This is one thing that Brian Hyde asked Mike. He said,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: is there any plans for any kind of Heartbreakers project,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: like having different singers maybe Stevie Nicks, and Mike Kimball said,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: just ain't right, man ain't right without Tom Yeah, he
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: is the Heartbreakers, and it's just just wouldn't feel right.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: It'd be great for the fans.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it's it's the same thing we've talked lots
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: about with with any van Halen, Right, you would love
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 3: to see just a one shot. Let's just do a
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: big festival, the same thing did with Freddy and get
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: everyoney to just celebrate the life and career of of
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: this legend. That would be amazing, you know. And I've
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: got my sort of my wish list of who I
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 3: would want to play in what songs. But in terms
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: of the Heartbreaker is ever going out and playing as
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: a band, there's no chance they're not gonna do. I
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: mean they you know, like you said, you've got the
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: Dirty Nobs plus Benmont back to Bob, but I think
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: that's the only time we're ever going to see any
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 3: sort of derivation of it, because yeah, it's not it's
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: not the Heartbreaks without Tom, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 3: It's one unit.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: You known, hey, plug plug your podcast, the Tom Petty Project.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're three. I'm in three and a half years,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: just over three and a half years into it now
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: come at two hundred and forty. Some episodes are just
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: a pretty significant milestone. This past weekend we had I
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 3: had one hundred thousand downwards of the crazy for a
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 3: Little Indie podcast talking about one artist. I think it's
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: kind of cool, but it shows that community is out there.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: So Patty fans are out there. So you break down
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: individual songs each episode, but sometimes you have interviews.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's it's going from the start, rocking around
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: with you from the first album all the way through
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 3: to the last track on Hypnotic I, and then beyond
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: because I thought I was just doing sixteen albums, and
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 3: then I found out about mud Crouch, and then of
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: course that well I should do the Wilbridge as well,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 3: and then you get all these B sides, and you
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: get playback in American Treasure and all these extra songs
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: that come out over the last few years that we
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 3: didn't know about. Then I've got Mike Campbell I can
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: talk about. So it's one song an episode usually, and
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: then I do have conversations with musicians, fans and different
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: people connected with Tom along the way. John Scott, the
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: guy who Mike talks about in the book who ran
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: around and made sure that Breakdown got on the radio
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 3: and really was the guy who sort of made sure
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: that Tompenny and the Heartbreakers music was ever heard by anyone.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 3: He was on the show. Paul Zolo, who wrote a
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 3: conversation with Tom Petty, was a great guest on the show.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 3: Yourself a fantastic guest. Yeah, he came on the show,
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 3: made a chat. So, yeah, come check it out. You
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 3: can Tom Petty Project, go look on all social media
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 3: wherever you find your So I'm not on Twitter anymore.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: Every alts I'm I'm there.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: You just trapped Free Girl Now an episode in Free
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: Girl Now, yep, and uh the other what was I
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: going to say to You're on YouTube as well?
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, we've got videos on there. We've got
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: all kinds of things. Yeah, I just and it's that
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 3: thing I don't really have a like a big game
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: plan strategy where I'm really sort of target target specific
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: on is I put my stuff out and for some
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 3: reason people seem to enjoy it. Yeah, don't keep doing it.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: You wonder though I mentioned my Campbell has heard an
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: episode or two.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 3: You know, I hope, So I meant, I hope it's
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 3: not one of the ones where I panned one of
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: the songs, which I don't do very often.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: It's no, it's it's an honest look at the songs.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: Kevin Brown, Thanks man, this was great. Thanks so much
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: for coming on.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: It's always a blast haanging vide if. I love talking
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 3: about you have one of my favorite Hull Talk music.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: And I mean that's sincerely. I'm not just saying that
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: for the podcast.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 3: You're a found of knowledge and it's always always learned
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: something from you. So that's it.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: It's in the books.