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Garage to Stadiums is one of the Top 5% of podcasts in the world. From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Garage to Stadiums
THE STORY OF TOM PETTY
Fri, Mar 14, 2025 1:29PM • 53:58
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Tom Petty, Heartbreakers, Warren Zanes, biography, music career, Gainesville, Elvis Presley, rock and roll, songwriting, Traveling Wilburys, addiction, album production, musical influences, career challenges, legacy.
SPEAKERS
Warren Zanes, Speaker 1, Dave Anthony, Speaker 2
Dave Anthony 00:01
Dave, Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the garage to stadiums podcast rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Welcome to garage, to stadiums. Today's episode is the story of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Tom Petty was born in 1950 in Gainesville, Florida, a city situated between Jacksonville to the north and Orlando and Tampa to the south. Petty has one of the most popular and recognizable song catalogs and legion of young and old fans alike. From the moment he stumbled onto an Elvis Presley movie set in Florida in 1961 Tom became hooked on becoming a successful rock and roller, but as you will hear, to get there, he had to overcome difficult childhood, a series of music failures and even a lawsuit that ended up changing the entire music industry forever. His determination to overcome these and more challenges have made him a beloved figure in rock and roll history. Here to discuss Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is Warren Zanes. Warren is the author of petty, the biography, and he's had a diverse and accomplished career. Warren is a New York Times best selling author, a Grammy nominated documentary producer and a professor currently teaching at NYU as a 17 year old teenager, Warren joined the del fuegos, a rock band out of Boston, making three records for Warner Brothers, and then Warren earned his PhD in visual and Cultural Studies, became a vice president of education at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He's been a producer on the Oscar winning documentary 20 feet from stardom, about the role of backup singers. And his book on Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska album is the basis for the upcoming biopic on Bruce starring Jeremy Allen White of the series the bear Warren is also a producer on that film. Warren got to know petty very well, as Tom asked Warren's band The del fuegos to open for the Heartbreakers in the 1980s and asked Warren to write his autobiography. Welcome to garage, the stadium's Warren.
Warren Zanes 02:20
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Dave Anthony 02:26
I You may be the first person in the history of rock to grow up a fan of the superstar, then get the chance to be opening act for that superstar, and then be asked to write the biography of that superstar. How did you get to be so associated with Tom Pett?
Warren Zanes 02:48
I mean biggest factor, good fortune and luck, and add in some persistence when he came our way, you know. So I'll give you a little background. My mother had a really good record collection, and she had the stones and the Beatles and Dylan, but she also had Aretha Franklin and Pete Seeger that set us up, you know, for folk, 60s, rock. And then my uncle lived upstairs. We were renting apartments, and he listened to oldies radio. So that was Chuck Berry, Little Richard Buddy Holly, you know, the Doo Wop groups. So it was, you know, when you're young, it's just kind of in the atmosphere. But we were getting there was good stuff in our atmosphere. By the time acts like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen came along, we were set up to appreciate that they had had the storytelling and the confessional aspect of the singer songwriters, but they had the power of the rock and roll from the 50s, and they belonged to us. It wasn't our uncles, it wasn't my mothers, and so we just we latched on, and we also had wbcn and Boston as our FM rock station. And so BCN is coming out of free form FM into that album oriented rock period. And they were one of two stations that broke the Heartbreakers with with the song breakdown. And we were there in New Hampshire. You know, ringside, see
04:50
something inside you whisper,
Speaker 1 04:59
baby. Fifth breakdown. Go ahead, give it to him. Break down. I take me
Warren Zanes 05:06
through the night. We were just in from the beginning. And I mean, the crazy part was when we made our first record when we were out there making it petty, came to one of our shows at the Music machine, and we were playing with the group, blood on the saddle, and he came backstage, and, you know, I couldn't get, I couldn't get a sane, controlled word out. I just couldn't it was, it was overwhelming to me, but he was drinking cognac, and he left his glass, and I carried his cognac glass with me for like a year. It was like in a guitar case. And then we were doing a three night run at the Roxy after our second record, and every night from the stage would say, We want Tom Petty, to come down every night that was like our focus. And he never did. And then at the end of the three nights, I was in my hotel room, and he called and said, sorry he couldn't come and he was drunk and invited us out to the house the next night, you know, he apologized. He was like I was, I've been drinking some wine, but a three night run at the rocks. He is a real, you know, it's a real Hollywood event and but we went out to Tom's house, and then, and then he ended up singing on our third record and bringing us out on tour after that man
Dave Anthony 06:41
that is quite a brush with greatness, and then he ended up building a relationship with the guy. When
Warren Zanes 06:47
petty came back into my life, you know, I had a PhD, and he came back because he read the book I wrote about dusty and Memphis. But we had a few steps between that so, you know, we he invited me to dinner, and we sat down, you know, just the two of us, and got reacquainted and talked about the book. And then at the end, he said, you know, and I didn't know this, he said, You know, I wrote a song that was inspired by your book. I want you to come back to the house and hear it. And it was like, what, you know, it's just beyond belief. And from there, you know, they, they he, he said he wanted me to be interviewed for the Peter Bogdanovich running down a dream documentary, yeah. So I was the first interview for that project, which went two years, and then they were putting together a companion book, and I did that first, and I created it like an oral history. And he's walking me to my rent a car out in Malibu, and he was just so kind to me and so open to me, but I'm getting ready to go. And he says, you know, what would you think about writing a biography? And then he laid out the terms. He said, You know, this would be unauthorized, because when I see the word authorized, I know it's bullshit. He said, It's your book, your contract. I'll get whoever I can get for you to interview, and I just want to be able to read it once before it's published. And you know, I'm not going to ask you to take things out, but I want to respond to things if I feel they beg a response, I just don't think you can have a long career like that without being good, not just at making songs and making records, but also on the business side. He was a very smart guy next
Dave Anthony 08:56
Tom at the age of 11 in 1961 gets the chance through his uncle, who owned a film developing business, to visit the set of an Elvis Presley movie that is shooting in nearby Ocala, Florida, according to Tom, hundreds of fans screamed as Elvis pulled up in a line of white Cadillacs. He stepped out radiant as an angel. He seemed to glow and walk above the ground. It was like nothing I'd ever seen in my life. At 50 yards, we were stunned by what this guy looked like, and he came walking right towards us after that, Tom Petty was hooked. Quote. That's what kicked off my love of music, and I'd never thought much about rock and roll until that moment. In addition to seeing Elvis in person on the movie set, you write that seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964 convinces Tom this will be the life for him. Unfortunately, it his dad. Unfortunately his dad didn't quite see it that way. He was into hunting, fishing, outdoor stuff, which Tom hay. Created according to Tom in your book. Earl Petty was an alcoholic who verbally abused Tom for these perceived shortcomings and even physically abused him.
Warren Zanes 10:10
I feel like I was there in a good moment, and he was just ready to get into some specifics about the abuse in his house, you know, I think he saw that there was a way to talk about it without condemning, uh, his father, you know, mis portraying his mother. You know, there's a there's a point at which people, you know, myself included, who experience, you know, different levels of dysfunction as kids realize, well, their parents were just in that chain and didn't find a way out of it. They were part of a chain, you know. And so there's a kind of forgiveness becomes possible that nonetheless leaves room for an assessment of, hey, I suffered abuse, and I informed who I am, you know, as an adult, and my job is to do what I can to break that chain. He could both feel some love for his father, and also talk very plainly about some of the physical and mental abuse you see a lot of people who go into the arts, into, you know, one or another expressive Meeting medium, who come from some kind of real childhood pain. I think going into some field associated with expression makes sense. They want, they're looking for the voice they felt they didn't have when they were young, and going through that pain, you know, it makes sense. You know, scratch the artist, and you often get to childhood pain underneath it. You know, it can be a real fuel for art. So,
Dave Anthony 12:13
would you say that petty kind of taps into a de facto family with sort of the scene in Gainesville the music scene, does that become kind of his go to sort of support system?
Warren Zanes 12:25
I think this is very common with people getting into bands as teenagers. It's like, maybe I can get it right with this group of people. It's like the gang. It's it's a gang, it's a pack of wild dogs. It's, you know, it's a community, it's all kinds of things. But it's, it's miraculous to me look at it, because Gainesville,
Dave Anthony 12:53
Gainesville, really, I mean, for a town ex size, it's hard to believe some of the stars you paint in the in the book that came out of there.
Warren Zanes 13:01
Yeah, you know, Stephen still don Felder, you know, the almonds are close by, Leonard Skinner, it's like, you can see why a young person like Tom Petty would be audacious enough to dream of a career in music, because there were examples like, you know, when they did them, you know, first he's in the epics, then he's in mud crutch, which is the band he later reformed, but they're putting on their farm festivals, and Leonard Skinner is a part of it, you know, it's, it's like they're, they're not in the backwater. But he And nonetheless, you know, I think Gainesville is the most important place for him, but he also knew he would need to connect with something like Los Angeles really activate the dreams and ambitions he had next.
Dave Anthony 14:00
We discuss the period of Tom's early band, years in 1970 petty starts a band called Mud crutch with his friend Tom leaden, whose brother was a founding member of the Eagles. Bernie leaden, the second member that Tom recruits is Mike Campbell, a guitarist who will go on to become a longtime collaborator with petty and a member of the Heartbreakers they do the small club circuit for years with no real advancement. And finally, Tom departs for LA in 1974
Speaker 2 14:31
Do you love Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood, Mac David Bowie and the who listen to more garage to stadiums on all podcast streaming platforms?
Dave Anthony 14:41
Once Tom moves to LA in search of a record contract, he quickly lands a deal for his mud crutch band. So when he was signed, I mean as mud crutch to that deal with shelter, Danny Cordell, Leon Russell, that I just wanted to ask. You this question, that first single that they put out once he gets to LA and they get signed pretty quickly, as we'll find out it. You know, takes a long time for him to get the fame that they're seeking. But that first song that's called depot Street is down on
15:18
depot Street, behind the City Hall,
15:23
behind the City Hall
Dave Anthony 15:26
sounds like a reggae is that? Because the Denny Cordell was with Island Records like, it just sounds almost like a reggae tip,
Warren Zanes 15:32
yeah, no, there's that feel. Is is there? And Denny was part of it. But I think a lot of people were starting to hear both. You know, in England, where there was more of a West Indian community, Bob Murley, kind of, yeah, it was coming in, you know, I think Marley's first American tour was 7374 so it was, it was coming and, Denny Cordell was, was in a good position to be, you know, a kind of early adapter, early adopter. And so it came to petty. But, you know, petty is also like as a southern artist, it was a groove that kind of made some sense, a lot of the Jamaica music was informed by, you know, New Orleans radio, yeah, so it's, it's an exchange that made a kind of sense,
Dave Anthony 16:30
yeah, we had John Missouri on, who's a noted reggae historian, and he talked about that, how those early airwaves from sort of the southern US were hitting these Caribbean communities, because the only alternative the Caribbean communities had was sort of the British Colonial Radio, right,
Warren Zanes 16:48
right? But you hear so they're, they're in a group like, you know, the heptones, those Jamaican vocal groups you can hear. How do op would would matter so much to them. But the way it came back was like, Whoa. You know, suddenly there's this dialog with a quote, third world country, unquote, but, you know, going to this developmental, you know, you talked about, like, how long it took for mud crutch to become the Heartbreakers. And it did take a long time. And I think one of the biggest factors, and petty talked about this very freely, was just learning to make records. And it seems initially like making a record is as simple as go into a studio, put up microphones, and do what you do in clubs, and it's like, no, that's not making records.
Dave Anthony 17:53
How would you characterize that difference? What is the major difference between
Warren Zanes 17:57
the two? A lot of good records, and this isn't you can't make like big rules out of this, but a lot of records succeed once everyone in an ensemble is reducing what they're playing to only that which matters the most. You know, when you get up live in front of a club, everybody can, you know, they can put quite a lot of him for musical information out there. Do the same thing on a record and the space gets crowded. Give everything its place. Play less, if it helps the whole but that's the way record makers have to think. And you know, listen to Mike Campbell's guitar playing. He can play things so simple that nonetheless, melodically means so much, both melodically in terms of groove, means so much to a record. And I think he and petty were really sitting side by side, going, how do we do this? And they had engineers, and they had a studio, and everything that they learned would be with them for the entirety of that career.
Dave Anthony 19:11
So it's interesting, like anything, the perceived failure was part of the success of learning that process, is what you're saying.
Warren Zanes 19:19
Yeah, totally and petty. Petty had that you know. Was it? Was it that he had no plan B, or was it that he just had its strength in his ambitions that you know he was it wasn't going
Dave Anthony 19:33
to be stopped next mud crutch changes its name to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1976 and put out their first album under the same name, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers containing Petty's first hit breakdown,
Speaker 1 19:55
I'm not afraid of you running away on this. I get
Dave Anthony 20:03
in another song famous in the petty catalog, American Girl. But the album did not do well, although it received attention and climbed to number 24 in the UK charts, and Tom and the Heartbreakers appeared on several shows in the UK. His second album comes out, and it doesn't do particularly well. And then petty is still a relative unknown. Is caught up in a famous legal battle where he refused to have his rights sold to another record label. How in the heck did a young guy like him have the wherewithal to stand up like he did for the famous, you know, shelter sold to MCA petty says, Look, this isn't I'm not doing this. Did he talk about that like, what was the insight that he kind of came to at that age to have such courage, because most people would have capitulated and just went out with the flow that changed the music industry, that guy, that young man, yeah, I said enough, yeah.
Warren Zanes 21:09
Well, well, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty both went through that. That's true. That's true, you know, negotiating these deals
Dave Anthony 21:18
and then being derailed for a period of time while they waited it out. Yeah, yeah. I
Warren Zanes 21:22
think that's, that's what you're really pointing to, is that these guys had enough faith in what they could do as songwriters and record makers and performers that they did wait it out. But I think for both of them, those were periods of enormous stress. You know, you're young, you know you've got something to share, and yet you can't, because somebody's got you bound up legally. I mean, my mind would have been blown these guys, you know, they kind of stuck it out. They came into some self belief, you know, let's think about Tom Petty before Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Leon Russell hears, I think it was lost in your eyes, great song. And goes, I want to write with this guy. Leon Russell is driving over to the motel where Petty was staying in his rolls. Royce picking Tom up, bringing him to the studio at with moments like that, even somebody who comes from abuse and the then the self doubt that abuse generates. Yeah, you got, you got Leon Russell, a giant of 70s rock picking you up in his rolls. Royce, because he wants to write with you. Well, you start to build some sense of yourself, like, maybe I got something here. And I think, I think by the time petty is doing that brutal renegotiation, he's had a couple hits. He's had experiences like that as a writer. He's learned how to make records. He's ready to fight for the person that he knows now you know he is, and it's incredible to watch, you know, like people come into their identity so publicly.
Dave Anthony 23:37
Yeah, it's interesting. You say that because, I mean, it is almost like the typical movie script, where the guide stands up for what he believes in, and then the turnaround happens with Damn the torpedoes. It has refugee. Oh. Today, here comes my girl, even the losers. Don't do me like that. That's an incredible abundance of good tunes. Nothing like supernova reached number two on the Billboard charts. Petty's the new superstar on the block that album with Jimmy Iovine, because Iovine was involved with Brutus right on the on the WARN to run, was he not an engineer?
Warren Zanes 24:42
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, Jimmy iveen, you know, starts basically, like the way you do in studios, in a more almost custodial position, and then he's, you know, in the best sense, an opportunist. And gets Dylan needs somebody. And not not Dylan, I'm sorry, Lennon needs somebody. And Jimmy gets in the room there. And then Bruce Springsteen, the E Street Band, they need somebody. Jimmy gets in there, and then he moves into the engineer seat, and then he shifts to production. And Patty Smith needs a song and gets because the night, you know, and then it's like, wow, production is the place like engineers, who knows who the hell they are, yeah, then enter Tom Petty. And those guys were, you know, in the, you know, thick as thieves.
Dave Anthony 25:39
What did I even do for petty What did he brand?
Warren Zanes 25:41
You know, the producer can be a great producer and not do a whole lot more than say that song, yes, that song, no, because the band or the artist is so inside their head, they need a trusted person to be able to say, That's the song, like, don't, don't do me. Like that is one example you know, that had been written as a as a song that was pitched to Peter Wolf and Jay Giles, and Jimmy was the one who said that one, and that becomes a major thing. And
Dave Anthony 26:33
that was based on saying his dad used to say to him, right, that's right, yeah. And games yell his dad and say, Oh, come on, don't do it like that. Yeah. Next Warren will discuss the unique petty sound, along with Mike Campbell, the guitarist that Tom had originally recruited into mud crutch and now the Heartbreakers another player, Benmont. Tench, is one of the key members as a piano and keyboard player.
Warren Zanes 26:59
I think Benmont is a big part. Well, he's a big part of anything Heartbreakers, but you really hear like, a lot of the infectious feel in that is like Benmont. One thing Jimmy said to me once about the Heartbreakers, like, is, if you were struggling with a mix, turn up Benmont and it the problem generally went away. That's
Dave Anthony 27:23
interesting, because Ben Mont was like a classically trained guy, like he was quite a musician himself, obviously.
Warren Zanes 27:30
Well, he was very interesting when you when you talk, most of the Heartbreakers are coming from, you know, lower on the working class, you know, yeah, part of the latter. And Benmont was a son of a judge. And, you know, their first demos they recorded in the living room of Benmont song and, and, you know, I love the moment where to get Benmont was just a little younger into the band that petty had to go talk to the judge Benmont,
Dave Anthony 28:02
like Tom Petty, the teenager, whatever old he was, goes in and talks to the judge or convinces the judge to let his son quit University and go to go basically, uh, join the band.
Warren Zanes 28:14
Yeah, yeah. It's like that. That is, it's always been one of my favorite details that tells you about the self possessed character of Tom Petty like that, if you were, if you were some working class kid talking to a judge, well, you knew you were in a place you hadn't been before When you're talking to that judge and you know, class is it's funny people talk about class in the United Kingdom, but we've got such a class structure here, and obviously, politically, we're entering into one that's even more toxic right now. We're highly aware of our classes. We it's just not like a caste system, or kind of, you know, demarcated in the way it is in the UK, but we definitely have a class system. And Tom Petty knew where he was coming from, but he had that degree of self possession that allowed him to go, step out of his class into another's and speak with a figure of authority. I mean, come on, a judge. He's not a lawyer, he's a judge. And convince that judge basically to give him his son in the name of rock and roll.
Dave Anthony 29:41
What a thing, man. It is incredible. The The interesting thing too, that happens in that era with Jimmy ivine is, of course, Jimmy's producing Stevie Nicks, who's on to her first album, and Stevie becomes enraptured. By Tom and the Heartbreakers and Jimmy being her boyfriend at the time, or lover, or whatever convinces what Tom to give up the song. Stop dragging my heart new. And takes it to Stevie as kind
Warren Zanes 30:42
of for his girlfriend. Yeah, Jimmy. Jimmy relishes these stories as he should. But, like, I think it's everybody can laugh about it now, but you know, the truth was, you know, Tom would talk about, you know, writing for Stevie. His first thought was like, well, if she wants a song, I'm going to write one. It sounds like her. And she came back saying, if I want this sounds like me, I'll write it. I'm one that sounds like you and and so, you know, stop dragging my heart around. Became that song. And then she gets him on it. The problem that resulted was that came out just before the Heartbreakers put out hard promises, and from the perspective of FM radio, they heard Stop dragging my heart around, and they heard Tom Petty's voice, and so they were less inclined to play another Tom Petty song, and it hurt the Heartbreakers single, because they
Dave Anthony 31:47
had What the waiting.
Warren Zanes 32:01
Yeah, when, when Jimmy ivine talks about the waiting, he was like, come on that song. Yeah,
Dave Anthony 32:07
that's a great tip.
Warren Zanes 32:08
That was, that was like, three refugees, like, that was like, he was like, I knew I had something big, you know, and so that it didn't perform at the level he thought was tangled up in that Stevie mix.
Dave Anthony 32:24
Yeah, what did she add to him? Like, what, what? Why would their relationship? I mean, it was just so, I mean, it just was great to hear the two of them on record.
Warren Zanes 32:33
Well, she's got, you know, what I love about it, and this is just my own perception. Is her voice has what culturally we associate with the male voice a lot, you know, we we project onto this stuff, and so she's got some beautiful ambiguity relative to, you know, where we situate things culturally, and I feel like petty does too. So when they sing a duet, it's not the classic male female position. It it becomes, to me, more complicated, more emotionally engaging, and I think that breathes a lot of life into it. But, you know, I admire the way that, as a superstar herself, she nonetheless took her position as a fan of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Yeah, never let go. You
Dave Anthony 33:37
know, she wanted to join the band, yeah,
Warren Zanes 33:39
yeah, when they did the, I guess it was the 40th anniversary tour, think I included this in the book, but they gave her this gold Sheriff's Badge, and it said, you know, the only girl In the band, when she told me that like and I and I can, I can talk about now, but it always choked me up, because it's such a loving gesture on Tom's part, you know, toward her and those guys sustained it. It's hard to maintain those kind of relationships. I think what glued it together is that she just kept saying they're the best band.
Dave Anthony 34:29
Yeah. I mean, imagine any band kind of going, Stevie Nicks wants to join you, and you go, No thanks, we were going to carry on. And they did have a great sort of symbiotic as you described there in the singing together. It's amazing. She was a real friend to him. Yeah, and close to, I guess Tom's wife too, to the point where, what Edge of 17 was based on that saying, When did you meet Tom? She asks Jane, and Jane says, at the age of 17, you. Beatty thinks she's saying edge.
Warren Zanes 35:14
How many song titles have been born that way?
Dave Anthony 35:16
That's true.
Speaker 2 35:21
Want more garage to stadiums, visit us on Instagram, YouTube, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Petty
Dave Anthony 35:29
and the heartbreaker start to become rock and roll royalty as the 1980s unfold with hits like you got lucky you change of heart. Don't come around Here. No more. Jamming me. Learn learning to fly into the great wide open we but soon things will move in a different direction. On several fronts, his personality is, would you call him laid back? Would you call him like, he just seems like he's pretty together. I
Warren Zanes 37:07
call him Southern, you know, like, up in the northeast, we were, like, just a little more anxious, probably, you know, needing medication. He was just, he was laid back. And you could, he could sit in in the quiet while the chatter goes on around him, and then kind of move in very quietly for the kill, you know, like he was an incredibly funny guy, too, and you just watch him that pace. You know the people who are attracted to him? You know, whether it's George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, were talking about giants. They love Tom Petty, and I think that was part of it. Was like he'd have a smile on his face, sit back and then just move in for the kill and and and get the room laughing. You know,
Dave Anthony 38:07
that's really interesting. That sort of, that's how he comes across. But to think that, you know, he just kind of lets it go and then moves in. I love that analogy.
Warren Zanes 38:19
Yeah, it's, it's a kind of, you know, cool in the best sense, like he was the coolest guy. And to see like a beetle, admiring that level of cool is is quite something. Speaking
Dave Anthony 38:39
of former Beatles in 1988 Tom Petty is asked to join a super group called The Traveling Wilburys with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Jeff Lynn of ELO to work on a single song called Handle with care. Everybody
38:59
got somebody to leave.
39:05
Body. However,
Dave Anthony 39:07
the song was so popular that an album was planned as well as a tour. Yeah, I it's, it's staggering to me. When you think of the original Traveling Wilburys, you've got Roy Orbison, who sort of influenced Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan who influenced George Harrison. Harrison probably influenced Jeff Lynn, and then they picked Tom Petty as kind of the continuation of it all. It's just an incredible, you know, hats off to Tom for being part of it. Yeah.
Warren Zanes 39:36
Well, there's only one Traveling Wilburys. I mean, I guess, if anything, I think you got the right sense, like they cover so many eras, and that the chain is held together by admiration. And, you know, it cuts in both directions, but you're, you're cut. Covering such a vast period of popular music. But the miracle to me is it was so good that Bob Dylan said, yes, that Bob Dylan did, it is still a thing of wonder to me. So you think Dylan was the linchpin of, kind of getting a cred? I wouldn't, I wouldn't name any one of those guys the lynchpin, because they each bring something so crucial. But you don't see Bob Dylan doing anything like that anywhere else in his career. You know, joining a it's an awful word, but super group, right? It's not a Dylan move. He had to love those guys,
Dave Anthony 40:43
yeah, yeah, stupor group, I think of Asia or something awful, yeah, exactly. Was petty, blown away to be asked to it like, did he kind of, or was he cool and kind of laconic as he is? And just went, Yeah, was he just kind of like floor? I
Warren Zanes 40:58
mean, I look at it, and I think, I think it's really hard to keep bands together, you know, by extension, hard to keep them together for decades, yes, and at a point when petty needed to be nourished by something other than the Heartbreakers. George Harrison enters like this spiritual force, like 1988 that sounds right, but I think you know, for Tom, it was just a period of joy after
Dave Anthony 41:38
the first Traveling Wilburys album, Tom Petty continues this break from the Heartbreakers and goes solo without them, and puts out Full Moon Fever, which is produced by traveling Wilbury and ELO founder Jeff Lynn. Most of the Heartbreakers played on various songs on the album, and it resulted in huge hits for petty free fallin the I won't back down.
42:22
Won't back
Dave Anthony 42:29
running down a dream.
Warren Zanes 42:41
There was making records with Jeff Lynn. It was a real period of nourishment for him. Howie the bass player, Howie Epstein, who, who passed, you know, he wasn't in love with the Jeff Lynn way of making records. I think it was harder on someone like Ben Mont just by nature of you know, if you have a Jeff Lynn making a record, he's got the pretty clear sense himself for what he wants out of the base, what he wants out of the keyboard. So there are moments of greater freedom for those players, but they're diminished relative to the way they used to do it. So what was hard on the band was, I believe, liberating for Tom and but Tom then made the like, let's, let's bring the band in closer with Jeff, see how that goes. There was a recalibration needed, but Tom gets his biggest record. It's
Dave Anthony 43:49
interesting. It's almost like an actor who's a film actor who goes, You know what? I gotta go on the stage for a year here to just learn, just do my craft again.
Warren Zanes 43:59
100% the people who remain static, I think more are apt to go away. Yeah, you know, it's like, what can I so people who can scale up and scale down? I think that can really be crucial to a long career in any art. You know,
Dave Anthony 44:19
it's interesting, Warren, I read your article speaking of periods of Tom's life, and in the Washington Post, you had a really interesting interview, and you had some interesting viewpoints on sort of Tom's heroin addiction that starts in the 90s. And you sort of cited what you thought part of the reasoning was and and I wondered if he wanted to talk about why you think that happened, and then script Tom including it in the book, or letting you include it in the book, because it's a pretty dark
Warren Zanes 44:51
period. So when I was interviewing Tom, I said, you know, I think there's. A way to talk about this that doesn't glorify drug use, and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't portray it in such a way that someone can glorify it, and it doesn't kind of represent this as like your weakness, you know, and I say it was brave of him to talk about, even if it was hard, you know, he he agreed, like, let's do it. But we also knew that it would be picked up, you know, you live in this even then, in this media age when people are going to grab that,
Dave Anthony 45:45
make it a headline, and it will be hard to see past it. And so I, like felt like my job as an author was to help people get past it. And you decided the busy album cycle that he was in, sort of the 80s and so forth, writing, recording, album, art, touring. And he said when he kind of relented in that Washington Post, when he kind of got off that not vicious cycle, but man, that's an intense cycle, that's when some of this, these issues, started to grow.
Warren Zanes 46:16
Keith Richards said that when it came to his drug use, problem wasn't being on the road. Problem was getting off the road. Yeah, like, and that's, that's if you are going out every night and playing to 20,000 adoring people, and you're doing it for, you know, a year, a year and a half, coming back into the stillness of domestic life. And often you're coming back, and there are people who are like, Where have you been? You know, it's a it's a hard one, and it's a hard landing. Yeah, that's not to say this is what makes people pick up drugs, but it can definitely be in the mix. I'd just say this, it's a tough transition. There
Dave Anthony 47:09
was the divorce during that period, and then he cites kind of his new marriage, saving him or getting him to rehab by the end of the 90s. Looking back now with perspective. Is there anything sort of you thought then that you rethink now about Tom like, is there anything you look back and go? My goodness now I realize, with my own experience, my own age, what I was seeing after
Warren Zanes 47:37
he died, the way people embraced the catalog those songs. It wasn't like it was something I didn't know before, but it was very moving to see it as this collective embrace. You know, when Prince died, you saw a lot of people honoring him by going out and playing Purple Rain. You know, a few other things. But it was a lot of purple rain when Tom died. Everybody was playing a different song. Everybody had their song. There was so much Tom Petty out there, and it was, it was a, just a beautiful view of the strength of that catalog, which I always associate it with, buddy Holly's catalog, Hank Williams catalog. It's wide and deep, and he just as a record maker, he was fastidious in making every track count. He was a real album maker, and that's you know, people who came out of being Beatles fans often approach things that way. If you look back like early kinks records or early Beach Boys records, you knew which the singles were, and that because of you know, Beatles Dylan, there was this, this aftermath of artists that included Tom Petty, this, like every song has To count, we cannot let the singles be the thing that that keeps people away from the albums. Yeah, and it feels like we could get in there ourselves and play them. And that's one aspect of the durability of his his catalog. But it's an important one, I think, but just his status is not going to diminish in any way. I personally think it will grow because you study Tom Petty, if you want to be a songwriter and you study Tom Petty, you're studying the right guy.
Dave Anthony 49:59
I would urge everyone. To pick up a copy of Pepita biography and all the other works that will we mentioned at the beginning of the show of Warren. Thanks for being here today, Warren. It's been so, so fun. Yeah,
Warren Zanes 50:14
thank you so much. Is a good time. I'll see you out on the streets
Dave Anthony 50:22
some closing notes on Tom Petty. Tom Petty became a traveling Wilbury by accident in 1988 George Harrison, Jeff Lynn, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan were recording a bonus track for Harrison's CLOUD NINE album at Dylan's garage studio. Harrison had accidentally left a guitar at Petty's house, and when he went to retrieve it, he asked Tom if he wanted to join the session. The song they recorded was the hit Handle with care and the group had such a good time, they decided to record a full album. Petty was also an actor. Tom had a recurring role in the animated comedy series king of the hill, from 2004 to 2009 as the voice actor for Elroy lucky clenchment. Why'd they call you lucky? True story, I was at Costco one day, and all of a sudden, the nature called yelled, is more lucky. So I hightail it into the John, and there's some sensitive guy changing his little boy's diaper on one of them baby ironing boards. And don't you know, I slipped on pee pee and broke two vertebrae, which had to be fused together. I'm in constant pain, but by God, I got me a $53,000 settlement. Lucky was a laid back mullet sporting redneck who had a striking resemblance to petty and petty also acted as the bridge city mayor in the 1997 Kevin Costner film, post apocalyptic adventure film, The postman. The film was a commercial flop, was universally panned by critics and won five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. Petty, however, was spared the indignity of his own Raspberry Award. Dr petty in 2021 four years after his death, Petty was awarded a special honorary doctorate degree from the University of Florida, which is based in his hometown of Gainesville. The university said the award recognized his distinctive and influential contributions over the years, and noted that his presence continues to be felt in Gainesville on the University of Florida Campus. Petty's famous I Won't Back Down has become a mantra at athletic events. Warren Zane, our guest today, talked about the burgeoning music scene in the 60s, early 70s in tiny Gainesville, future eagles. Guitarist Don Felder once taught petty guitar. Felder taught guitar lessons at a local music store, and petty was one of the students. He showed petty some basic chords and techniques which help them get started as a musician. Felder, in turn, and bereave us have been shown slide guitar techniques by none other than Dwayne Allman, of the Allman Brothers, quite a guitar lineage in Gainesville, Florida. Thanks for making garage estates one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platform, so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from our interviews. Visit us at garage to stadiums for Mar bonus content on all the bands featured and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify special. Thanks to our guests today, Warren Zanes, author of petty the biography, thanks to our producers, Amina Fauci and Connor Sampson, our program director Scott Campbell, Creative Director Chad Raymond and video director Nigel Campbell, you've been listening to garage to stadiums. I'm Dave Anthony, see you next time for another garage to stadium. Story,
53:53
another blast furnace, labs, production. You.