30 Years of Rock

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Visit 
The Woodlands this Weekend

Mark Williams

Every week, Tom Petty picks some musical gems that have fallen into obscurity and beams them out on his satellite radio show, hoping to share with fans some classic music that deserves another listen. The rock legend is planning to apply some of that philosophy to his own vast catalog this summer, as Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers celebrate the 30th anniversary of the band — a tour which makes a stop at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion (2005 Lake Robbins Dr., The Woodlands) this Saturday (8/5).

Along with special surprise guests such as Stevie Nicks, Petty is making the tour special by going back to the band's first album to play some rarely heard Heartbreaker tunes.
For these last 30 years of rockin', Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers been a model of consistency and integrity. Classic albums like "Wildflowers," "Full Moon Fever" and "Damn the Torpedoes" weren't return-to-form follow-ups after putrid flops, but part of a succession of good-to-great records.

You've never heard "Runnin' Down a Dream" in a car ad — Petty refuses to license his music for commercials. And let’s not forget, 1981’s “Hard Promises” was almost called “$8.98” because Petty's label tried to jack up the suggested retail price from $8.98 to $9.98 — a move abandoned by the record company at the time.

Despite all this, and resume-builders like induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers simply don't get their due as one of the all-time great rock-and-roll institutions. "That's the drawback to being consistent," Petty says with a laugh, on the phone from his home in Southern California between legs of his 30th-anniversary tour.

"Sometimes, I feel as though we've been taken for granted. We've always been there and always did what the fans thought we should do. We've had such a great deal of success it's hard to complain. Now, if the records had failed or no one came to see us, then it would bother me.
"I'm kind of happy this year because I do feel that people are finally starting to get it,” says Petty. “They're starting to reevaluate what we've done, and are starting to realize that this is one of the great rock and roll bands."

Millions of fans do seem to get it; Petty, now 55, has a long list of enduring classic rockers — songs like "Breakdown," "Refugee," "The Waiting," and “You Don't Know How It Feels.” They've outlasted every next big thing, from disco to rap-rock.

And they've influenced modern rockers like the Strokes, who appropriated the sprightly jangle of "American Girl" for "Last Nite," and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose recent single "Dani California" shares some similarities with "Mary Jane's Last Dance," a likeness Petty just shrugs off. "Ah, so it sounds a little similar, bless 'em," he says. "I don't know if they stole it or not. It's their cross to bear, not mine. That one does sound particularly close in meter and chord and even subject matter. I think it's odd that Rick Rubin produced both records and never noticed it when my gardener did. I won't sue, but I wouldn't mind if they cut me in for a piece."

“I sometimes hear my stuff in other songs, and I don't get that upset because I do the same thing,” says Petty. “You don't set out to steal something, but there are only so many notes and chords.”

That those whippersnappers would cop from songs that are 30 and 13 years old, respectively, underscores the timelessness of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' sound. The clarion tone of Rickenbacker guitars, two-lane-blacktop riffs, an occasional slow-burn groove, sun-blessed harmonies, and lyrical truisms like "The waiting is the hardest part" - it's as deeply woven into the fabric of American rock as the band's chief influences: Elvis, the Beach Boys, Dylan and the Byrds.

Credit the expert textures of the Heartbreakers — original members Mike Campbell on guitar and Benmont Tench on keyboards, 12-year vet Steve Ferrone on drums, 17-year vet and multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston, and original bassist Ron Blair, who returned in 2002. They're a crack unit whose musical lexicon embraces country, rock, blues, surf, soul, folk, lengthy jams and tight pop.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers — hailing from Gainesville, Florida before officially forming in Los Angeles — kicked the musical doldrums of the mid-70's in the face with their 1976 self-titled debut album. It featured a stripped-down-but-accomplished brand of rock that blended jumpy rhythm & blues rhythms, ringing guitars and keyboards, over which Petty grabbed listeners by their throats with his disarmingly blunt lyrics and extremely direct vocal style.

Still, it took America a full year to catch up to the album. "Breakdown" was re-released to radio and became a Top 40 hit in 1977 after word filtered back the band was creating a firestorm over in England. By the end of the pivotal UK trek, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were headlining the very same venues they played as an opening act weeks earlier.
1978's follow up, “You're Gonna Get It!,” proved the debut album's intensity was no fluke. Marking the band's first gold album, it featured the singles "Listen To Her Heart" and "I Need To Know."

Next, in 1979, came the triple-platinum “Damn The Torpedoes” — which brought Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers superstardom and arena headlining status. This was followed by the successful and critically acclaimed Hard Promises in 1981, 1982’s “Long After Dark,” “Southern Accents” in 1985, “Pack Up The Plantation,” a live double album also released in ’85, and 1987's “Let Me Up (I've Had Enough),” featuring "Jammin' Me," co-written by Bob Dylan, with whom they teamed up for a historical world tour in 1986 and 1987.

Throughout this period of success, there were unusual twists and turns, among them disputes with MCA, his former record company. The first of these occurred as Petty tried to re-negotiate his contract when MCA purchased ABC Records, the first label for which Petty recorded. He refused to be simply transferred to another record label without his consent.

At the same time he was in litigation with MCA Records, Petty fought with his publishing company as he believed artists should own their own songwriting copyrights. Petty held fast to his principles for a long nine months and it drove him to bankruptcy; although he ultimately triumphed, Petty's struggle with his publishing company earned much attention, helping other artists in their own battles to hold onto their copyrights. 

Next came the dispute with MCA when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers resisted having “Hard Promises” released at a higher "superstar product" price for customers. After threatening to withhold the LP, MCA released the album at the lower price the band wanted.

A few years later another roadblock surfaced: Petty injured himself during the making of “Southern Accents.” Frustrated during the mixing process, he broke his left hand after punching it through a wall. In 1987, Petty tussled with a tire company which ultimately withdrew a Petty sound-alike song from a TV commercial. In 1989, he threatened not to play at a concert in New Jersey when authorities refused to allow Greenpeace to set up information booths in the lobby. Petty didn't back down, but the authorities did, and the gig went on.

In 1989, Tom Petty released his debut solo album, Full Moon Fever, produced by Jeff Lynne with Petty and Mike Campbell. It was in the Billboard Top Ten chart for over 34 weeks and earned triple-platinum status, along the way spawning such hits as "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'" and "Runnin' Down A Dream."

The Traveling Wilburys — a “supergroup” featuring Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, former Beatle George Harrison and Texas music legend Roy Orbison — released two platinum albums, “The Traveling Wilburys” in 1988 and “Volume Three” in 1990.

Platinum success returned in 1991 when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers released “Into The Great Wide Open” — again with the Lynne/Petty/Campbell production team — from which came the singles "Learning To Fly" and "Into The Great Wide Open," a song that looked at the hollow core of the music biz' star-making machinery.

“Greatest Hits” followed in 1993, featuring the successful track “Mary Jane's Last Dance.” Petty also earned a Grammy Award in 1989 for Best Rock Performance By A Duo or Group With Vocal for his work with the Traveling Wilburys. He also has been honored with 10 nominations since 1981 when he received his first nomination for his song "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" in the category of Best Rock Performance By A Duo or Group With Vocal.

Petty has observed that those who know the Heartbreakers only from their hit singles may not be familiar with the range of styles they have covered, from the Beach Boys influences of tracks like "You Can Still Change Your Mind" to the Nirvana-inspired hard rock of "Come On Down To My House" to various side trips into country, blues, psychedelic and surf music. "People had a mental picture of what we should sound like and if you played them something that didn't sound like 'Refugee' or 'American Girl' or 'Even The Losers' they were puzzled," Petty reflects. "I still go through that."

Discussing the Heartbreakers' underrated place in rock — particularly, that his versatile band often takes a backseat to Bruce Springsteen's more lauded, though arguably more one-dimensional, E Street Band — Petty slyly dances around the issue.

"Better for you to say that than me," he says, again laughing. "I'd say, put anybody up against them and you'll really see what's going on there, you know? The Heartbreakers, it's a multifaceted thing. You've got the hits, the albums, and a whole different personality as a live group. There's a lot of music in those boys."

Though he holds the Heartbreakers in high regard, Petty sensed early that his newly-released album, “Highway Companion,” was shaping up to be a mellow affair and needed to be an intimate solo project. He'd play most of the instruments, rely on Campbell for his trademark lead and slide guitar lines, and tap “Full Moon Fever” co-producer and fellow former Traveling Wilbury Jeff Lynne to produce.

"I knew as the songs were being written that this was going to be a more delicate sort of record," Petty says of the album, which was initially being recorded simultaneously with a new Heartbreakers disc. "I wanted to use the space to my advantage and let the words do the work. And the band was cool about it, because they know we've got this other album that's going to be great."

When that new Heartbreakers record appears, expect to see Petty out there promoting it. He disputes assertions recently in Rolling Stone that he's swearing off interviews and touring. "You can quash that rumor. All I meant was that we're going to take some time off. A lot of projects have accumulated that I want to get done. And I can't get them done if I keep stopping and putting half the year into touring. I just want to finish this tour and get these things done. Give us a year or two; we'll come back."

"All the craft I've picked up and all the life experience I've had rolled into a place where making records is easier," he says. "If I get an idea, I know how to put it down. When I was a kid, that was the struggle. Now I can do what rolls through my head without a lot of effort. It validates the idea of being in rock 'n' roll when you're 55. I feel, what's the word? Relevant!"

"I feel like there's a reason to buy another Tom Petty record. Once you've put out 10 or 12, is there a reason to make more? In any job, you eventually ask yourself, 'What's the point?' I feel I still have something to say and something to contribute."

Petty says that he is relieved and surprised to find himself in this spot 30 years after he and The Heartbreakers released their debut album. Since then, the band has sold more than 50 million albums globally while cementing a reputation as inventive rock traditionalists with unyielding integrity and commitment.

Petty is upbeat as he discusses “Highway Companion.” The first single “Saving Grace” is number one on triple-A and classic rock radio charts. And in this digital age of one-track buys, he has built another carefully sequenced song cycle, a sparse but textured soundscape slashed by Mike Campbell's sterling slide guitar and overlaid by Petty's tales of searching, escaping and yearning.

"These characters are all on the move, leaving home, going home, wondering where home is," Petty says. "It's not a real loud record or an all-out rock fest. It's quieter but not mellow. I wanted to make this for a long time. It's not a record I could have made in the '70s. I wasn't seasoned enough."

“Highway Companion” is nicely balanced between up-tempo rockers and slower ballads. There's several tunes here that stand with Petty's best –- the quirky jingle "Jack," the epic, yearning "Turn This Car Around," the forlorn "Damaged By Love." In "This Old Town," a country sing-along, Petty comments on a town that's collapsing in on itself: "I keep to myself, like everyone else, nobody says much to me." 

Petty's still angry about what he sees as the blandness of modern rock. "I couldn't exist nowadays. I could never have built a career like I've had if I were just starting out now," he says. "Radio doesn't take a chance on anything anymore; they've streamlined the play lists to the lowest common denominator." 

Petty is proud of “Highway Companion,” a close-knit collaboration with Lynne and Campbell, the only other players on the album. Petty revised his writing habits, approaching melodies only after painstakingly finishing lyrics and completing songs before entering the studio. He played guitar, bass, harmonica, keyboards, even drums. "We were like young kids," Petty says. "We never hit any bumps. ‘Wildflowers’ was good, but it was a lot of trial and error. A lot got thrown away. This didn't seem like work."

His joy today sharply contrasts the pressures that clouded recent projects. 2002’s “The Last DJ,” a concept album that took aim at music industry greed, drew heat from all corners of the business. "Yeah, I got beaten up pretty good and halfway expected to be," Petty says. "At that point in my life, I had gotten so upset about all that stuff, and I had a lot to say. It was a relief to have it out of my head. I knew it wasn't going to be popular at the record company, but I think it will stand the test of time."

He's less charmed with 1999's “Echo,” which opens with the grim “Room at the Top,” "one of the most depressing songs in rock history," Petty says. "If anything will make you want to kill yourself...I was in a rough place when I did that record."

Depleted by divorce and other personal blows, Petty opted for a hermitic existence in a ramshackle Los Angeles hideaway. "I had some long periods of severe depression," he says. "I took some hard knocks and retreated from the world and lived in this little cabin. I didn't see a lot of people. I wasn't happy, and I didn't want to lay that on everybody. Even when I was in public, I didn't want to be there, and that's a terrible feeling. It took me a while to want to come back."

Petty, who says he maintains very few close friendships, also was crushed by the deaths of best buddy George Harrison in 2001 and Howie Epstein, who overdosed on heroin in 2003 shortly after being fired from The Heartbreakers. Petty says his saving grace was Dana York, whom he married in 2001. "She saved me from going down the tubes," he says. "She got me to a good place where I did want to rejoin society and keep going. I've got a great girl, and she's strong. It took a strong person to deal with me at that point.”

“It got pretty dire,” explains Petty. “I had a lot of repair work to do with my family and children. I had to grow up in a lot of ways. If you do this all your life, you don't have a normal experience. The rock 'n' roll lifestyle does not encourage you to be responsible. I'm still sorting it out, but I'm on better ground."

A reluctant elder statesman, Petty claims to have little understanding of the industry's modern machinery and doubts he'd survive the rigorous media drills imposed on newbies. Band web sites may be cool, but music on the Internet is "so vast and unfocused," says Petty. "It's impossible to keep up. I miss the idea of record stores." 

Petty is encouraged that music lovers are digging up the past for inspired sounds, but he believes the beloved rock 'n' roll that set fire to his youth has gone the way of jazz and blues and is no longer a driving force in pop music. As a kid in the 1960’s, he reveled in 50’s rock. He says that still looks back, marinating in "the beautiful purity" of Chess label blues and rooting out even older fare he may have overlooked. Likewise, he's a Turner Classic Movies junkie, favoring Howard Hawks and John Ford and sophisticated '40s films.

But that's a luxury his music obsession rarely accommodates. His wife leans on him to slow down, and he might curtail touring duties — to make more records. "I'm really conscious of wasting time. It's funny when you realize there are time limits. I'm impatient now with anything that gets in the way of what I want to do. I want to get everything down. Why would I want to do anything else? Rock & roll is such a good job."

Tickets for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tickets ranges from $79.50 to $59.50 to $29.50. Preferred parking now available for $15 plus service charge. Gates open at 6PM, show time is 7:30.

More to Come at The Woodlands Pavilion: Sunday, August 6, Korn, the Deftones, Stone Sour, Dir en Grey and Flyleaf; KC & the Sunshine Band, Sister Sledge, Tavares and Gloria Gaynor on Friday, August 11; on Friday, August 18, the Dave Matthews Band with O.A.R.; Saturday, Aug 26, UB 40, Toots & the Maytals, Maxi Priest and Third World; Sunday, August 27, clear the decks with Godsmack, Rob Zombie and Shinedown. Friday, September 1, it's 311 with The Wailers and Pepper on Thursday, September 7, it's the Counting Crows and the Goo Goo Dolls; on Saturday, September 30, the Steve Miller Band with Delbert McClinton and Jonny Lang; and on Saturday, October 7, Bonnie Raitt with Keb' Mo...

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