by Paul Zollo
Did you break the wall?
No. [Laughs] The wall was fine. And I suddenly had a hand as big as Mickey Mouse. It was really scary. I went to the hospital. And they said, ‘You’re going to have to go to a specialist.’ And I went to the specialist, and by that point my hand was so big, it had swollen up so bad. The guy said, right away, with me and Tony there, ‘Well, I’ll tell ya—if you were a carpenter, or a plumber, I wouldn’t be concerned. But I’m not sure we’ll be able to get your mobility back in your fingers.’ People said, ‘He’s broken his hand and he’ll never play again.’ And I didn’t buy that. I thought, ‘I will play again.’
So I had a big-time operation on my hand, and it’s filled with metal studs where there’s no bone. And then they wrapped wire around. It was really an amazing operation. And the guy completely rebuilt my hand. I was in the hospital for a bit. And I just stopped recording and then I had therapy for almost eight months on my hand. And exercising it. Even electro-shock therapy—it hurt so had to move your fingers that the brain won’t let you do it. So they’d run an electric shock through there that moves the fingers.
It was quite an experience. I went through a long time of not having a hand to use. I finished the album that way. That was the end of the double album. And it was just, ‘Okay, we have to finish what we have.’ I couldn’t play anymore.
That sobered me up. That was the end of the partying, and the end of any vices. I nearly took myself out of the game here. So that was the end of that. I got Jimmy Iovine to return and complete Southern Accents.
It’s a great album.
Yeah. It came out good, I think. But in my mind I’m always missing the next disc. [Laughs] I was always thinking there was going to be more to it that I didn’t cover. I don’t think it’s really a good concept record because it doesn’t cover enough. But it’s a good record to hear.
Were you ever happy with how “Rebels” turned out?
No.
It became a hit.
Yeah. I still think it could have been better. I don’t think the vocal’s that good on it. I could have sang it better. I think it’s kind of blurry and garbled. I think I could have enunciated it better.
Did you sing it after your accident?
I can’t remember. Now what I would have done is taken that vocal from the demo, and just built the record around that. But I didn’t have that kind of craft then. I wasn’t smart enough to do that. I kept thinking I had to do it again because it wasn’t recorded that well. Now I think I would have either just put it out like that, or built it around the vocal. I don’t think I ever sang it as good as I did on that demo.
You know my roadie, Bugs, we’d be driving along. And he said, ‘I still can’t listen to that record. [Laughs] I still can’t listen to “Rebels” because it reminds me of night after night after night. And how frustrating it was.’
After you hurt your hand, was it a long time before you could play a chord again on a guitar?
It was almost eight months. I don’t know if I could have made a chord or not at some point, but before I had any dexterity in my hand, it was about eight months. But I always thought in my mind that I would do it.
You had no fear of losing your ability to use that hand?
Of course I had a little fear. But I always thought I could do it. Though my hand is a little more limited than it was then. I don’t quite have the same range of motion in my hand. I’ve got this thing where the front fingers kind of pull [Laughs] the little finger a little bit. So I think it hampered me a little.
Did it affect your guitar playing?
A little bit. I had to learn a new way of playing. I had to practice a lot, and just find ways around the limitations. So it was a bad idea to break my hand. [Laughs]
You said you were doing a lot of cocaine. Did that affect your songwriting?
No. I think it affected my breaking my hand.
Did you cut a song with Denny Cordell for Southern Accents?
Yeah, but it wasn’t used. And it was a really great track. It’s on the boxed set. It’s called “The Image Of Me.” A Conway Twitty song. And we did a really different arrangement of it. It’s one of my favorite things that we ever recorded. It’s really good. That was when the album was going to be a double album. We hadn’t seen Denny in quite a while, and he showed up. And we did that at my house. And he brought the song, and turned me on to that song. And he was funny, because he wouldn’t let us punch in. There was no dropping in. You had to do everything live right from the go. We were used to, if you made a mistake in the vocal, to come back and punch in halfway through or something. But he wouldn’t allow that. He wanted an absolutely live performance.
That got cut when you decided to make a single album instead of a double?
Yeah, there were a few things that got left over. We’ve always had this enormous vault of leftover things. There was always more, at least in those days—past Torpedoes—On Torpedoes there was nothing left over; we used literally everything we did. But from Hard Promises on out, there’s always been a lot of stuff left over.
I understand at this time Mike gave you the track which became Don Henley’s “Boys Of Summer” and you turned it down. True?
Yeah. He brought that track in, which became the Don Henley record. But he had done everything on that track. I remember telling him the chorus was wrong. [Laughs] The chorus was wrong. It went to minor instead of major. I remember sitting at the piano and showing him that if it went major there when the chorus comes, it would be much more effective. Then he made me a tape of it that I had, where the chorus just drops out. There was nothing but a backbeat. For me to write a chorus for it. But I never could, or I was just too distracted, to get around to it.
So you did work on it?
Briefly. It sounded so different to me than anything on Southern Accents that when he came to me and said, ‘Well, Don Henley really wants this track. Would you mind if I gave it away, because I really want to do something with it?’ I said, ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ because we were going to bring out “Don’t Come Around Here No More” as a single. I think [Mike] played everything on that track [“Boys Of Summer”]. And Don sang over it. So he was having a big hit at the same time that Southern Accents came out. I was happy for him. I’m glad it worked out for him.
Do you like how the song came out?
Yeah. It’s a classic song. It really came out good.
Did they end up going to the major on the chorus?
Yeah, they did. [Laughs]
When Mike gives you a track, does he sing on it, or is it totally instrumental?
It’s totally instrumental.
So you write the melodies and words to his tracks.
Yeah, sometimes I even write a bridge, or change a chord here or there.
Do you work to the tape?
He’ll give me a tape, but what I like to do is learn it on piano or guitar. Then I work on it that way. Because that gives me the luxury of going somewhere else. If you work just with the tape, it can get a little monotonous. Though I did do that on “Refugee.” I worked right to his tape. Which was really different than the way we recorded it. Different arrangement.
Do you have lyrics in mind when you’re writing to one of Mike’s tracks, or do you allow the music itself to dictate what the words should be?
I start cold. I just start cold. If something’s there that I get a feel for, it starts to happen. And if I don’t, I just don’t pursue it.
So there’s lots of his tracks you pass on?
Oh, he writes hundreds of tracks. I mean. God, he writes so many. He’ll give me a tape with twenty things on it. Of which maybe I’ll find one or two [Laughs] that I can work with. But he writes in bulk. Track after track.
I remember writing [“Refugee”] really quickly to his tape. The words came really quick. And that bridge was on the tape. I just had to come up with a melody, really. I don’t think he saw it the same way as me, where the chorus would go. But it worked out great.
&n
bsp; That’s how we write together. We never sit down face-to-face. He usually gives me a tape, and if I find something on the tape I think I can work with, I’ll take that and learn it myself and then work that way. And then when we go into the studio, we may or may not refer to the demo tape. Sometimes we’ll just play it completely different. And then sometimes we will refer to the tape, and say, ‘Oh, this is good, let’s try to make it like that.’
runaway trains chapter eight
Soon after making the album in 1985, you toured on Southern Accents, released a live album [Pack Up The Plantation], and you met Bob Dylan. You played with him at Farm Aid?
tp: I suppose it was right after that. Benmont had been doing some sessions with Bob Dylan. So he knew Bob. I didn’t know Bob, though I had met him before.
Where did you meet him?
Strangely enough, I met him in ‘77 or ‘78. We went to see him [in concert]. Me and Bugs got two comps to see Bob Dylan. We left the Shelter studio, and we went to drive to the Universal Amphitheater, had a flat tire, and both of us got out on the road trying to change the tire. So we were just covered with grease and dirt. And we got to the Universal Amphitheater and we found our seats, and the show had just begun. And then midway through the show, Bob introduced the celebrities in the audience, which was kind of unusual for Bob.
It was like, ‘Johi Mitchell’s here,’ and there’d be applause. And then suddenly he said, ‘Tom Petty’s here.’ And there was applause. And that was the first time it really hit me that people knew who we were. Because I’d only made two records then. Then a guy came up to us while we were sitting in our seats, and said, ‘Bob would like you to come backstage.’ So we went backstage, and had a brief conversation. Nothing of any substance, because we didn’t know each other. But I met Bob. So I had been introduced to him. A few years later Ben and Mike had been playing with Bob on some of his sessions.
Bob had not been touring much at the time. And a little bit to my surprise, Elliot Roberts [one of the band’s former managers] said to me, ‘I was talking to Bob today, and he wanted to know if you guys would back him up at Farm Aid.’
Live Aid had recently happened, which we played. And that was a big spectacle. [Live Aid took place on July 13, 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. These simultaneous benefit concerts drew dozens of performers who raised money for the victims of famine in Ethiopia. The event was organized by Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats.] I remember being back-stage and there seemed like miles of dressing rooms, of trailers. We were put in an area where it was Bob Dylan and Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and Led Zeppelin and us. And we were all out there around a picnic table watching the show on television backstage.
And then Bob went on just before the finale with only acoustic guitars, and there were people tuning up behind the curtain, and it was a pretty disastrous set. And he said something during the concert about that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to raise some money for farmers. So Willie Nelson, hearing that, went to Bob and said, ‘Hey, why don’t we throw one of these for farmers?’
So Bob, this time, didn’t want to play acoustic, he wanted to have a band. He wanted to have an electric band behind him. So we went down and we rehearsed. We rehearsed a lot. And played a lot of songs. And he loved The Heartbreakers. It was quick and easy. You could throw something out, and The Heartbreakers were pretty good at just grabbing it and going with it. We rehearsed and learned more songs than we needed for the show.
Would he lead the rehearsals?
Oh yeah. He would lead the rehearsals. He would just play us a little bit of what he wanted to do, and he would play it on guitar so we could see what the changes were. And then we’d just start to play. And he kind of got it to where he wanted it to be.
So we went to Champaign, Illinois. It was in a big football field [Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois]. That was a lot of fun because it was much better than Live Aid to me, because I didn’t like a single act that I saw in Live Aid. It was so crappy. Maybe I’m wrong, but I didn’t like it. I liked Led Zeppelin. [Laughs] Jimmy Page actually took me by the arm and walked us to the side of the stage to watch them, so we enjoyed that. But it didn’t seem like our kind of show, the people that we really liked. Farm Aid really was [our type of show]. There were all these really cool people. Roy Orbison was on it, Johnny Cash, The Beach Boys, Randy Newman. You name it, they were all there. It was an incredible show.
So we came on at Farm Aid, and we played a short set. And then Dylan came on, and we backed him up, and it went really well. And then afterwards in the trailer, Bob came back, and said, ‘Hey, what would you think of doing a tour? I’ve got a tour of Australia [1986] I want to do and what would you guys think of doing that?’ And we’d all been huge Dylan fans, and we were very intrigued by the idea of playing with Bob. So off we went. And that went on for two years. We’d do part of it, and then more would get added on, and then more would get added on. We really did the world with Bob.
You were interweaving your songs with his songs?
At first we didn’t play many songs of ours. We’d only do four or five in the show. And it’d be like when Bob fell like it. He’d say, ‘Hey, I’m going to let The Heartbreakers do a number now.’ And we’d do a couple of numbers. That’d be it. Maybe again later in the set we’d do a couple more.
That went on about a year. And then, later in the tour, he thought people were going to want to hear more from us. Then we got to do a forty-five-minute set.
Then Roger McGuinn was added to the show. He would open the show up acoustic, and then we would do our bit, and then Bob would come on after an intermission, and we’d back Bob up. But, you know, we were huge McGuinn fans, too, so this was like kids in a candy store. And we had known Roger for a while. He got added to the show, and then we all felt like we just can’t sit here and watch him do these Byrds songs alone with an acoustic. So we quickly became Roger’s band as well [Laughs] and we did the Byrds’ stuff. Which was a great thrill, to do that. And so we did the Byrds’ stuff, and then we’d do our show, and then there’d be an intermission and we’d do Bob’s show. Which sometimes could be a two-hour show. So by the end of the night, man, we had played a lot. We were onstage the entire show, just about, except for a period where we’d leave the stage and Bob would do four or five alone. And he was great, he was really great.
When you backed up Dylan, you did his original arrangements of his songs?
If you’re going to play with Bob, it’s a little like playing with a jazz artist. They may improvise a little. I don’t know if he does that anymore, but in those days he would improvise. Or maybe do a song with Benmont suddenly that we didn’t really know. But he trusted Benmont, I know. I remember he did an Inkspots number one night with Ben that was really good. But we didn’t know it, and we knew not to play.
Would he sing his songs the same way each time?
I think he’d sing them the way we’d been rehearsing them at that time. And we rehearsed a lot.
It’s surprising, because one doesn’t think of Dylan as liking to rehearse very much. But he didn’t mind rehearsal?
No. We would rehearse a lot. A lot of songs we rehearsed we didn’t play. But we were a good unit. We had a real backlog of songs. He has a lot of material, and we knew a lot of material. And some nights we’d do a different show. Every night we’d usually do something we hadn’t done. It wasn’t like I’ve heard people say that you can’t play with Bob because he’s so erratic. But he wasn’t. He was professional. He knew what the show was going to be, and we usually knew what the show was going to be.
You said that after shows you like to get out of the venue immediately, and not gladhand backstage. Was Dylan the same way?
Yeah. I think so. Bob highly values his privacy, and has to go through a little bit of struggle to have it. So he was the same way. We were always like that. Maybe in the very earliest years we didn’t take off, but at least by the Damn The Torpedoes period I got right out of the bui
lding. I’ve never wanted to do that hang around after the show thing.
I know some people, they’ll hang around until the last person is gone. Just to hear how wonderful they were. But I can’t really have a conversation with somebody about what’s going on here or there as soon as the show’s over. I’m miles above the crowd with my adrenaline. So you find yourself smiling and nodding. But it’s all false. You’re not really even hearing them. Record companies hate it, because I don’t greet people. I’ve even heard that I’m aloof or arrogant. But I’m not. My brain won’t deal with that. It can’t. It’s too fragile. [Laughs] I can’t deal with people before the show or after.
And it’s a great effort to sometimes go out and meet sick children, or the odd person who has to be met, or celebrities that have come. They all feel that you should say hello to them. And on a normal night, I’d be more than happy to hang out and talk. But when I’ve got that job to do, I’ve got to get myself into a certain place mentally, which takes a little time. And then afterwards, it takes a long time to come down from it.
We learned really early on, too, not to get into a huddle after the show and talk about everything that went wrong. Because everybody is going to see the show differently. We can fight all night about it, but it’s not going to make any difference to what’s gone down. It’s already gone down. [Laughs] And there was never a night when the audiences weren’t just incredibly ecstatic at the whole thing. We always had really good audiences. And we always went over great. So we figured out that there’s not much point in arguing if the audience is going crazy. So we would really give each other our notes on the show the next day, usually at the sound check. We’d say, ‘This could be done better,’ or ‘Maybe we should change this.’ That would all go on the next day. We didn’t stay in the room and argue about it like I’ve seen a lot of groups do.
Dylan is such a mysterious guy. Did he remain mysterious when you worked with him, or did you get to know him?
