Conversations With Tom Petty

by Paul Zollo

  I produced a record for him once called “Band Of The Hand,” which is a very rare single that I produced for him in Australia. He did it for a movie. I got told about it on the plane. We were landing in Sydney, and he came back and said, ‘I’ve got to do this session tonight, could you produce it?’ So I really hit the ground running in Sydney, and had to book a studio, and find gear, because our gear was someplace else. And get The Heartbreakers in. And we did a track, and we worked pretty hard on it. We worked most of the night on the song. So I don’t know, I think nobody’s exactly one way all of the time.

  Did you ever consider having a Wilburys concert?

  Many times. Yeah. There was always a lot of talk about the Wilburys doing a performance. And then we always talked ourselves out of it.

  Why?

  I don’t know. I guess maybe it was more than we all wanted to take on. I probably would have done it. You know, George often talked about it. Especially when we’d have a few drinks, he’d get very keen on the idea. And then the next day he’d be not so keen on it. I think the general feeling was that it was a little more than what we wanted to take on. Taking that out [Laughs] onto the stage. And traveling around. It’d be a little bit of a circus.

  So there never was a live Wilburys’ performance. But it could have been done. When we played the Royal Albert Hall in London [November 29, 2002] for the Concert For George, and Jeff and I did the Wilburys’ song [“Handle With Care”] with The Heartbreakers and Dhani Harrison, George’s son. We saw that it could be done. And also when we did it again at the [Rock and Roll] Hall of Fame. [George Harrison was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2004. Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne inducted their friend into the Hall and then played Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with several other musicians, including Prince who was also inducted into the Hall of Fame during the same ceremony.] I remember having a very conscious thought of ‘Damn, [George] would have really enjoyed this.’ I think actually George planned for us in get back together and do a concert. And we never did get that done, but we were going to do one show, and film it. And perhaps do an album of that. But the idea of touring with all five of us—there was just no way.

  Why did you choose to mix the albums at George’s home in England?

  It was just a matter of comfort. I think George and Jeff, who were living in both places, England and America, wanted that. George didn’t have a permanent home in America. And I think he was probably anxious to go home. It was like, ‘Okay, I’ve been here for quite a while, it’d be nice to go home and have the luxury of working at home.’ Plus he had a really nice studio that had all the accessories needed to mix the tracks. And I think, just basically, he wanted to be in England.

  It was fun. It was nice going and living in Friar Park and recording. It was lovely. A beautiful place.

  I’ve read that there are beautiful gardens.

  The best I’ve ever seen. [Laughs] Yeah. He really worked on those gardens. He loved his gardens. English gardens, traditionally, are pretty beautiful things. This was no exception. Really quite a place.

  He made the statement that he felt most at home inside the gates of his garden, but when he stepped outside, he didn’t really feel like part of the modern world.

  Yeah. It was this huge, huge compound. I don’t know how many acres it was, but you could walk around for days. And just one beautiful garden after the other. And lakes. We used to take a rowboat, or a little boat with a little engine on it, and ride around the lakes. And there were underground caves, and we’d row the boat through the caves. There was plenty to do. Lots of neat little cabins and shacks and things to go into if it suddenly rained. I remember sitting in those in the rain. It was a great time. I went there many, many times. It was a great place to record. A very nice place to be.

  Was the writing on the second album the same process, trading lines?

  Yeah. Sometimes, even in the first album, sometimes somebody would come in with a chunk of a song. I remember Bob coming in with the song “Congratulations.” And he had quite a bit of it written when he came in. That was an exception, when we finished that off.

  Or “End Of The Line,” I remember George having the chorus. [Sings] “It’s all right…” And then the rest of us came up with words, I think Bob and I came up with that verse. And it was like that, piecing things together. There was always a kind of group meeting around the lyrics.

  It was something you won’t see again, probably. It was a very unusual project. And I just felt really lucky to be part of it.

  Did you ever think of doing a third Wilburys’ album?

  Yes. I just don’t think we could ever get us all in one place. Especially Bob, who had begun his lifelong tour. We’d all made successful records right after that. We’d all done solo records. I had a responsibility to The Heartbreakers. I’d been gone for a long time. I’d done the Wilburys and a solo record [Full Moon Fever], I felt like I should go back and do that. And Bob went on the road.

  So to the end of George’s life, it was always talked about. ‘Yeah, when are we going to do it again? Are we going to do it again?’ It never happened, unfortunately. Even when he was attacked, his line going into the hospital, and his only line to the press, was, ‘Well, I don’t think he was there to audition for the Traveling Wilburys.’ [In December of 1999, George was brutally slabbed in the chest by a “fan” named Mike Abram in his mansion in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England.] Jeff and George and I stayed pretty close. And Bob seemed to always be traveling.

  It was the supergroup of all supergroups, with outstanding people in it. Yet there was always a warmth, humor, and sense of friendliness around it.

  Yeah. That was part of our idea. To keep it light. We wanted to take as much heat off of who we were. Which really could have worked against us as much as for us. But we wanted to keep it light, and we wanted it to be something that warmed the heart. We wanted to make something good in a world that seemed to get uglier and uglier and meaner and meaner. The Wilburys was this nice friendly thing. And I’m really proud that I was part of it. Because I do think that it brought a little sunshine into the world.

  into the great wide open chapter ten

  After the Wilburys, you returned to The Heartbreakers to make the album Into The Great Wide Open, which was produced by Jeff Lynne. How was that—combining Laynne with The Heartbreakers?

  tp: It’s not a bad album. I don’t think it was the best way to work with The Heartbreakers.

  You called it a ‘big mess’ at one point.

  Yeah, it was. It’s a good album. I was in this Wilbury way of working. And it was me trying to drag them into that way of working. Which I don’t think they were happy with.

  How was that different from your usual way of working with them?

  Well, there’s a lot of overdubbing. And they like to just all play live, and take the tracks live. And there were lots of layers and overdubbing. Jeff was involved. I read somewhere that Howie said he just felt like he was being slapped on a Tom Petty/Jeff Lynne record. Which was probably true to some degree. I don’t think they had the input they were used to having. Because Jeff is a formidable presence. And I think they just felt that it’s not really The Heartbreakers. So they weren’t really getting along well during that record. But I still think the record came out good.

  You said, ‘I think I made a big mistake that I didn’t give The Heartbreakers more say.’

  Probably. Probably should have just done it on our own. But Jeff and I were so close, we were really hanging out every day. We were really close. We had done a lot of records in a row together. And it seemed unnatural for me to work without Jeff. But I probably should have had a better overview of things and said, ‘Well, I’ve got to go do The Heartbreakers on my own.’ But I just thought it could work great. What if it worked out great and they really liked Jeff? It didn’t work that great. They felt suppressed. They felt we should be tracking live and making all our own decisions. With all th
e producers we worked with at that point—Cordell and Jimmy Iovine—we had a lot of input. The whole band always had a lot of input. With Jeff, I don’t think they had that kind of input. Which is not to fault Jeff, because he just wanted to make the best record he could. And it was a different way of working. Instead of taking Polaroids, we were oil painting. [Laughs] It was a different way of working.

  You wrote a lot of the songs for that album with Jeff. What was your method of writing together?

  We always wrote nose to nose. Two acoustic guitars. Nose to nose from the ground up. Sitting there and working them out. We had quite a thing going. We were a good songwriting team.

  So, looking back on it, I don’t regret it because a lot of good music was made. It may have been hard on some people’s feelings, and there may have been a little stress within The Heartbreakers, but in the end it was a successful record. Everybody enjoyed that, certainly. And I think it was just another page in our book. It took us down the road to somewhere else.

  It has strong material. And it seemed in some ways an extension of the spirit of Full Moon Fever.

  It was. Which is probably what [The Heartbreakers] didn’t like. They thought, well, that’s a solo record. That’s your thing, it’s not our thing.

  During that time, I think I was trying to do too many things. I think it was when the second Wilburys album was going on, I told The Heartbreakers I could still make a record with you at the same time. And we’ll do that on our own. And I remember going to one session. And Mike and I produced the session we did, a song called “Travelin’.” That song is actually on the boxed set. They hated it. They hated it, hated it, hated it. That was the only session done. It was like, ‘Forget it, see you down the road. We’ll do it another time.’

  I think that record’s fantastic. And that was just The Heartbreakers, no outside anybody. But they didn’t like working the way I wanted to work. They didn’t dig that sound. I don’t know if Mike did, but the others didn’t like it. They said, ‘I don’t like this. It doesn’t sound like us.’ I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I thought, ‘It is us.’ And when I hear that record now, I’m really sorry we didn’t put it out on an album. It wasn’t even discovered again until the boxed=set project came along, and they started going through the tape vaults. And George Drakoulias found it, and said, ‘God, this is amazing!’ I said, ‘Yeah, [Laughs] it is.’ There was a statement someone made that whenever three or four Heartbreakers were in a room, it was a good time, but when you had all five together, it was work.

  [Much laughter] Yeah. All five in a room, it got serious then. To get all five in one place, then things could get really serious. Get three of them, or two of them, no problem. Like I said, we grew up as young men together. We went back, in some cases, all the way to high school. So you know what that’s like, when you get everybody in one place, then it becomes official, right? It’s like, we’re working. We’re here. I think that was what was meant by that.

  But there’s a deep love between us. Those original five. We were really close. As much as we could fight, I’m sure there’s a deep respect among all of us. And a lot of love for each other. There was never anything in it that was malicious. We never did anything that was meant to be cruel or mean. But we were under a lot of stress sometimes. [Laughs] And things got really serious sometimes. And the thing got really big. I think it’s probably true of most groups in that situation that you’ve got to handle a lot of people’s personalities and egos. It’s always a little bit of a balancing act. But as rock ‘n’ roll groups go, I think The Heartbreakers got along really well.

  You’re still essentially together.

  Yes. There’s still four of us there. So, that’s pretty good.

  What was it like returning to The Heartbreakers, after being in a group of musicians trading roles? With The Heartbreakers, you’re the main guy.

  It was different, because The Heartbreakers are not as cheerful as the Wilburys. [Laughs] It’s not the same vibe. Where I’d come from this gregarious bunch of people, The Heartbreakers are more introverted and not really a slaphappy bunch of people. But it was nice to be back. It was like putting on an old suit of clothes again. They’re such a great band, which is what I think struck me. I felt, ‘Damn, these guys are really good.’ It was great to be back with them and to go on the road with them.

  These were great times. We were really having a good time. So as I remember it, when I went back it was great. I think they were happy that I was back. Because I don’t think they were completely sure I would come back. I think they had their doubts. I don’t think it was ever voiced to me, but I think it was voiced to other people, that they weren’t sure I would come back. But I always intended to come back.

  Did you tell them that?

  Yeah. I always tried to reassure them: ‘Look, I’m coming back.’ But I think they were a little insecure that I was having a lot of fun somewhere else. And I don’t blame them. I would have thought the same thing. Especially with the solo album tagged on.

  But it was good for me. I needed to get away from The Heartbreakers. I needed to have that freedom that I hadn’t had for so many years. To do anything else. It was always having to come up with a bunch of songs, and take them to The Heartbreakers, and practice them, and make a record, and do a tour afterward, and then the whole cycle would start again. That went on year after year. And this was a nice break from that. I think I came back to The Heartbreakers with a lot of new input that I learned when I was away. New recording techniques, I was a much bolder songwriter, I think, in a lot of ways. So I think I learned from going away.

  And they learned as well. They didn’t just sit dormant. They did a lot of things. Stan and Mike both worked with Don Henley. Mike wrote “Boys Of Summer” [with Henley], Stan wrote “Last Worthless Evening” and a couple of other ones with Don, and he became kind of a lifelong friend of Don’s. That year at The Grammys, all competing for Best Album, was the Wilburys’ album [Traveling Wilburys, Vol 1], Full Moon Fever, Don Henley’s album [Building The Perfect Beast]—and a big chunk of that was The Heartbreakers—and Bonnie Raitt [Nick Of Time]. And I think we all canceled each other out. And Bonnie Raitt won. Not to take anything away from her, because she’s really talented, too. But I was quite proud of that. I thought, ‘We’ve really put out a lot of music, these five boys.’ And at the same time Howie won a Grammy for the John Prine album [The Missing Years] he produced, and won the Best Folk Album Grammy. So they weren’t really sitting on their thumbs. They had a lot going on themselves.

  So when we came back together, I think it was kind of nice. Everyone felt that it was really good, and we really appreciated it.

  Benmont was busy too?

  Yeah, Benmont was doing all kinds of session work. I know he wrote a little bit with Don [Henley] and he played on a whole bunch of albums during that period. He played with U2.

  They also, all of them, were working on the Roy Orbison album. And Mike was even producing part of the Roy Orbison album. Mike produced a good third of that record. So all of them were doing that. Stan was doing an album with Roger McGuinn. It was this interchangeable bunch of people who were all friends. But there was a lot of music going on at that time. For us, The Heartbreakers. There was a huge creative buzz going on. We were making a lot of music all over the place. Just Jeff and I alone, we were singing on people’s records, singing with Randy Newman [“Falling In Love,” from Land Of Dreams]. We played the track to that, sang the harmonies, Jeff produced it. We were doing the stuff on the Roy Orbison album, wrote “You Got It,” Roy’s single, and cut the track, and sang that. We were doing all kinds of things. Even Jim Horn, the sax player, he played on a lot of the Wilburys’ stuff, and I remember Jeff and I doing a track with him. Del Shannon. We were busy guys, but we were happy guys and we were always working with friends. Nice bunch of people.

  You’ve written so many songs with Mike, but Stan was a songwriter as well. Did he ever give you songs to work on?

  I don�
��t remember Stan ever submitting a song to me.

  Why not?

  I don’t know. Stan’s a curious kind of personality. Stan’s not the kind of person you could look at and know right where you are with him. Like say, Ben. I know right where I am with him. Stan, I don’t think I ever knew right where I was with him. But he never brought me a song. And the truth is, I had so many songs, it probably was hard for them to get in the door with anything.

  But Mike got in that door so many times.

  Yeah. But that was a partnership that went way back, many, many years. And even Mike would get two or three a record. But I don’t remember the other guys really ever coming up with anything for me. And it was probably because I had so many things of my own. And I don’t know if I was that receptive, really.

  Ben and I wrote a song once that went all the way to Number One on the Country charts for Rosanne Cash, called “Never Be You.”

  We cut it, but never released it. That’s the one and only song we ever wrote together. [Laughs] Though we probably should write more. But I’ve just got such an overflow of music all the time that I want to get done. But I am open. If some-body had a great idea, I would do it.

  Look at Howie. Here’s a guy who played bass in The Heartbreakers. Until I heard the John Prine record, I never knew that Howie had all that going on. ‘Cause he was very quiet, and he was never the kind of person to blow his own horn at all. But he was extremely talented. That’s a great, great album.

  Oh, you know what else was going on at that time? They did an album [I Fell In Love, 1990] with Carlene Carter, Howie’s girlfriend. Which turned out to be a hit album. And I think Ben was very involved in that, and Howie produced that, and Ben and Howie wrote another Country hit for her. It was called, “I Fell In Love.” So they were plugged into that. Ben, I think, was hanging at Howie’s house. The Heartbreakers are big on recording in houses.