Conversations With Tom Petty

by Paul Zollo

  So there was really a lot of music going on. And a lot of it really successful. But The Heartbreakers are really talented people. To tap everything that they can do would have been impossible within the framework of one album. So I don’t think me leaving for that period of time was a bad thing. We all came back a little broader than we were when it started.

  Did Jeff encourage you to do another solo album, or did in like the idea of bringing in the band?

  It was kind of like, ‘It has to be this way, Jeff. I’ve ignored them for a long time, and I’ve got to work with them now. I’ve got to make a record with them. But I’d like for you to be involved, too.’ And he was very involved, especially in the songwriting.

  It does sound like his production style.

  Yeah. It does have Jeff’s stamp on it. But I don’t think it hurt the album. I think we made a good album. And I think in the end they were kind of proud of it when it was done. That’s the paradox of the whole thing. I think they were kind of pleased with it. And it did well for us, and we went on to perform everything live. And I know they were happy with things like “Learning To Fly” and “Into The Great Wide Open.” So I think whatever their hang-ups were kind of dissipated once the record was done. Then they felt good about it.

  It has a continuation of that magic sound of Full Moon Fever.

  Yeah. Maybe to a fault. We had really done a lot of that sound at that point. If you count two Wilbury records, the Roy Orbison record… We worked together a lot. And I think it was after that that we said we were gonna give each other a rest for a while. But, God, it was a long streak of good music.

  Absolutely. Did you write all the songs for the album before you started doing the sessions for it?

  I think so, yeah. I think I wrote quite a bit before we came in.

  The title of the album and “Learning To Fly” both imply that anything’s possible. Is that how you were feeling?

  Yeah. I think it was like “Into The Great Wide Open.” [Laughs] It’s a pretty positive, uplifting album. I think I was in a good, happy spot at that time. I wanted to do something, maybe subconsciously, that reflected that. You don’t always know exactly where you’re headed. You just start writing. And some-times it’s only in retrospect that you look back and see what was on your mind. But when you’re in the thick of it, I think if you think about it too much, you’ll just stop cold in your tracks. If you start thinking, ‘Oh, I’m writing an optimistic album,’ boom, I’d stop. So I try not to give that too much thought and just go with what’s coming.

  I love the song “King’s Highway,” which is another optimistic song.

  That one we’ve performed quite a bit. I like that, too.

  There’s great acoustic version of it on the boxed set.

  Yeah, it works both ways. It’s a good song. It’ll work just about any way you want to play it. I don’t know where it came from, but I know I was pleased with it when I got it. It was a tricky one to record. We went through a few changes trying to get the track to sound the way we wanted. To get the right arrangement. But it came out well with Mike playing that great solo. It’s really stirring, with a lot of emotion in it. I think that kind of made the record happen.

  Of course, there aren’t many songs you can point to in which his solos aren’t stirring. His playing is phenomenal.

  [Laughs] Yeah, that’s probably true. He can really just raise the quality of some-thing so fast. And those solos really are stirring. It’s almost like another voice. He’s a really good player.

  Do you leave it to him to come up with the solos, or do you ever suggest what he might play?

  We kind of put our heads together a lot of the time. Jeff and I would throw ideas at him. We’d say, ‘How about something like this?’

  And he’d say, ‘How about something like this?’

  And we’d usually say, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s much better than what we thought.’ But we all kind of put our heads together and give the solo quite a bit of attention.

  But with someone like Mike, it’s good to just let him have his way, and see where he’s gonna go. That would be our first approach. To just let Mike go where he wants to go. And then we refine it from there.

  Did you and Jeff equally produce the album?

  We were both neck in neck. And Mike was certainly involved, too.

  Did Stan and Jeff get along during the making of the album?

  Yeah. Everybody was very cordial. But I know them so well. Without anything even being said, I kind of know how they feel. And it was my feeling that they might have been a little intimidated, or feeling that I’m dragging them onto my boat instead of coming onto theirs. Which was completely true. I was dragging them onto my boat. But I thought that was the right thing to do for the band.

  somewhere you feel free chapter eleven

  You said that Wildflowers is the album that is most like you. That it’s the closest album to your musical soul.

  tp: Yeah, that’s probably a true statement. I think it kind of hits every area of music that really speaks to me. It’s got a little rock, some blues, some folk. And I think it’s maybe my favorite LP that I’ve ever done. Though I’m kind of partial to a few of them. But, I think as a whole, it’s a real long piece of music—it’s almost seventy minutes long—but that’s the one that really gets me when I hear it. I can kind of go, ‘Wow, I’m really proud of that. That came out exactly like I wanted it to.’

  What are the other albums you like the best?

  The obvious ones. I like Full Moon Fever. Damn The Torpedoes. Damn The Torpedoes I think is a classic record, and will always be around. It really broke some ground as far as sound and creating a style of music. That one I’m very proud of. I always like to hear it. And I thought that Full Moon Fever was a really good album. It had a really good sound. And then Wildflowers I think was a more mature record than some of the stuff we did early on. But that was us. That was where I’d arrived. That was where I was really at the top of my game as far as craft and inspiration colliding at the same moment. And that one I think I’m most happy with.

  Wildflowers, maybe more than any of your albums, really reflects what a wide range you have as a songwriter—there are rock songs, tender songs, funny songs, sad ones, all with wonderful melodies and great tracks. It’s an amazing album.

  It was a lot of work. Two years. And She’s The One is almost Volume II of Wildflowers. There’s a lot more than came out. Again. But yeah, I felt right in the pocket there. I was right in the zone, and I got a lot of good work done. We were very determined to bring that thing home. It was a good period of time. I also wrote “Many Jane’s Last Dance” and a few other things during that period. I was demoing everything. I was using an 8-track machine, and doing demos of everything that I did. Then I’d bring in this pretty good picture of what I wanted the record to be. Like “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” I literally had everything worked out: The bass, the lead guitar, everything, the harmonica. Exactly as it was going to go. And I did that on almost every track, I think. That would be an interesting album to put out—the 8-tracks. They really are close to what came out.

  Wildflowers has beautifully tasteful orchestrations by the late Michael Kamen.

  Yeah, God bless him, Michael. He was a very talented guy. He was a friend, too. We brought him in to do the string arrangements and the orchestra. And he was really great. We’d go over to his house, and he’d play us his ideas on a keyboard. Then we’d give him our input, and he would make it all work. And then when we came to record it, right there on the floor, he could make the changes. If something was working or not working, he could make adjustments. It was done really well. I miss him. He died recently. [November 18, 2003, of an apparent heart attack. He was 55 years old.] It’s a shame. He was a really great musician.

  So you were in on the sessions with the orchestra?

  Yes, I was there. I was right on the floor. It was a thrill. Anytime you get to work with an orchestra, God, it’s a thrill. Something I could ha
ve never have dreamt of in childhood, that I would have that kind of experience. Being in there with all those instruments and that great sound. It’s really impressive to write something and then hear an orchestra play it. [Laughs] So Mike and I went to the string sessions. And we didn’t have to have a lot of changes; it was pretty well worked out. He was very good at getting what he had in his head down.

  Beautiful arrangements.

  Beautiful. “Wake Up Time.” Good, what a great arrangement he did on that song. Somewhere I have a tape of just the strings from that. I used to play that around the house.

  The orchestra is mixed into the track in a beautiful, tender way.

  Well, there was a lot of care put into the mix. We were almost neurotic with the mix.

  Mike plays bass on much of the album.

  Yeah. I played bass on “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” but he was our main bass player for that.

  You spoke of getting to that place where songs start coming in. Does that happen more when you’re on a songwriting roll, and writing all the time?

  I find if I’m at a session, say, and the session is going really well, I’ve got a lot of adrenaline going. Especially if I’m going to sing. You’ve got to really work up a lot of adrenaline, just like you would in a show. And when I come home from the sessions, even to this day, I’m really wired. I’m gonna be up for a while. Because there’s so much energy that’s been built up. And I really do write well then. I start thinking, ‘Ah, this would be fun to do tomorrow.’ And I can hear how this would sound. And then I tend to write things. It’s hard to find that kind of energy if you’re not working. Or if the band plays, if we are rehearsing or some-thing, I can come home and be inspired enough to find some music. So it really helps if you’ve got that kind of adrenaline going. Because you’re gonna have to work it up. You can’t do it half-assed.

  There’s been times when I could feel something coming, and I was so tired I didn’t even want to do it. Because I knew I was going to be up another four hours if I did it. But I always did it. Because that would just be rude [Laughs] to ignore the muse. But there have been times when I’ve been really tired, and I say, ‘Wow, here comes another four hours.’

  And you can find the energy to get through those hours?

  Yeah. And more. Because if it should go well, you’re going to be so buzzed, you’re not gonna relax for quite a while.

  Having The Heartbreakers energizes and inspires a lot of the writing?

  Yeah. They’re so great. I’m so spoiled to have a group like that. I don’t even think I knew it for years, but the truth is that they’re almost too good. Because they’ll give you so much. If you play them a progression of chords, they’re gonna give you so much over that progression of chords that it’s gonna take a little time to just sort it out, and pare it back to just what the bare bones should be. They’ll give you twenty versions of it in thirty minutes. So what you do is that you take a hit from each take. You go, ‘Now this was a really great idea—let’s cut this back here—but that intro we played there was really great.

  So let’s do that. This wasn’t so good.’ It’s like that.

  Even Benmont alone. If you just sat down with Benmont alone and played a song five times, he’s gonna play it five different ways that are all great. Each time there’s gonna be something that you want to keep.

  So, yes, they really inspire me, and I count on them a lot.

  Getting to that source of the songs, is that different when working on Mike’s songs?

  Not really, because you’ve got to come to the same place eventually. It’s got to be a good song. It’s the old fishing analogy: You can tell the fish story, but if you can’t produce the fish, it doesn’t matter, right? So you can talk about how close you came with the song [Laughs] but you’ve got to have it. Even if you had your pole in the water all day, you’ve got to have the fish. So with Mike, it’s got to come out good. I’ve got to work up the same energy to make it happen.

  You’ve said Mike gives you lots of tracks on every tape. Do you listen to the whole tape, or do you stop when you hear something that is going to work for you?

  I usually listen to all of it. But I usually go for the things that immediately grab me, something that seems immediate, some kind of sense that I relate to this. Because his output is enormous. He really does a lot of music. It’s a complete different theory from the way I work. I don’t write nearly as much. And if I’m writing something that’s not going well, I’ll just pitch it. I pitch a lot of songs. I can write a song this afternoon, but it doesn’t mean it will amount to anything, so I’ll just pitch it.

  But will you finish it first?

  Sometimes. And then sometimes I feel it’s just not that great. I do it all the time. I’ll be here in the studio, and I’ll have an idea, and I might spend the whole day doing the track. And then I’ll feel it’s not really that good. So it just goes in the outtake file. But sometimes you’ll do that, and maybe it wasn’t that good, but one little bit of it was. And so you go, ‘Okay, let’s keep that one little bit. Maybe those two lines, or that one bit of melody was really good.’ And that can start you on another journey, to where maybe something really good is going to appear. I don’t bring [the band] anything until I’ve really worked on it a lot and feel pretty confident about it. Most of the time. There are times when I’ve brought in a sketch. But usually I’ve pretty much hammered it out before I bring it to the band.

  Do you tape yourself while writing?

  Yes, always. Not while I’m writing, but as soon as I get an idea. Especially these days that I’m old and decrepit, [Laughs] my memory’s not nearly as good. So as soon as I have a melody and a chord pattern, I’ll tape it with my little tape recorder. And every time I finish a song, I always record it. Because the next day, you might remember a song. But you might not remember the feel—the space you were in when you wrote it. So it’s good to put it down. Even if it’s only on a cassette or something. You have something to refer to. So I often refer to the tape that was from the night I wrote it. Let me come back and just see where I was at. Maybe I was phrasing something different. I always say it’s a good rule to always record what you’re doing.

  Roy Orbison used to say to me, ‘Well, if you can’t remember it, who the hell else is going to remember it?’ But I don’t completely buy that. [Laughs] Because I can forget what I did, exactly what I did.

  Randy Newman said it’s dangerous, while writing, to judge it, because then you are allowing the critic to become bigger than the creator.

  Yeah. I only use the tape recorder as a memory device. It’s just something that, should I forget it, I can return to. But I don’t use the tape while I’m working. Because, it’s like he says, all of a sudden you’re a critic and not a songwriter. It’s best to sit down and try to finish the whole song.

  All the lyrics, too?

  The whole thing. It’s best to at least come as close as you can to doing the whole thing. Because when you come back to it, you’re gonna be in a different frame of mind and it can be much more difficult to write that third verse if you’re doing it a week later.

  Dylan told me that reconnecting with an old idea can be one of the saddest and hardest things to do.

  It is, sometimes. I’ve done it successfully. “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” I did it. The chorus was written much later.

  But that’s unusual for you.

  It was unusual, and I don’t think I would have done it if not for Rick Rubin pushing me to do it. I don’t think I’d have drifted there naturally. That one came out good.

  You didn’t print the lyrics on Damn The Torpedoes, but you have on most of your albums. How do you feel about printing the lyrics to the songs?

  I never got a Rolling Stones album with the lyrics on it.

  The Beatles had them.

  True. I should always have them, because my diction’s not that good. And my phrasing tends to stretch words, so sometimes people have different ideas of what I’m singing. Whe
n Linda Ronstadt did “The Waiting,” she phoned me, because she couldn’t figure out all the words. It was the line, “No one could have ever told me about this…” She couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. And I thought, ‘Damn, I’ve got to try to enunciate better.’

  You have so many powerful melodies that you’ve written. Any idea what makes a melody work?

  I think it’s as simple as, can you hum it in your head? Does it do something to you when you hear it? Is it a friendly thing? Do you want to hear it again? Easily said though not so easily found, sometimes. But a song doesn’t have to have a melody. You can do a song with one note. I like them to have melodies. Somewhat. Some more than others. I think the melody really defines the song. And the chords you find, and the rhythms you find, they’re really there to support that melody. Though sometimes writing, we might work the exact opposite way. Have a chord progression, and then find a melody. But they must support the melody. It’s very important.

  Wildflowers was another solo album; this one produced by Rick Rubin. Why did you decide to make another solo album?

  Rick Rubin.

  How did you meet him?

  I think he had called Tony and said he would love to be involved with us if we were ever interested. So we invited him over to the studio one day, and we hung out, and we instantly got along really well. And I think that Rick and I both wanted more freedom than to be strapped into five guys. We wanted to be able to do whatever we wanted, really, as far as bringing in this guy or that guy. With a Heartbreakers’ record, you can’t bring in a different bass player or a different drummer. So I wanted that freedom, and we did play with a lot of different musicians, and we even did a lot of trial and error with different musicians, auditioned people for the record. And that record really was a great, great time. It was a lot of work.

  It’s a great record.

  It’s my favorite, I think, of all of them. I think it’s my favorite, just overall. We intended it to be two CDs, and we worked almost two years recording it. And writing it. And I wrote a hell of a lot of songs. And we recorded twenty-one songs or twenty-two. Bugs, at our rehearsal room, has a big chart on the wall that he kept, which used to be in the studio, that has each song title, and then what that song needed to be completed. As bass was done, it would be checked off. And this and that. Orchestra, checked off.