Conversations With Tom Petty

by Paul Zollo

  Yeah. I like to get in there, get to the business, and get out of there. That’s because I grew up listening to AM radio, where the songs were always three minutes or less. I was playing a Beatles album the other day and there wasn’t a song on the entire album past 2:40. It was Yesterday And Today. There wasn’t a song that hit three minutes. Some don’t even hit two. It doesn’t have to be long to work. Usually 3:00 to 3:30 is good. If I see one come up at four, I really look at it hard. Like, ‘Is this necessary?’ Sometimes it’s necessary to go past four minutes. We do that occasionally. But I’m really suspicious of hitting five. It had better be something really good to go to five minutes.

  And yet, like The Beatles, you have good guitar solos, even on very short songs.

  Ricky Nelson always had great solos on all those records. James Burton, the great Telecaster player was his guitar player. And if you listen to Ricky Nelson singles, there’s always this great solo. It’s always very succinct and fits right into the arrangement. And it really moves you. Yeah, I love to get a good guitar solo. With Mike’s solos, does he play those live, or do you plan out solos?

  More often than not, it’s either off the top of his head, or he may play it over and over and develop it as he’s going. I think it’s very rare that he comes in with one worked out. Sometimes I may have a solo worked out. And I’ll play my version of it. And he’ll take that and improve on it. And that may be the germ for what he does. But I think most of the time it just comes off the top of his head, and then he’ll refine it as he goes along.

  He’s such a fine soloist. Sometimes he’ll choose one note, and sustain it, and it sounds wonderful.

  Yeah, he’s very economical, and just because he can play fast, he doesn’t. [Laughs] And he doesn’t feel like he has to. And he doesn’t feel he has to use more notes than is necessary. So he’s very economical, and a very natural player. These things just come out of him naturally.

  It shows how much you love his playing, that even on your solo albums you always have Mike playing.

  Yeah. We’re almost one as far as the guitar. We make a certain sound, the two of us playing together, that I don’t think we make with other people. When he’s playing without me, it doesn’t really make that noise. And the same, if I’m playing without him, it doesn’t really make that sound. We’ve played together so long that we can almost read each other’s minds as to where to fill the holes and where to leave them.

  How was it bringing Ron Blair back into the band?

  It worked out okay. Mike had a demo of “Can’t Stop The Sun,” with Ron on bass. I had played most of the bass on [The Last DJ]. And we thought Ron did a really nice job, so we asked him to play on “Lost Children.” He did it, and it went great, and we were in the market for a bass player. And I remember we were on the back steps of the studio, and I told him we had this tour coming up, and I asked him what he thought about coming back into the band. And he said, ‘God, that would be great.’ He was really into it. And it has been great having him back ever since. He’s really diligent about rehearsing, and he works really hard on his parts on the bass. He’s a very positive guy, a good vibe to have around. And it was good because it wasn’t a stranger coming in. It was somebody we knew, and had a long history with. And he was a Heartbreaker. So maybe fate just guided him. That’s the way I see it. I’m a big believer in that kind of thing. I think fate just put him right back in.

  Scott Thurston sings, and plays harmonica, keyboards, and guitar. Why did you bring him into the band? He wasn’t replacing anyone.

  He was brought in by Stan. Stan brought him around because I needed another hand. So we could reproduce the records better, around the time of Full Moon Fever. We had those layered acoustic guitars. I wanted another guy who could help us out with vocals and guitars. And he showed up, and he was so good. He was only going to do a few songs with us. But he was so good that he’s been with us ever since. Before us, he had been with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, and Iggy & The Stooges in the ‘70s, and later on with The Motels and Jackson Browne. And he really is another great, great musician. He’s great on the key-board, great on the guitar, he’s played bass with us. Great harmony singer. He became like a Swiss Army knife.

  There were a lot of numbers where Howie would play the acoustic and Scott would play the bass. Whatever was leftover, Scott did. And I love him. He’s my best friend. We’re very tight. He’s got this very charming personality. You have to love him. If you meet him, you’ll fall in love with him. He’s a downright good fellow. And a very gifted musician. Great slide guitar player. We don’t really give him nearly as much as he could do. He doesn’t have as much space in The Heartbreakers as he could be doing.

  But he’s the kind of person who has no ego. He’s a team player. So he’s usually part of the rhythm section. He also is a really good harmonica player. And if you ever hear some of the blues things we do, he’s really good on harmonica. I play harmonica on a lot of the records, like “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” and “You Don’t Know How It Feels.” But I don’t want to be bothered with it live. I have enough to do without dealing with the harmonica. So Scott plays it live. He does all the harmonica stuff.

  Is he still a Sidebreaker?

  He’s a Heartbreaker, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not playing without him.

  You played a concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1992 honoring thirty years of Dylan’s music. Also on the bill were Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, and others. You played “License To Kill” and “Rainy Day Women.”

  Oh, that was a great night. It was really a highpoint for me. I really admired everyone on the show. It was so much fun, hanging with all those friends. And people I’d admired for years: Booker T. & the MGs. And then we did a finale where we all did “My Back Pages” and “Knocking On Heaven’s Door.” And we all got to sing a little bit.

  Did Stan play drums?

  Stan and Jim Keltner. We had both of them. ‘Cause Jim was there. We also had Duck Dunn play bass. Howie played guitar, and Duck Dunn played bass. And Howie also played with Ronnie Wood. It was that kind of thing where the rehearsals were great fun, and the show was great fun. There’s a great film of it. There’s a DVD of it and a CD. Me and Bugs heard it the other night. We were driving home, and our version of “Rainy Day Women” from that show came on. And there’s a part before I start singing, and it’s playing, and we both said, ‘Hey—is that us?’ And he was like, ‘I don’t know.’ And we were listening for a minute. And then suddenly a vocal came in, and we went, ‘Yeah, it is us.’ But that show was so much fun.

  There have been a few times like that that were really memorable. Concert For George was kind of like that. I was scared to death at that show.

  Were you?

  Yeah, I was really nervous. Something like [Concert For George] had quite a heavy lineup of people on it. And we wanted to be really good. And we hadn’t had much rehearsal. [Laughs] We’d only played those songs a few times. So we wanted to shine, and fortunately we got away with it.

  There are a lot of times you just remember. The other night I remembered one time when we played The Forum [in L.A. on the Full Moon Fever tour], and we came back for the encore and Bob Dylan was there. And he wanted to play. And he came out. And then the next thing I looked up, and Bruce Springsteen had come out. So there’s all three of us playing at once. And the crowd was just insane, they were just insane.

  What did you play?

  We played “I’m Crying,” The Animals’ song. And I think Bruce sang, “The Traveling Band,” the Creedence Clearwater song. And Bob did “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat.” But none of it was rehearsed, because we didn’t know it was going to happen. We literally got into a huddle, planned it out, came out of the huddle, and started the song. And huddled up again. But that was something I had forgotten about, but the other night something triggered that memory. And I thought, ‘Damn, that must have been a real treat for the audience.’

  We’ve had so
many wonderful things happen. So many wonderful moments. But those are my favorite shows, the ones where there are a lot of acts on them. I love those things, because there’s a backstage kind of camaraderie that’s really nice. And you get to know people that you didn’t know. Like playing with Prince.

  I never would have played with Prince in my life. And I never would have known that he’s a fan. And he’s somebody that I really admired. We got to meet him, and we really had a great time playing together.

  [At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony for George Harrison in 2004, Prince played guitar on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with Tom, Jeff Lynne, Dhani Harrison, and members of The Heartbreakers.]

  What an astounding solo he played that night.

  Oh man. It really just blew it out there. You see, those things are so much fun to me. That kind of collaboration. And something that you don’t do that much. Not that I don’t love playing with The Heartbreakers. I have just as much fun some nights. But I love those shows that have a lot of people on them. They’re really fun.

  You played the White House, along with Stevie Nicks, for Clinton and his family in 2000. What was that like?

  That was a gas. Who would ever think these kids from Gainesville would be playing to the President? The President and the First Lady were sitting right down in the front row. I’ve been to the White House a few times, and met the President, and gone to the Oval Office. That’s just happy stuff. You don’t dream when you’re a kid that that will ever enter your life. You just like being in a band, and playing a guitar. [Laughs] And, you know, you walk into the Oval Office. And Al Gore looked up and said, ‘I was just discussing the Traveling Wilburys with the President.’ [Laughs] And The Wilburys got a good kick out of that. But there are so many great things that have happened.

  howie chapter fourteen

  Howie, as we know, sadly died of a heroin overdose on February 23, 2003, at the age of 47. Do you mind discussing his decline?

  tp: Howie had always been the kind of lone ranger of the band. He was the loner. Not that he wasn’t close to us. He was. He had a distance. Ben was very close with Howie. He socialized a lot with Howie, went over to Howie’s house. I really didn’t go over there much. I only saw Howie when we worked. I didn’t see him much. I knew that heroin was around. I knew, as early as Southern Accents, I remember seeing heroin in the studio.

  Did you try it?

  I think we all probably tried it one night when Howie offered it to us. [Laughs] We all had a little bit, and that was it for us.

  You didn’t like it?

  I think we all liked it a lot. And we knew we could start liking it a whole lot, so we didn’t have any more of it.

  You didn’t shoot up?

  No. We just smoked some. I don’t think Howie was a shooter. I don’t think he liked needles. But I knew from seeing him bust that out that night that it was around. Heroin, not a good thing. But I don’t moralize, and I wasn’t the kind of person to tell someone how to live. Now I think I would, but then I wouldn’t tell somebody how to live. Now I think I would be very vocal about it. But that was his business, so if he could do his job, that was all I was interested in, and I wasn’t going to say anything.

  So I didn’t know if he was addicted to heroin. But I knew that it showed up from time to time. Then as the years went by, I started to realize, as we all did, that Howie’s a heroin addict. And all of us in our way talked to him. And we said, ‘You’re gonna have to quit this. It’s gonna get you. You just don’t win with heroin. You die or you go to jail. There’s no middle ground. There’s no other options. There’s not one more choice. That’s it.’

  He was always receptive, like junkies are. They always tell you they are gonna straighten up, and then junkies start to lie. And they really start to lie. They can’t help it. They have to constantly cover for their lives, so they become professional liars. And we loved Howie so much. But he was always the one who was two hours late for rehearsal. Like junkies are. They’re just late. And the dangerous thing about it is that he could play and sing.

  So it didn’t affect his abilities to perform?

  It didn’t affect his ability for a long time. Heroin can be like that with musicians; I think that’s why you see so many musicians drift that way, because you can remain musical for a long time. But I think, without exception, they all hit the wall eventually and the creativity goes. We knew that [heroin] was around. We weren’t bold enough for a long time to tell him how to live. We probably should have been. Though eventually that changed, and we got very vocal about it.

  Because I didn’t know if it was something he did on the weekend, I didn’t know if it was something that he did and then he stopped it. He lived in his own world in a way. He had his home studio. He spent much of his time in his house, being up in the evening hours and sleeping in the day. I think the only one of us who went over there a lot was Benmont. Carlene Carter, his girlfriend, was making a record that Howie was producing. And they were really happy because Ben had been working with them, and they got a hit song for Carlene that Ben played on, and they had been trying for years, and it finally came through. And they seemed to be very upbeat, really happy about it.

  Did Ben have any inkling of Howie’s problem?

  I’m sure he had an inkling, but I don’t think any of us realized for a while how serious it was.

  And then [Howie’s] appearance started to tell you how serious it was. He started to look bad. Really bad.

  He lost a lot of weight?

  He lost an intense amount of weight. His face seemed to physically change. He didn’t even look like the same person. The shape of his nose changed. If you see photos of him early on and then later on, it doesn’t even look like the same guy.

  And then he would come to sessions and we knew it was going on in sessions because we could smell it. You smoke heroin and it makes a really distinct odor. He would drift away into the back room or wherever he went, do this thing, and come back. It was starting to let him down as far as music. He wasn’t all there in the studio. He started to make mistakes. The studio will magnify anything that’s not going right. And we became very concerned that he couldn’t pull his weight at that point.

  All of us had talks with him—on more than one occasion—about quitting heroin, and how serious this had become. It was jeopardizing his position in the group.

  So on many occasions we would talk to him, and have really long talks about how that has got to stop. It would always be answered with, ‘Yes, I completely agree with you, and I’m gonna stop.’ This went on for years. He died in 2003, so this went on from the middle ‘80s until then. And in that time, some of us had drug problems and drink problems, and overcame them. Not all of us, but some of us. We had overcome them. I remember telling him, ‘This can be done. You can overcome this.’ And he was a little ambivalent about it. Sometimes he would seem to take it really seriously, and then other times he was almost annoyed at being pinned down.

  Then the big warning flag, the big day, was when he was arrested. He got busted in New Mexico. We were starting a tour in Pennsylvania. It was an outdoor show, out in the woods somewhere. We were flying there from L.A. that morning to play that night. And we all got out to the airport and got on the plane, and that’s when they broke the news to us that Howie wasn’t going to make the plane. They said he got arrested the night before with Carlene. He had a goodly amount of heroin. I assumed that was probably his stash for the tour. And they were in a stolen car, which I still, to this day, don’t understand. Howie didn’t even drive. He didn’t have a driver’s license. So why he was in a stolen car, I don’t understand.

  So they got arrested and thrown in jail. And the band’s lawyers got somebody to go to New Mexico right away. We were told that this was gonna be worked out, and that they would have him at the show by 9:00 that night. Which seemed pretty far out.

  So we went on to Pennsylvania. And on the plane that was the topic of discussion, and everyone was kind
of fed up. Because he had gotten to where he was turning up later and later for rehearsals. We were always waiting around for him.

  We got to the gig, and Howie wasn’t there. We did the sound check without him. Scott Thurston, for some time, was always on alert that he might have to pick up the bass. He was in the dressing room practicing the bass, because we didn’t know if Howie would show up, and what shape he would be in if he did show up.

  So twenty minutes before the show, voila, there [Howie] is. They drive him in. He looks really bad, like somebody who has spent some time in jail without any dope. He was shoeless.

  This paints a very bad picture of him. This is a guy we loved with all our hearts. Who never wanted to cause any trouble. He had the biggest heart, and was so sweet. It would really kill us to see him kind of leaning forward on the plane with only his seatbelt holding him up. And he just looked hammered to me, all the time, like he had been through a terrible experience just to make it to the plane. I didn’t know what it was, but I could tell something really bad had gone down every time I saw him.

  I talked to him after the show and said, ‘Howie, you know, this is it. This is the big wake-up call. You’re gonna have to change. And when we get to the end of this, you’re gonna have to clean up, or it’s gonna be your gig.’

  He said, ‘No, I absolutely agree with you, this is it, and I’m gonna clean up.’

  So the tour moved on to New York City. We were based in New York City and playing a few gigs in that area. So we’d go out and play the show, and come back to New York at night. We were traveling by plane and by bus. We had a chartered jet, and then we had tour buses as well that would take us on the shorter jumps. And Howie had his own bus. Which wasn’t a good thing. Because even sometimes if we flew, he might make the whole journey in his bus just so he didn’t have to associate with anyone. We knew what was going on in that bus.