', Editors picks Much of the show was given to generous spins through the intricate balladry and pointed reflection on Pettys acclaimed solo outings, 1989s Full Moon Fever and 1994s Wildflowers, with profound glow and muscle from the Heartbreakers. Tom Petty and Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench Interview: 'She's the One Its felt really nice to get my friend back., They finally met up a few months ago at Campbells Los Angeles home studio he calls Knobville. I have a really good life, he says. 2023 Cond Nast. Formed in 1976,[1] the band originally comprised Tom Petty (lead singer, guitar), Mike Campbell (lead guitarist), Ron Blair (bass guitar), Stan Lynch (drums), and Benmont Tench (keyboards). In addition to academic papers on rock, he wrote the 33 and 1/3 book on Dusty Springfields album Dusty in Memphis. Around 2000, he stopped listening to new musicexcept for Tom Petty. But less is more., Petty returned to the Wildflowers project before his 40th Anniversary marathon was over. Stevie Nicks reprised her duet with Petty, Stop Draggin My Heart Around, a Top Five hit in 1981. As you may recall, the lead singer and guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty sadly passed away on October 2, 2017, at the age of 66. "We got somethin', we both know, we don't talk too much about it Ain't no real big secret, all the same, somehow we get around it Listen, it don't really matter to me, baby In Pettys interviews with Zanes, he was as forthright and honest as he is in his songs, talking about his abusive father, his failed marriage, and his heroin use. The two finally met in Gainesville, where Campbell was supposed to go to college but instead ended up playing with Petty in Mudcrutch. In a 2008 interview with Modern Drummer , Lynch described how he felt after . And hes just kind of patting this thing and Im thinking, This could go any one of ten thousand ways. Then you look at it now. And he said, This is really good. He sounded just like Tom Petty when he said it. Drums didn't absorb all of Lynch's feistiness as his parents had hoped, although he stayed in school long enough to graduate from P.K. Youve been up there like a soldier, man. We had a nice hug and said we loved each other. After that, at the Bowl, it was backstage, Hi, how you doing?, a little patter between songs.. Howard Norman Epstein (July 21, 1955 - February 23, 2003) was an American musician best known as a bassist with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. "[citation needed]. Good records stay made. But the times I was designated to tag along on a couple later tours for magazine profiles, he was always welcoming, inclusive, ready with a quip that came from his slightly mysterious but usually winning vein of humor. Lynch stated he would be open to playing with the other three original members of The Heartbreakers in the future. In 1981, Blair, weary of the touring lifestyle, departed the band. It just locked right up.. His last gig with the Heartbreakers was on October 2, 1994, at the Bridge School Benefit Concert in Mountain View, California. Lynchs run ends after a June 26 show in Aspen, Colorado. (The Del Fuegos lasted for one more album before disbanding; Dan Zanes went on to be a fixture on the childrens-music scene.) Hed met my aunt before, Petty recalled. We were from the same generation of rock & rollers. But plans for that somehow evolved into Its the 40th year. Its so bare, without any ambiguity. That put me off when I wrote it, Petty said of the song in a 2009 Rolling Stone interview, one of many conversations I had with him over the past decade for the magazine and his SiriusXM channel, Tom Petty Radio. Theyre good to go. Just a week before his death, Tom Petty completed which . That was probably cut more around the time of Greatest Hits in 1993, but it fits in. He. He got the balance he wanted, Campbell says of the 40th Anniversary shows, and the story he wanted to tell., Very few people beyond the Heartbreakers immediate circle knew that Petty was suffering, at each gig, from a hairline fracture in his left hip, which he planned to deal with after the tour. Epstein was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew . I dont think he even knew when it happened. At one point, Dimitriades told Petty, You cant tour like that. The singer responded, Why not? 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. Are you up for it?, Lynchs first instinct was to decline the offer. Tom Petty had the following to say about Lynch, included in his 2005 book, Conversations with Tom Petty: Stan was a little younger than us. Stan Lynch joined Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1974 when Petty's piano player Benmont Tench recruited him. The story behind Refugee by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - loudersound All Rights Reserved. As the jaunty acoustic guitar in his hands filled the room with a capoed, sonorous chime, he opened his mouth and started to sing. Tom was a great classicist, Springsteen says, and the Heartbreakers were a real guitar band. After the death of Tom, Dana and his two daughters got into a legal battle on his estate without a mention of Jane. We played with X, we played with Gun Club, but we never stopped loving Tom Petty, Zanes said. It works really well with him. He plowed through a career thats ineradicable, treasured, ever-present for those who love him. Ive known him since I was 15. Ad Choices. Ringo Starr on Tom Petty's Death: 'It Was a Shock' - Rolling Stone It also fucks with the legacy. Michael is such a gentle soul, she says. He beat the living hell out of me.. Lets do some more. Joe Jacksons Four Decade Tour Brings His Inimitable Quirks toL.A. Want to know what everyone in the music business is talking about. ), Looking back at that intense time all these years later, Lynch says he wishes hed handled the situation a bit differently. You see a . Hed be there every day., One of the projects that had been put on hold when Petty died was an expanded reissue of Wildflowers all of the tracks for the intended double album plus additional, unreleased songs followed by a tour showcasing Pettys breakthrough writing on that record. August 12, 2014. I like to think that Pettys demise, which will draw a perhaps never-to-be-reopened shade across part of my consciousness,will only serve to enhance his stature. He never took his eyes off me. He was a real cat. When Petty sang a song by Jimmie Rodgers, Merle Haggard or the Searchers, Tench insists, he wasnt a dilettante, trying something on. A lot of the times Id just be focused on what I was doing, but then Id turn around and be like, My God, its Lynch and hes fuckin smoking it! In 2022, Lynch accepted an invitation from Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell to fill in for drummer Matt Laug for several shows on tour with Campbell's band The Dirty Knobs. And our bass player Crawdaddy [Lance Morrison] said, You should play that song together in the show. I would try to write in the same fashion. All rights reserved. Also, I could never really close doors on people that were important in my past. The other night I looked down during that song and there was a woman in the front just sobbing, says Campbell. Plus: each Wednesday, exclusively for subscribers, the best books of the week. Lynch started to work with various Florida bands, among them Styrophoam Soule and Road Turkey, and when he was 15 he met Ron Blair, who was six years older than Lynch. "[citation needed], "I played guitar and piano, and I always thought I was going to be a guitar player," said Lynch. Anything I did was accented on the drums. In the wings, Dhani says, Bob was going, Fucking lights. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Petty was our guy. via (Blair returned; Epstein died of an overdose in 2003.) That Time Tom Petty Toured The Western Wall - The Forward By Andy Greene. Once they left the stage, it became clear that Lynch had to be fired. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. We all have our go-to sources of solace, and inspiration, and our personal troves of top-quality, memory-stirring rock n roll and balladeering. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakershad been off the road for nearly a year when the 1994 Bridge School Benefit came around. Later on, Stan Lynch worked with many other prominent names like the Eagles, Eddie Money, Toto, and Ringo Starr. A series of writing projects followed, which lead to Petty asking Zanes to write the biography. Lynch has this down pat in bushels full. I was roadieing for him!" Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Walking like Tom Petty walks. There was a lot of miscommunication and many immature sh*ts going down. Petty died Oct. 2 after suffering cardiac arrest in his Los Angeles home. I got the phone call and told the folks in my house, Bruce Springsteen says, recalling the sudden, shocking impact of that news. U2 played bits of Free Fall-in and Learning to Fly during Beautiful Day., I thought the world of Tom, said Bob Dylan, who hired Petty and the Heartbreakers as his road band in 1986, then became Pettys bandmate with Harrison, early rock & roll legend Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra in a supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys. So now we must press on. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - with Blair and original drummer Stan Lynch, both from Gainesville - released their self-titled debut album in November 1976, then hit the road in earnest. It's hard to even imagine that album without Stan. Warren became vice-president of educational programs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Original Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch surprised himself when he agreed to the reunion with Mike Campbell that began earlier this year. On September 25th, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed the final concert of a three-night run at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Id gone from Madison Square Garden to being a bike mechanic. He was working on a bike when he first heard Runnin Down a Dream, from Pettys 1989 album Full Moon Fever. And I thought, There he goes. Cage singer Matt Shultz contends that like David Bowie, Petty conquered the popular belief that creativity dies with age, especially in rock & roll. The Heartbreakers were all fingers on the same hand.. It's what people like to think of as "swing". Yonge School in 1973. Thirty minutes before he walked onstage, Petty welcomed singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams into his dressing room. Original Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch recently joined an interview with Rolling Stone. The 50 Worst Decisions in Music History I'm interested in rock music, literature, cinema, and doing research in Cultural Studies. I dont know what it would mean to them since they have a lot more miles than I do, but it would be a joy for me., Campbell says hes not ready for something like that. And when I lived in California, I got to know him quite well. Petty later discovered that Campbell, who grew up in Jacksonville, also went to that show. 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Tom Petty's song "The Best of Everything" sounds like it was meant to be the title track for something.Now, long, long after it was initially recorded and released in the 1980s, it finally . Zaness visits to Pettys compound inMalibu began in 2012. What happened to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch He had ongoing tensions about his drumming, especially with producer Jimmy Iovine. But we had a quiet moment at the rehearsals. He had a big smile, and he was putting a cough drop in his mouth, says Williams, an old friend who had just finished her opening set. During a three-night stint at the Roxy in L.A., in the mid- eighties, Petty got in touch and invited the group to his place in Encino. And those meetings are really boring. But, he insisted, I wouldnt have hurt anybody., Mounting tensions within the Heartbreakers over Pettys creative grip culminated in Lynchs departure in 1994. And so I have regrets, but they dont hold me back. I didnt need to be that way. "We have the same musical pulse we always had," says Campbell of hitting the road with his old Tom Petty bandmate after . By the end of the evening, Lynch and the rest walked out as Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Acts Lynch has produced include The Band, the Eagles, Don Henley, Jackopierce, Joe 90, Scotty Moore, and Sister Hazel. When we got back together for the Bridge School Benefit it was just misery. Ill do it in a chair if I have to., Petty postponed two shows in late August due to laryngitis. The one-two punch of The Wild One, Forever and Anything Thats Rock and Roll seemed to rise from a thoroughly singular new talent, blowing away rock musics post-punk irresolution to point a towards a sound both classic and original. There were shrieks of horror. Zanes also had access to the Heartbreakers. There sat the fantastic coffee. How Stevie Nicks Finally Won Over Tom Petty: Exclusive Interview When I heard what happened, it put me right down on my knees, literally.