“A lousy record”: The 1989 Tom Petty classic that the Heartbreakers tried to sabotage
With his light and breezy, Florida smile, Tom Petty was never one for being overly difficult in the public eye.
Even though he knew what he wanted out of his music and refused to cower to anyone else, he was always happy to play the music that he liked and painted a beautiful picture of small-town America. There were some moments of contention, though, and the Heartbreakers didn’t necessarily have to like what Petty was putting out all of the time.
The equally breezy guitarist Mike Campbell even admitted, “Sometimes he made me so angry I couldn’t look at him.” Yet, that’s almost a sign of how close and collaborative they were. “We had our brotherly friction here and there,” he told Guitar Player, “but there was a deep love that kept us together through all the rough times.”
During the group’s prime, Petty – who grew up adoring The Beatles and the lure of their evident chemistry – never saw himself as a solo act with a bunch of backup musicians. He loved the idea of being in a group, and that meant letting the rest of the band have their say if it meant that something wasn’t working in the song or if the guitar part should move against the piano in the mix.
Even when they got their first major successes like Damn the Torpedoes, no one was cowering to what Petty wanted. Pianist Benmont Tench remembered being pissed off when Petty insisted on using synthesisers on tracks from Long After Dark, and in the documentary Runnin’ Down a Dream, director Peter Bogdonavich captures a heated argument between Tench and Petty when the pianist thinks that the band isn’t playing guitars enough for a world-renowned rock and roll act.
Taking everyone’s opinion into account has got to be draining, and when Petty decided to fly solo on Full Moon Fever, he finally had the opportunity to spread his wings a bit more. The whole point behind the record was to get some tracks on tape before Jeff Lynne went back to England, but the rest of the Heartbreakers were less than impressed with the material, with Tench remembering that he couldn’t even play the one tune he was featured on very well.
Despite Mike Campbell still being Petty’s right-hand man behind nearly every track, every other member of the Heartbreakers felt cheated and/or bored when they were left at home or brought in to work on one track. While a song like ‘Love Is a Long Road’ works as a great Heartbreakers tune, Howie Epstein even managed to walk out on the singer during the recording of ‘Free Fallin,’ saying that he didn’t like the song.
It’s one thing for the band not to be involved, but Petty remembered the group talking trash about the record to people before it had even come out, undermining its potential in a move that felt like a sabotage, saying, “I told them upfront that I’m not leaving the group, but I am having fun being free of the Heartbreakers for a while.”
He defiantly added, “The whole time I was making that record, I would get word that the [rest of them] were badmouthing it. I’d run into somebody, and they’d say, ‘I talked to so-and-s,o and they told me you’re making a lousy record.” Was that just jealousy or the fact that it was unfamiliar?
While it’s certainly not the kind of record suited for a full band, hearing Petty get wild in the studio is still a joy to listen to. Even if the record company agreed that the album was too mellow to be put out, tracks like ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’ and ‘I Won’t Back Down’ have earned their place in Petty’s lineup of classics and deserve as much love as ‘Refugee’ or ‘Here Comes My Girl’.
It ended 1989 as the 19th best-selling record of the year. And perhaps proof that it was a slow burner that bandmates had to get used to, it proved its timeless, growing appeal, by being the 22nd best-selling record in the year-end chart for 1990 as well. That’s a stellar success by any standard, despite a supposed sabotage attempt from his friends.
