‘Echo’: The album that almost killed Tom Petty
From a professional perspective, Tom Petty didn’t have a thing to worry about in the late-1990s. Although the massive influx of grunge bands killed off many of his classic rock contemporaries, Petty was pushing forward on every project, working with Rick Rubin on Wildflowers to create one of the most cinematic album experiences of his career. While things might have seemed fine at the studio, Petty was falling apart at home.
While making Wildflowers, Petty was starting to go to therapy for the first time and realised that his marriage wasn’t working out. After getting married a few weeks before going out on tour with Mudcrutch in the ‘70s, Petty had always kept his personal life completely separate from his professional career, often letting his family fade into the background in the public eye. After his work on the soundtrack to the film She’s the One, Petty found himself a lonely man after his wife left him.
Looking to document his grief in song, Echo is one of the first moments that listeners heard Petty talk about his personal life. While he often drapes his songs in a narrative focus, Petty holds a mirror up to himself on most of these tracks, like the broken man pouring his heart out on the title track or pleading with his wife to return on ‘Room at the Top’.
Outside the studio, Petty wasn’t taking care of himself, later recalling in Runnin’ Down a Dream, “I wrote the songs, but I wasn’t driving the car”. Having moved out of his house, Petty had started living out of a chicken shack and was rumoured to be experimenting with heroin at the time as well. Some songs also reflect his frail state of mind, like the song ‘Swingin’ tells the tale of a woman who tried everything she could to save a relationship only to fall short.
As Petty spiralled, bassist Howie Epstein was in even worse shape. Having been a heroin addict for the past few years, Epstein’s body was starting to give in, with his physical appearance changing as the album sessions went on. Though he was always there to provide the perfect background vocal, Epstein was spiritually gone, not even showing up to the photo shoot for the album because he missed the plane.
Epstein and Petty would continue to spiral for a few years before Petty found refuge from his next wife, Dana, whom he married a few years later by Reverend Little Richard. Epstein would not be so lucky, succumbing to his demons before work could be finished on the next album, The Last DJ. Petty attributes Epstein’s death to the loss of the band’s innocence, saying, “It’s the real tragedy of The Heartbreakers, losing him. He was just such a beautiful person”.
Even though Petty admitted that he made a great album by the end of things, he couldn’t bring himself back to any of the material, thinking that it still hit too close to home years after the fact. Petty could have easily been talking about the collapse of his marriage, but hidden in these songs may also be some ghosts from the past that he would rather not revisit.
