“Let’s call it a day”: The artist Tom Petty said saved the Heartbreakers
Every band can be like a marriage after a while. Even if not every member necessarily has to like each other, having the ability to get up onstage and perform like one big musical family doesn’t happen unless there’s some kind of sixth sense between every musician from the minute they start playing. Although Tom Petty could have easily struck out on a solo career once Full Moon Fever blew up, he knew he needed the Heartbreakers, and it took this musician to help bring them back from the brink.
At the same time, coming back from hard times was something Petty knew all too well. Throughout the biggest years of his career, he had to face everything from record label disputes to tension with drummer Stan Lynch to having his label openly reject his greatest hits, so it wasn’t like everything was sunshine and roses by the time he reached the heights of albums like Wildflowers.
Since Petty’s pending divorce cast a dark shadow over everything on Echo, there’s a certain vibe coming off of every song on the album that makes the heartland rocker sound completely dejected. But that ugliness was happening right in front of them as well, and by the early 2000s, it seemed like no one could help bassist Howie Epstein anymore.
After being rock solid throughout Petty’s career, Epstein’s dependence on heroin started slowly tearing him apart, hardly being recognisable outside of his backing vocals and growing more frail by the day. While he managed to make his way through Echo alright, Petty was crushed when he was found dead of an overdose during the making of The Last DJ.
While Petty considered Epstein’s demise one of the major tragedies in his life, he knew that the best replacement for him had already been in the band. After years of leaving the music business, original bassist Ron Blair rejoined the group after working with them during their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Although Petty knew the band was treading water after Epstein’s death, he felt no one else other than Blair could have taken his place, saying, “The Heartbreakers wouldn’t have stood auditioning any bass players and bringing in a stranger. I think it would have collapsed the whole thing. I think I would have said, ‘Let’s call it a day.’”
Then again, Petty probably wasn’t expecting Blair to do his due diligence and then some when preparing for the tour, remembering, “I remember him writing stuff down, and I said, ‘What’s that, a letter home?’, and he goes, ‘No, it’s notes for the show’. And I was like, ‘Damn, this guy makes notes.” That research did pay off in the long run, whether that was bringing back those melodic basslines from ‘American Girl’ or locking in with Steve Ferrone during the opening of ‘Breakdown’.
But, really, Blair was never considered an ex-Heartbreaker during his time away. That spot was always there for him, and even though Epstein did wonderful work for the band, bringing Blair was the only way that they could have maintained being a band without looking like a revolving door of musicians.
