“It wasn’t as simple”: The album that left Tom Petty with studio regrets
Every artist is capable of going a little bit too far whenever they enter the studio. All good rock and roll is supposed to be recorded with as much feeling as possible, but it can be enticing when you have unlimited options to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the mix whenever deciding on what the final track should sound like. While Tom Petty was always proud to keep his tracks fairly simple, he was even guilty of having a few records that didn’t sit well with him over time.
Then again, Petty’s initial approach was to have the exact opposite of a cluttered “studio” record. His first two albums were the heartland rock equivalent of garage records, and when looking at his creative breakthrough on Damn the Torpedoes, most of the best tracks on the record were about getting one magical take rather than stitching everything together in post-production.
In fact, that kind of approach helped make the band much tighter. Compared to their time working with Bob Dylan on the live stage, their behaviour in the studio almost gave them a symbiotic relationship with each other, to the point where Petty could know exactly where Mike Campbell was going by using the subtlest of eye contact before going into a solo section.
For all of the great moments he had with the Heartbreakers, though, Petty found a kindred spirit in Jeff Lynne. The entire story of him working in the Traveling Wilburys was only one facet of their friendship, and when working on Full Moon Fever, they had the kind of Lennon/McCartney relationship that most writers would kill for, almost finishing each other’s sentences when working on tracks like ‘Yer So Bad’.
“The sound was so concise, just one sound that belonged to itself. The next one, Into the Great Wide Open, maybe it was just thought about too much. It wasn’t as simple or straightforward.”
Jeff Lynne
That wasn’t going to do Petty any favours when working with the rest of the band. Campbell was on hand for his solo debut, but since none of the Heartbreakers were involved, it felt like Petty was slowly moving away from his musical family in many respects. Although Petty did try to compromise a little bit on Into the Great Wide Open, it didn’t come without some pieces that weren’t exactly bulletproof.
Despite Lynne being brought in as a compromise on the record, he admitted that the whole thing got drawn out too much, saying, “Full Moon Fever had a kind of blatant this-is-what-it-is, take-it-or-leave-it feeling. The sound was so concise, just one sound that belonged to itself. The next one, Into the Great Wide Open, maybe it was just thought about too much. It wasn’t as simple or straightforward.”
That also probably had to do with the fact that the band was separated while working on the project. Everyone helped contribute to the final product, but drummer Stan Lynch remembered recording parts in a few days and being told that he didn’t need to come back to the studio since he would be getting in the way of what the rest of them were trying to do.
Still, Into the Great Wide Open stands as one of the finer records that Petty released during this period of his career. There are few things left over from the Full Moon Fever days, but the good far outweighs the bad when there are tracks like ‘Learning to Fly’ and the title track on the record.
