The record contract that left Tom Petty bankrupt
The idea of spending boatloads of cash on albums is very much a thing of the past these days. Although there have been acts like Guns N’ Roses that have spent more than most mansions are worth to get their records finished, any album with that steep of a pricetag nowadays would more likely put an artist in debt for several years to their record company. But while Tom Petty was more than willing to spend money to get the best record that he possibly could, he carefully made sure that he could burn through all his cash properly.
When the heartland rocker started working on his albums, though, there was no real point in him trying to become the next Beatles. He was an avid fan of rock and roll, and even he would later admit that his records were nothing but cheap rock tunes, but there was something magical about the way that ‘American Girl’ came out of the speakers, almost like looking at a version of the country that was slowly slipping away.
While Petty’s music was a nice breath of fresh air in between the punk and new wave bands of his era, there was a lot of frustration going on in the background. He had already gone as far as he could with his original producer, Denny Cordell, and when he heard songs like ‘Because the Night’ by Patti Smith, he knew he wanted to hear that same punch when he listened to his own records. He needed whoever worked on that, and in through the door walked Jimmy Iovine.
The production guru had been a great musical coach when it came to artists unleashing their true potential, and he even admitted that he didn’t need to hear anything else once he heard tracks like ‘Refugee’ and ‘Here Comes My Girl’. But before Damn the Torpedoes was fully completed, Petty was already going to war with his record company over songwriting royalties, which were not explained to him in detail when he first signed his contract.
Despite the label practically owning everything he did, Petty figured the best way to go to war over using his songs was to declare bankruptcy. It wasn’t a tactic that any other rock star had tried before, but over the next few months of hiding the tapes from his record company and going through every business meeting with corporate suits, Petty finally got the right to be his own artist with the full rights to his material.
Even decades after the lawsuit was over, Petty was defiantly proud of watching his label cower to what he wanted, saying, “At the last minute, they buckled. They were probably thinking, ‘This kid is never going to say I give’, which I wasn’t. I mean, even if I lose, then what are you going to do? Take my songs? You’ve already done that.” But the real tragedy behind that record was Petty falling out with Cordell.
His old producer had been a confidante to him and had taught him some of the rules of the business, and yet he had never felt the need to tell him about how bad he was getting screwed over by his label. The record business certainly isn’t the best place to make friends, but Petty knew that anyone close to him needed to be much more transparent than trying to steal money from him behind his back.
In that respect, Damn the Torpedoes had a double meaning for Petty. The whole record felt like one last ditch effort for him to become a superstar, and while tunes like ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’ and ‘Refugee’ might still be classics, the true ‘full steam ahead’ attitude may have had more to do with pushing forward against any record company that tried to treat them like a piece of meat.
