“Not interested”: The shows that Tom Petty said he would never play
The hallmark of any great rock and roll act is integrity. Even though every artist has more than a few moments in their catalogue when they admittedly missed the mark, it’s important for them to be able to wake up in the morning and be proud of the legacy they are leaving behind. And while Tom Petty was far from the most underground artist throughout his career, he always prioritised making his own decisions rather than relying on whatever the bigwigs had in mind for him.
That’s because Petty knew the importance of being true to his fans. There were some pieces of his music that were out of his control, but the minute that he hit on Damn the Torpedoes, he seemed to finally be able to stand up for the little guys. He was more than happy to declare bankruptcy for the sake of putting his label in their place, and when he eventually fought the industry over hiking up record prices, he seemed like one of the few artists who actually cared about the people buying his records.
Despite that making him one of the biggest thorns in the side of the music industry, Petty knew he had to do what was right for him. If it managed to make less money, that was all okay in his mind knowing that he made the right moral decision half the time, but that also meant leaving a lot of money on the table.
For example, the number of people Petty could have sued over copyright infringement is vast, but The Strokes’ ‘Last Nite’ and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Dani California’ have all passed Petty’s quality inspection. He knew that all rock and roll was about taking someone else’s building blocks and making it his own, and given his reputation as a bona fide Byrds fanatic, Petty probably knew that he could have been taken for all he was worth from Roger McGuinn if he got on his bad side.
When the heartland rocker was first starting to make waves, though, he would never go the same route as McGuinn. Whereas The Beatles cut their teeth on the Ed Sullivan Show, American Bandstand was different. This was a one-stop shop for everything in the world of music, but it only took Petty a few seconds to see how phoney the show was behind the scenes.
“I think we knew not to give People magazine the time of day, not to be interested in American Bandstand and Solid Gold and all these crappy shows, trying not to take the cheesier gigs.”
Tom Petty
To him, going on American Bandstand and interacting with Dick Clark seemed more like marketing than performing, and Petty was never going to become that kind of artist, saying, “I think we knew not to give People magazine the time of day, not to be interested in American Bandstand and Solid Gold and all these crappy shows, trying not to take the cheesier gigs. My attitude was always that it may be important, but it ain’t worth it to me; I’ve gotta look at myself in the mirror.”
Petty was always a musician first and a salesman second, and while not playing certain shows may have put a dent in his career aspirations, he knew he could do just as well taking the grassroots route, eventually gigging as much he could and writing until the perfect song fell out of him like ‘Refugee’ or ‘Here Comes My Girl’.
That’s probably why Petty was placed with the punk and new wave artists of the day. He was firmly proud of his roots in classic rock and roll, but no one would tell him how his career would go or convince him that the money was more important.
