The Tom Petty Project

In a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, Tom credits Ron Blair’s return as being pivotal for the band saying, “The band has a good family atmosphere that wasn't there for a while. It came back about a year or two ago. I think when Ron Blair returned, it really bonded us back together in a weird way. If he hadn't been there, I am sure it would have been the end of the whole thing when Howie died. Ron ste...

I’ve always really liked this song as part of the album but never really listened to it closely until sitting down to write this episode. And that has happened a lot over the course of the last four and a bit years of recording this show. Songs you don’t necessarily expect to reveal hidden depths do so with startling regularity. Does this song have a line the equal of “Most things I worry about ne...

I'm joined today by good pal Pete Nester. We're officially ACTUAL friends now, not just Facebook friends, because we've hung out, broken bread together, stood in a crowd and sung our hearts out, and hugged! I thought it would be fun to recap the weekend with Pete to get his thoughts as well as mine. Also included in the episode are chats I had with Maggie Clifford and Jeff Slate. I did chat to Shi...

Day Three of the Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville was a perfect way to end a perfect weekend. I can't begin to tell you how much fun I had with the most amazing bunch of people you'll ever be lucky enough to meet. The energy at the Heartwood was electric again and was added to by the arrival of Keith Eveland. We also had some top tier musical performances and I'll go through the ones I saw in this...

Day Two of the Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville was an absolutely sensational day of music, laughter, friendship, food, surprises, and warm, warm, warm temperatures!!! I hung out with Maggie Clifford, Shine, Jake Thistle, Jeff Slate, Pete Nester, Brad Gould, and a broad, brilliant cast of characters that are making this weekend so much fun. On and the music.................... holy hell Gainesvill...

Day One of the Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville is in the books and man, it was a scorcher! Jake and Jeff, Shine, Nolia Joy and the Ramblers and so many other fantastic musical acts and I met a ton of super friendly, enthusiastic people who were a blast to hang out with and talk to. Being on stage in Gainesville still feels surreal but I enjoyed every single second of it! Oh - and this is the 250t...

Inspired by the wonderful Brian Colburn from the My Weekly Mixtape podcast, I decided to take a hard left turn this week, as I prepare to fly down to Gainesville, and do something a little different! We're going to take listener suggestions for artists to use as a starting point from which we'll attempt to link our way back to Tom Petty within six degrees of separation! This was a lot of fun and I...

In 2013, the Heartbreakers played a five night mini-residency at the Beacon Theatre in New York city. Among the tracks from the archives that the band pulled out during that run was today’s song, When a Kid Goes Bad. In an interview with Relix magazine, Tom says “I will make a point of playing that song because they didn’t listen to me the first time, I didn’t feel like they understood it and I th...

The incomparable Dan Spiess is back to talk about the upcoming Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville, from November 7-9! We talk about the lineup for this year's shows including the two brilliant headline acts for Saturday and Sunday. We chat about how organizing for this year has been different from previous years, especially the complications the festival faced last year in the aftermath of two hurri...

This is top tier songwriting for me. When you have a platform and you can take a risk by punching up at people who have power, I think it’s good to do it now and again. If you can take that polemic and wrap it in a powerful, simple, stomping track like Joe, then I’m all in. There’s a theatrical element to the song that you could easily imagine fitting a full broadway production. You could see the...

Tom is hugely proud of this song. In Conversations with Tom Petty, he tells author Paul Zollo, “Dreamville” is one of the best songs I ever wrote. That was about innocence.” And it’s this innocence that contrasts so starkly and so effectively with the corporate interference in The Last DJ, or the commodification of Johnny’s art in Money Becomes King. Without this contrast the more belligerent song...

This disconnect between the artist and the audience is one of the subjects that Tom uses to explore the theme of greed that was the overarching construct behind the album. So this leads me to another quote from Tom in that 2002 interview that really does just get down to the nub of the matter. He asks; “How much money do you need?” And yes, I know that Tom was a multi-millionaire, but that was off...

The specificity of the song got Tom into a little bit of trouble and the single was banned on a lot of stations who didn’t reach for the deeper meaning and saw it as a direct attack on radio itself. In 2010, Tom told Mojo UK, “Radio was just a metaphor. ‘The Last DJ’ was really about losing our moral compass, our moral centre. We don’t care who gets hurt any more in the quest for the dollar. That...

I didn’t want to start the new season in earnest while I was away as I knew I wouldn’t have as much time to prep and barely any to record and edit, so I wanted to get a special episode and was trying to think of what to do to ease into the season. These two dates in 2002 completely destroy the conventional wisdom that you don’t go to see a "legacy act" to hear music from their new record. Hearing...

Today’s episode is a fantastic chat I had with my friend Eric Senich, who has been on the show previously, back in October of last year. As well as being an outstanding podcaster and rock historian, Eric also spent a large part of his early career as a DJ, so I thought it would be interesting to talk to him about the nature of the industry and how and why freeform DJ’s like Jim Ladd were such an i...

Rich is back to share his answers to my 10 questions? He's in cover bands that deal with Tom, Jeff Lynne, and George Harrison's musical output, so that question is a slam dunk, right? Which gig will he want to travel back in time to see? And which song is he going to duet on? It isn't one that's been picked thus far! You can find Rich's music and bands here! Rich Gibson: https://open.spotify.com/a...

Today’s episode is a fan chat with a musician who’s be following along with the podcast for a while now and is a fellow Northern Englishman. Rich Gibson is a singer, songwriter, and musician as a solo artist and with the bands Spring and Indigo Slink, as well as being part of three different Wilbury’s-related tribute acts, The Petty Heartbreakers, Ultimate ELO and The Pretend Beatles! We had...

Well, we've covered all the songs on Echo now, so that can only mean one thing! That's right. It's time for John Paulsen to join me again to wrap up the twelfth album and dig into the vinyl age, whether fifteen songs is too many, and of course, a whole lot of back and forth about the album! As always, it was great to hang with John for an hour and dive into the darkest work in Tom's catalogue. To...

“One more night, God I've had to fight. To keep my line of sight on what's real”. That opening line really acts as a double underline on the pain and weariness that Tom has explored lyrically throughout much of his twelfth album. When author Paul Zollo mentions this in Conversations with Tom Petty, asking “Can you keep some perspective, being within the music industry, on the meaning and impact an...

Wolfie is back to answer my ten "quick fire" questions, which seem to be taking longer and longer! His pick for favourite Heartbreaker came as a surprise but his three words to describe Tom Petty are pretty fantastic! Don't forget to go check out Greg's music on Soundcloud (links below) and if you're in the Connecticut area, make sure you check out when his band Accidental Breakdown is playing! Yo...

Today’s episode is a fan chat with a musician and podcaster who I’ve gotten to know a little over the last 12 months or so and wanted to learn more about. Greg Wolfe, or Wolfie as he’s more commonly known in the podcast universe, is a bass player and band leader for the Connecticut-based band Accidental Breakdown. He’s also one of the co-hosts of the Regarding Series of podcasts which breaks down...

There’s a weight to the arrangement of this song, accentuated by that heavy kick pattern that Steve Ferrone opts for, along with Tom’s deliberate persistence in landing on the root note at the end of his phrases that makes this one compelling. It’s also noteworthy in not really having a defined chorus. We do have that A section and B section, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a chorus, then you h...

Welcome to a special episode of the Tom Petty Project where I’m going to take a break from our usual scheduling to pay tribute to one of the most influential performers of all time. Today’s episode is dedicated to the life and work of Ozzy Osbourne. NOTE: There is some profanity in this episode, when quoting Ozzy. Don't forget to follow me on social media, like, subscribe, and please, leave a rati...

It’s often been remarked that Mike sometimes sounds like Tom when he sings. If you listen to the Dirty Knobs albums you do hear some of those inflections peeking out from time to time, as you’d expect. But this goes both ways and I think Tom actually sounds a lot like Mike on About to Give Out - particularly in the verses. If you heard this on a Dirty Knobs record I don’t think you’d immediately c...

"Pharmacists aren't here to save rock and roll. They don't have the budget, or the jackets. But they are *trying*, in a landscape where most bands are too busy refreshing their socials to finish a bridge. Rock music doesn't die - it just downsizes. And Pharmacists are out here propping it up with their own shoulders, one open wound at a time." Those are words of KWR Radion DJ Jim McCaulty, and I t...