Today's episode covers the Ten Questions part of my conversation with Will Porteous. It's no surprise which album Will chose as his favourite, but our conversation about which song we'd give to someone who didn't know Tom's music saw us talking about a few deep cuts that don't often get a shout out on that question. If you want to check out Will's amazing podcast, The Limehouse Podcast, click here; https://soundcloud.com/user-434215118, If you want to check out his Tom Petty covers, you can find...
Dec 16, 2023•33 min•Season 9Ep. 14
Today's episode is a conversation I had with powerhouse multi-disciplinarian and resident of Diss, Will Porteous. As a quick warning, there's a bit of profanity in this episode, but when you get two Englishmen in a room (even virtual) the langauge will change on a dime! I've been looking forward to this chat for somewhere around two years now because Will has been a very generous supporter of the podcast and a super nice guy to chat with offline! I really hope you enjoy our conversation which to...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Season 9Ep. 13
There are, again, some very big ideas packed into this very simple almost-four-minute pop song and as always, Tom isn’t preaching or judging, just observing. As my wonderful guest Matt Jaffe said during our Ten Questions episode, Tom is never didactic. He’s not saying that celebrity is bad, he’s not judging the family’s luck or the girl’s choices, and importantly he’s not prescribing an antidote, he’s just making the observation and letting it stand alone. It’s up to us to decide what we think a...
Dec 13, 2023•26 min•Season 9Ep. 12
Today's episode covers the Ten Questions part of my conversation with Russell Mark of The Nextdoors. Russell took a completely unique approach to the question about which artist he'd like to hear cover Tom's music and which song they'd perform. It's a really cool take on preserving Tom's musical legacy with a new audience. Please check out The Nextdoor's website here: https://nextdoorsmusic.com . You can find out his brilliant project The Title Trackers here: https://www.thetitletrackers.com and...
Dec 09, 2023•34 min•Season 9Ep. 11
Today's episode is a conversation I had with the wonderful Russell Mark, of the Pasadena-based husband and wife duo, The Nextdoors. Russell is also a long time performer, composer, sound engineer, producer, music camp director and was a very easy person to sit and talk to for just over an hour and a half! I sat down with Russell on November 13 of this year and we talked about how to craft songs around a cello instead of a bass, how inspiration can often come from unexpected places, the sights an...
Dec 08, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Season 9Ep. 10
“You could almost take Mike [Campbell] for granted, because anything you asked him to do, he did it. And more. I don’t remember ever throwing anything his way that he couldn’t do. He could do it, and do it better than you thought. He will give you back your idea better than you had it in the first place. THAT’S a great musician.” - Tom Petty The implication I’ve always taken from the abrupt ending is that in this conversation about all or nothing, this final act of musical vandalism is the prota...
Dec 06, 2023•24 min•Season 9Ep. 9
Today's episode covers the Ten Questions part of my conversation with Matt Jaffe. We had a great conversation about Walls (Circus) vs Walls (No 3), Matt surprised me with who he would have cover a Tom Petty song, but since he's said it, it's been stuck in my brain. He also gave a superb answer to my final question and described Tom Petty in 3 words absolutely brilliantly! Please check out Matt's website here: mattjaffemusic.com and go check out his Youtube channel here: @MattJaffeMusic Don't for...
Dec 02, 2023•34 min•Season 9Ep. 8
Today's episode is a conversation I had with the wonderful Matt Jaffe. After cutting his teeth on open mics around the Bay Area, San Francisco songwriter Matt Jaffe was discovered by Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads. Together, they produced his first album at the age of 16, cementing Matt's dedication to music. Soon, he formed a band, dropped out of college, and has not looked back. Since then, Matt has cowritten with Chuck Prophet and Tom Higgenson of Plain White T’s, crisscrossed the country op...
Dec 01, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 9Ep. 7
In 2004/2005 when Paul Zollo is interviewing Tom for his seminal book, Conversations With Tom Petty. Tom bemoans to Paul that The Dark of the Sun was never played live. He says “It got lost in the shuffle of that album. There were so many songs on it. I thought it was a good little song.” This is another one of those tracks that I sometimes forget about and then when I hear it think, “man, that’s a great song!” and then when I hear Mike’s solo, I think “Man, that’s a REALLY good song!” It’s slic...
Nov 29, 2023•24 min•Season 9Ep. 6
In Conversations With Tom Petty, when Tom tells author Paul Zollo that the band were allowed to pick some of their favourites for the Anthology, Paul asks “So Two Gunslingers is one of your favourites?” Tom Responds “Oh definitely. I love that song. I was really proud of that when it got done.” When Paul comments “It’s a funny song, but meaningful.” Tom responds, “Yeh, it’s a really good anti-war song”. Today’s episode covers "Two Gunslingers", the fourth track on "Into The Great Wide Open". You...
Nov 22, 2023•33 min•Season 9Ep. 5
Where Tom’s vocal on a song like Refugee or Rebels is like a sharpened steel, his voice here sits more in that butterscotch place that he could employ when he wanted to dial the energy back. Even in the chorus, he doesn’t lean into any vibrato, doesn’t crack or pinch his voice and just lets the melody wash over you. And it’s a song that doesn’t need vocal pyrotechnics because all the explosions in this song come from that wonderful turnaround, the tonal shift in the chorus, and one of the best n...
Nov 15, 2023•36 min•Season 9Ep. 4
Like Learning To Fly, it’s a song that the band would change the arrangement of and when Paul Zollo mentions the acoustic version on the Playback boxset, Tom responds that “It’ll work just about any way you want to play it.” He also goes on to say “It was a tricky one to record. We went through a few changes trying to get the track to sound the way we wanted.” I think that “the Kings Highway” here isn’t at all a reference to the road that runs through Brooklyn, New York. If I had to guess, that ...
Nov 08, 2023•21 min•Season 9Ep. 3
Another recap episode for you this week folks as I try to wrangle guest schedules! This week we're looking back at which live shows my guests wish they could have seen. Winterland? The Fillmore? The True Confessions tour with Bob? The Superbowl half time show? The Gainesville homecoming show on the 30th anniversary tour... There are so many to choose from and some of my guests picked the same shows for similar reasons! In order, the people answering the questions are; Dallas Heliker, Gwen Jones,...
Nov 01, 2023•28 min•Season 9Ep. 2
When Paul asks Tom to confirm that the origin of the song is him hearing a pilot say that learning to fly is easy, but coming down’s the hard part, Tom replies “True. That was the inspiration and I took it from there. Jeff and I wrote that together.” He also comments that it was written pretty quickly, saying “I think we wrote it in an evening. It came quickly because I had written most of the words and I had gotten a tune in my head. We sat down and spent a whole evening on it. But that’s fairl...
Oct 25, 2023•28 min•Season 9Ep. 1
This week's episode is the second installment The Petty 8ight! I love talking to Pettyheads, musicians, and other people who have been influenced by Tom or his music in myriad ways, but I thought it would be neat to see what non-fans, or non-hardcore fans think of Tom's music if I threw deeper cuts at them. My second #Petty8ight guest is my best friend and musical mentor, Randy Woods. Randy is the guy who does all the little musical interludes. He's also a songwriter, singer, guitarist, all roun...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 32 min•Season 8Ep. 20
It's a long one this season folks! But there's so much to talk about with this album and we felt we needed to talk about each individual track. Which song does John think that Kevin rated too low? Which songs made it onto Kevin and John's resqeuenced discs and which songs do they think could have been left off, if any? Check out the playlists below to find out! Please note, there is one small piece of profanity in this episode when Kevin quotes Ringo Starr. Kevin's sequence: https://open.spotify...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 8Ep. 19
Another recap episode for you this week folks as I try to wrangle guest schedules! This week we're looking back at the songs of Tom's that my guests would love to hear covered by other artists. This is a question I always look forward to discussing and it's thrown up some brilliant ideas! In order, the people answering the questions are; Dallas Heliker, Gwen Jones, Nic Apostoleris, Janet Lovell, Jeff Slate, Megan Volpert, Dan Spiess, Corey Morrissette, Katie Moulton, Ivan Anderson, Tommy Edwin, ...
Oct 04, 2023•26 min•Season 8Ep. 18
In Conversations With Tom Petty, when author Paul Zollo asks about the origins of the song, Tom explains “It was when Jeff and George (Jeff Lynne and George Harrison obviously), went out to Anaheim to ask Roy Orbison to be in the band (the Traveling Wilburys, again obviously). We were writing everything we saw. One line I remember that we saw on a billboard was “every day is judgment day”. That later turned up in “End of the Line”, the Wilburys song.” He goes on to explain that “We stopped at a ...
Sep 27, 2023•20 min•Season 8Ep. 17
I do wonder whether the friend who’s treehouse he’s slept in is the same girl from the opening verse. There’s almost a Forrest and Jenny vibe to it if you link those two verses. “She never looked different but something would change” is later in the timeline, and the later treehouse reference snaps you back to a more innocent time. I know that this isn’t the case because the third verse is ad-libbed, but hey, it’s fun to paint your own pictures on the canvas that Tom provides sometimes so I’m go...
Sep 19, 2023•19 min•Season 8Ep. 16
This bonus episode sees Dan Spiess return to the podcast to fill us in on what we can expect at this year's Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville. There are so many cool things to do, from the Wildflowers exhibit at the Cade Museum, to the Gainesville tour bus, to the Heartwood Soundstage Storytellers sessions! The lineup is insanely good, the beer lineup is equally impressive and I'm looking forward to hearing about all the fun that's going to be had at this year's event! If you're attending this ye...
Sep 16, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 8Ep. 15
Everything is alright. For now at least. And that’s where I think this song becomes much more interesting. Despite the light fluffiness of the verse progression and the sincere expression of adoration in the lyrics, that caveat on the title line, we’re alright “for now” belies a slight tension in Tom’s state of mind. Now, it just could that no other words fit as well as “for now”, but given that Tom was very rarely glib about word choice, I would say that this deliberate inclusion of doubt eithe...
Sep 13, 2023•15 min•Season 8Ep. 14
The lyrics in this one are again, really direct and simple. Tom reminisces about his two room apartment and that he’s glad he doesn’t live there any more, but there’s a fondness in the tone. In the second verse, we hear that there’s a similar nostalgia for a former relationship that he sometimes remembers wistfully. The chorus underscores all this by giving his current state. “Oh yeah, I’m alright, I just feel a little lonely tonight. I’m okay most of the time, I just feel a little lonely tonigh...
Sep 06, 2023•25 min•Season 8Ep. 13
Today we hear what Django and Dan would pick as their favourite album, who they'd love to see open for the Heartbreakers and which song they'd love to have joined the band on stage to perform. Petty Theft is currently in the middle of their 20th Anniversary Tour (so you know they have to be good, because you simply don't last that long if you aren't!) and you can check out tour dates, find out more about the band, and even go support them by buying some merch at their fabulous website, here: htt...
Sep 03, 2023•24 min•Season 8Ep. 12
Another half hour with Tommy today folks. Wait til you hear who he would like to see open for Tom Petty and which artist he wants to hear cover a Tom Petty song! Please check out Tommy's (brilliant) website here: https://www.tommyedwinmusic.com . Also, check out his song Empty Chair, from the album "Fade To Memory": https://youtu.be/MGAfmr4Y54U?si=jBEiJQpB3u39412P Don't forget to follow me on social media, like, subscribe, and please, leave a rating if you like the show: Facebook: https://www.fa...
Sep 02, 2023•34 min•Season 8Ep. 11
Today's special bonus episode is a conversation I had with San Francisco-based tribute band Petty Theft. I chatted for just about an hour and a half with bassist Django Bayless and lead singer/rhythm guitarist Dan Durkin, the two founding members of the band about how the band came together, how they choose songs to cover, and of course, their love of Tom's music. As I said to the boys during the call, their sense of fun and their love of playing Tom's music shines through both in conversation a...
Sep 01, 2023•51 min•Season 8Ep. 10
Today's episode is a conversation I had with the wonderful Tommy Edwin. Tommy and I connect over on Twitter months ago and I've been a fan of his music (and his personality) ever since. I love having conversations about Tom Petty's music with other musicians because, even when we're not talking directly about Tom. the ways in which he influenced people always shines through. Tommy Edwin is not exception. His feel for song structure and clarity always ring true for me. This was a fantastic hour a...
Aug 30, 2023•52 min•Season 8Ep. 9
Something that my season seven guest Ivan Anderson said that stuck with me, was that “Listen to Her Heart” is a 'little' song. And by that, he wasn’t being dismissive. He was saying that it wasn’t covering a weighty topic and it was compact and accessible. I’d say exactly the same thing about this one. It’s neat and compact. It has a superb hook in the pre-chorus and the whole thing is imminently hummable. It’s a pretty perfect little pop song. Today’s episode covers the third track from side tw...
Aug 23, 2023•22 min•Season 8Ep. 8
Yer So Bad could almost be the most important song in the entire Tom Petty canon. Almost. Probably not the most important, but it was the first song that Tom showed to Jeff Lynne and from there, the rest of Full Moon Fever and then The Traveling Wilburys dropped effortlessly into place. You have to think there was a little magic in the air that night. Tom tells Paul Zollo, “It was around this time that I showed Jeff one night that I had written the song ‘Yer So Bad’. But there was one little bit...
Aug 16, 2023•19 min•Season 8Ep. 7
Every hardcore Tom Petty fan knows that when Tom took the record to the execs at MCA, they didn’t like it at all. When Paul Zollo asks Tom why in Conversations with Tom Petty, Tom replies “They didn’t hear a single!” One of the other issues with the record that it was only nine tracks long. So while Jeff Lynne, who coproduced the record, was out of town, Tom and Mike recorded the lullaby, Alright For Now, but they still needed more tracks, as the late 80s was the era of the CD and you could make...
Aug 09, 2023•18 min•Season 8Ep. 6
In his fantastic memoir, Tom Petty and Me, Jon Scott calls Runnin Down a Dream “One of the greatest driving songs I’ve ever heard” and you get his point completely. It’s a juggernaut of a rock n roll song but isn’t overpowering sonically. Again Jeff Lynne leaves enough space for the song to breath but adds in enough flare to keep you interested all the way through. It’s an urgent and riveting song; almost as if it’s an hour and a half action movie packed into for glorious minutes of pop rock per...
Aug 02, 2023•21 min•Season 8Ep. 5
