Michael was able to be the calming factor.. Lynch decided to show up within 24 hours after Ringo Starr was initially substituted because he didnt want to be outdone. It hit me how strong the songs were, Petty said, with just a couple of acoustic guitars. Bass guitarist Howie Epstein, who joined in 1982 when Blair decided to quit the road, was let go in 2002 over his addiction to heroin. I have a memory or running into him in the upper reaches of the House of Blues before a Willie Nelson show, and retreating into a shuttered, empty dining room to smoke one. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. The musician revealed that he wishes he had handled the situation in the band in a more proper way regarding his departure. All rights reserved. I do believe, and with the help of his music I will do all I can to live up to this, that Tom Petty really meant it when advised us to carry on. Among the acts that Tom Petty took with him on the tour for his 1987 album, Let Me Up (Ive Had Enough), was the Del Fuegos, a Boston-based roots-rock band with ties to the New York hardcore scene. Tom Petty often served that need for me. Stevie Nicks reprised her duet with Petty, Stop Draggin My Heart Around, a Top Five hit in 1981. You could never have told him even across repeated contacts of the journalistic sort over the years just how much he meant to you spiritually yes, asdeep in your spirit as any music has ever gone because that might have just led to a mildly embarrassed silence. Tom was a completely masculine personality, Nicks says, but it softened him and made him much more understanding. Nicks, who first met Petty in 1978, was never afraid to pick up the phone and explain a situation to him. "Tom told me, 'Look man, you can call anybody anything you wantbut you can't lay a hand on anyone in this band.' At the end, he looked at me, gave me this big, beaming smile, and said, Guess you found your target demographic., He was so proud, like a dad, Dhani says. It was Get in here, do your shit, get out of here. via Flip and entertaining as he could be, the essential Petty to me was the darker-hued poet of Even the Losers, The Waiting, Deliver Me, and Southern Accents as they spilled out over the next decade. I have a proposition for you, said Campbell, who was on the verge of kicking off his first-ever solo tour, but was going to be without regular drummer Matt Laug for a period in the spring and summer when he had commitments in Europe with Italian superstar Vasco Rossi. She was also in the video 'Make It Better (Forget About Me)'. Tom was a great classicist, Springsteen says, and the Heartbreakers were a real guitar band. 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. Answer: Stanley Joseph Lynch (born May 21, 1955) is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. 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It's what people like to think of as "swing". All Rights Reserved. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakershad been off the road for nearly a year when the 1994 Bridge School Benefit came around. Tensions were thick backstage at the Bridge School Benefit, but the Heartbreakers still delivered an incredibly moving acoustic set featuring You Dont Know How It Feels, I Wont Back Down, Free Fallin' and, appropriately enough, Time To Move On. Heres a gorgeous rendition of Learning To Fly. Nobody knew it at the time, but it was Lynchs final gig with the band. When original Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch was let go from the group in 1995 or excommunicated, to use his own term he started a new chapter of his life in Florida as a producer-songwriter and rarely looked back. Joe Jacksons Four Decade Tour Brings His Inimitable Quirks toL.A. Want to know what everyone in the music business is talking about. Cage singer Matt Shultz contends that like David Bowie, Petty conquered the popular belief that creativity dies with age, especially in rock & roll. The two had not previously met or spoken in twenty years, other than a brief phone call following Petty's death. That Time Tom Petty Toured The Western Wall - The Forward Lynch moved to Los Angeles, and hooked up again with fellow Floridian Ron Blair, during a recording session set up by Benmont Tench in 1976. Petty is a rock star who is also a member of a band that has been together since the mid-seventies, and it is difficult to be one without undermining the other. But Toms attitude and personality gave it a modern edge., Tench believes that as a writer, Petty walked in this strange penumbra between the shadow and the light. Free Fallin, Pettys Top 10 single from Full Moon Fever, has a catchy chorus, Tench says. I learn from them.. Hi! Another epiphany came in 1965 when Petty then a member of a local combo called the Sundowners went to Jacksonville for his first concert, headlined by the Beach Boys and featuring two British Invasion bands, the Zombies and the Searchers, who became crucial influences on Pettys lashing-jangle charge and pocket-grenade songwriting with the Heartbreakers. Now there's a book in itself.". We connected instantly, like wed known each other already, the guitarist says. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Theyre good to go. Lynchs current shows with Campbell will end in June. Pettys dark side manifested at times in an explosive temper; more often channeled into a willingness to wage all-out war with the music business over his integrity and just reward was a running parallel drama to his success. Since her father's death, Violette has been sharing both her family's pride over the "American Girl" singer's . Tom Petty's Daughter Wanted to Cut The Heartbreakers Out of Greatest He could go anywhere I wanted to go. Juicy Details About Jane Benyo, Why She Divorced Tom Petty and Where I wouldnt want to let anyone down, says Lynch. Earlier this year, Stan Lynch reunited with his former bandmate, Mike Campbell, when Campbell asked him to join him on the road with the Dirty Knobs. And its a new life. There was a depth of soul coming through. The two men spoke briefly after the September 25th show at the Bowl, raving about it. I was ashamed. The album that first alienated Lynch was Southern Accents. Petty was found unconscious at his home. Id drive up; gate opens. Otherwise, I listened to what I already had.. That he most certainly was. I started to hear a whole new kind of thing coming out., Petty was flattered when Hillman asked if he could record his own version of Wildflowers title track for Bidin My Time. Tom Petty and Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench Interview: 'She's the One I like to think that Pettys demise, which will draw a perhaps never-to-be-reopened shade across part of my consciousness,will only serve to enhance his stature. Petty was less than three weeks from his 67th birthday. Lynch accepted the offer, and the two re-established their musical partnership. I have the slang and the cadence and the understanding of how those songs are supposed to be translated. I never knew how it got there, but it sure wasnt left over from the night before. The idea for a new unauthorized Tom Petty biography came from a surprising source: Tom Petty. Stan had never heard me sing before, and he was the main harmony singer with Tom. I was just trying to do the best job I could. Still, Petty confirmed with relish a story about a meeting to renegotiate a contract during which he pulled a switchblade knife out of his boot and started cleaning his fingernails. "[citation needed]. Not only did this prickly anthem propel the band into the US Billboard chart and help make them a household name . Dhani the son of Pettys close friend, the late Beatle George Harrison notes that when his father died in 2001, someone said, Ive never seen so many grown men cry. The same thing can be applied to this., Tributes swiftly followed the news of Pettys passing. Original Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch recently joined an interview with Rolling Stone. He was a real cat. When Petty sang a song by Jimmie Rodgers, Merle Haggard or the Searchers, Tench insists, he wasnt a dilettante, trying something on. You remember dozens of moments, including an interview for Billboardwhen he was 64 and you were sitting with him in a glassed-in studio booth while distracting activity swirled all around, and he took a beat and he could take a beat as well as any showman who has walked the stage with a six-string slung around his neck and smiled one of his complicated and almost furtive smiles and said, Were professionals, right?. It has a special vibe when its just the two of you. And so we started closing the show with it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Jimmy Iovine dissing Stan Lynch for being behind the beat Howard Norman Epstein (July 21, 1955 - February 23, 2003) was an American musician best known as a bassist with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Warren himself had been a Tom Petty fan since he was eleven, when he heard Breakdown on WBCN in Boston. ', When he heard about Pettys death in 2017, Lynch says he was shocked, but not completely surprised. Id hear that he was auditioning for another group. One day, Pettys manager, Tony Dimitriades, called Zanes out of the blue and said that Tom had read Dusty in Memphis and wanted to have dinner the next time Warren was in L.A. For Zanes, who had a new baby at home in Cleveland, It was all I could do not to leave right then. When they did meet, Petty said that the Dusty book had inspired a song, and that he wanted Zanes to come to his house to hear it. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time I got the phone call and told the folks in my house, Bruce Springsteen says, recalling the sudden, shocking impact of that news. A lot of the times Id just be focused on what I was doing, but then Id turn around and be like, My God, its Lynch and hes fuckin smoking it! In December 2016, during a radio interview to announce the 40th Anniversary Tour, he described a recent rehearsal with the Heartbreakers, their first in two years. 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In the wings, Dhani says, Bob was going, Fucking lights. [citation needed] Foley played the main blond haired Alice in Wonderland character in the video. However, they subsequently decided to end the litigation and join forces into . "He seemed to have a real good . Thats when it fell apart with Stan., The tensions between Lynch and Petty had been building ever since the late 1980s when Petty recorded with the Traveling Wilburys and followed that up with his first solo album. The Heartbreakers were all fingers on the same hand.. I never sought these people out, Petty claimed when I asked him in 2009 about why he got along so well with legends. He was so powerful I used to say he had this fifth gear that he could go into and just really make everything explode. We apologized to each other for being assholes and young and stupid, says Campbell. And he said, This is really good. He sounded just like Tom Petty when he said it. Stan Lynch, the bands longtime drummer, who eventually quit in 1994, is unsurprisingly the most critical of Petty. Six days later, on the evening of October 1st, Petty suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu, and was rushed to UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica. But the times I was designated to tag along on a couple later tours for magazine profiles, he was always welcoming, inclusive, ready with a quip that came from his slightly mysterious but usually winning vein of humor. His only encounter with Petty in the years that followed took place in 2002 at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and the only communication he can recall from guitarist Mike Campbell in the two decades since that night was a brief phone call in 2017 shortly after Petty died. Petty later got a solo deal with Shelter but turned to Campbell and Tench again to form a band with Pettys name up front, playing his songs. In 1961, an uncle working on the local set of an Elvis Presley movie, Follow That Dream, arranged for Petty and some family members to watch the filming and meet the star. Its felt really nice to get my friend back., They finally met up a few months ago at Campbells Los Angeles home studio he calls Knobville. Lynch stated he would be open to playing with the other three original members of The Heartbreakers in the future. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida.Formed in 1976, the band originally comprised lead singer and rhythm guitarist Tom Petty, lead guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair.In 1982, Blair, weary of the touring lifestyle, departed the band. The crowd will go crazy. Longtime Petty manager Tony Dimitriades fired Lynch on the phone shortly after the show, and the drummer didnt say a word to Petty until the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. That was another experience for me, says Lynch. Ringo Starr on Tom Petty's Death: 'It Was a Shock' - Rolling Stone (Caroline Greyshock / Los Angeles Times) (The Del Fuegos lasted for one more album before disbanding; Dan Zanes went on to be a fixture on the childrens-music scene.) And then we got together when we were old fucks and we played some clubs. I would have never bet on that.. All rights reserved. You think of those nearest to him, because you have had your foot in that door and seen his co-workers and lovers and fellow artists inside there. Right now, Campbell and the Dirty Knobs are on a brief break before returning to the road in late May for another long string of shows that includes stints opening for Chris Stapleton and the Who at arenas and even a few stadiums. Good songs stay written. And so I have regrets, but they dont hold me back. At the end of the process, as was their agreement, Zanes sent Petty the book, and then flew out to California to hear his judgment in person. I was just that kind of guy, he said. So not really the best environment for me, personally.. Petty then eventually felt that it wouldnt be a good idea for Lynch to perform on his next solo album, Wildflowers, so he hired session musician Steve Ferrone instead. But I am through it. In a dramatic acknowledgment of the grieving across America that week for Petty and the victims of the October 1st massacre at a music festival in Las Vegas, country singer Jason Aldean who was onstage there when the shooting began opened the October 7th episode of Saturday Night Live with I Wont Back Down, Pettys anthem of iron will and moral certainty. Stan and I had some personal conflicts with family here and there, he says. Tom Petty had the following to say about Lynch, included in his 2005 book, Conversations with Tom Petty: Stan was a little younger than us. I'm Bihter. Editor's note: Simone Biles Owens reveals $120 wedding dress and possible minimoon spot and shuts down her hair haters. Yes, you are Stan, Dimitriades replied. It is a song of pure love agape, Hillman says, using the ancient Greek word. I grabbed him and told him what I needed to tell him. Lynch asked him: Am I fired? asked Lynch. What It Was Like Writing Tom Petty's Life Story The Wild One, Forever, a mostly acoustic lament celebrating and mourning an impossible but unforgettable young love (it would have a close cousin in Magnolia two years later) was followed by the pounding Chuck Berry stompof Anything Thats Rock and Roll.The entire album was by turns an artistic declaration and a hollering yawp that in sum seemed to insist that only lovers would be left alive in some brave new rock world where the iconic American Girl ruled the turf. Every one of them came to me. ", Lynch was always involved in fights at school so his friends reasoned that the high-strung youth might be able to rip the aggression with drums. After being with the Heartbreakers, Lynch calmed down. Lets do this tour first., In a 2014 conversation with Rolling Stone, Petty recalled the unique genesis of Wildflowers, pointing to a day when his co-producer, Rick Rubin, played him the Beatles demos for their 1968 double LP, The Beatles. As you may recall, the lead singer and guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty sadly passed away on October 2, 2017, at the age of 66. After Petty finished off his solo projects, he asked Lynch to return behind the mixing board for The Heartbreakers new album Into the Great Wide Open. Michael and Tom were able to get through anything because they were the yin and yang of it. Petty was in some ways not the easiest person to get along with. Petty spent much of his stardom in ready, grateful service to his rock & roll elders. We want to hear it. Lynch joined his former bandmates during their induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. "I got to know him over the years, really got to know him when he was in the [Traveling] Wilburys 'cause of George . Were just gonna throw a bunch of records up in the air and see where they fall tonight, Petty told the sold-out crowd in his sandy, slow-as-molasses drawl, early in a two-hour streak of legacy that was, in fact, decisively chosen and largely set in stone throughout the tour. So now we must press on. Blank Space: What Kind of Genius Is Max Martin? Why Eddie Murphy hates Tom Petty: The truth comes out in Countdown Even though Ferrone would continue to play drums with the Heartbreakers, the boyhood friendship which brought them together had finally come to an end. There was an inner force driving him., He was just kicking ass, Tench says of Petty, and we had found another level of playing as a band. I have regrets. I havent been a drummer since I was in my thirties. The 50 Worst Decisions in Music History Stanley Joseph "Stan" Lynch (born May 21, 1955) is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. Tom Petty's song "The Best of Everything" sounds like it was meant to be the title track for something.Now, long, long after it was initially recorded and released in the 1980s, it finally . Ad Choices. And whatever I was playing in didnt even feel like a band. And then, with awful suddenness and scant days after a triumphant home stand in his adoptive Los Angeles for a 40th anniversary concert, he was gone. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time "The coolest thing about this is that I get to put a bookend on a really, really long book of life," says Stan Lynch, second from left, of reuniting with Mike Campbell, third from left. Epstein was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew . I said, Tom, the audience is rockin. ', One night, they started warming up backstage by singing Stories We Could Tell, an obscure John Sebastianpenned song that Petty and the Heartbreakers often played in their early days. He was a powerhouse onstage. For Zanes, the tour should have been heaven on earth. Drums didn't absorb all of Lynch's feistiness as his parents had hoped, although he stayed in school long enough to graduate from P.K. But, Tench says, I never want this guy to be thought of as OK, weve put him in the file, thats done. Because he resonates. After his departure, Lynch moved back to Florida, where he partnered with longtime friend Don Henley to help put together the Eagles' reunion album Hell Freezes Over. But once in LA the producers decided they were not keen on the rest of the band, so it broke up, leaving Petty basically a solo act something he was not happy about. Im sure thinking about that in the future will make me lose it. Before an encore on Ferrones first tour with Petty in 1995, the singer asked him if he knew Breakdown. The drummer said no; it wasnt on the list of songs he was supposed to learn. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch recalled working with Stevie Nicks in a July 2021 interview. If you listen to the old records, Stan and I are pushing, were locked, and lot of times were driving the songs. It was also the climax of their 40th Anniversary Tour, a 53-show celebration of the singer-guitarists unbroken lifetime with his band as one of rock & rolls biggest, best and most committed live acts. All rights reserved.