Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
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Interview by Cynthia Rose, City Limits, 3 December 1982
With his 1976 debut album, Tom Petty became a rock star. It seemed he was cast in the classic mould – a hip young American ...
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, May 1999
What's your fascination with San Francisco? Two years ago you staged 20 shows at the Fillmore, and now you're here for seven days. ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, June 1981
The head Heartbreaker talks at length about, among many other things, songwriting and lyrics; his first album; working with Stevie Nicks; bandmates Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench; his Hard Promises album; Roger McGuinn's cover of 'American Girl'; Duck Dunn and John Fogerty; the MCA lawsuit and Denny Cordell; visiting Europe, and his relationship with producer Jimmy Iovine.
File format: mp3; file size: 86.6mb, interview length: 1h 30' 13" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, October 1987
The Heartbreakers' main man talks about collaborating with other artists; the band's longevity; muses about songwriting and being a bandleader.
File format: mp3; file size: 40.6mb, interview length: 44' 20" sound quality: ***
Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 1989
The lead Heartbreaker talks about the album Southern Accents; his long association with guitarist Mike Campbell; his Backstreet record label, and his previous label Shelter; his 1982-'86 sabbatical; Roy Orbison and the Traveling Wilburys; embracing the spirit of punk; his partnership with Bob Dylan; his 1979 bankruptcy; people who cover his songs; live album Pack Up The Plantation, and his current solo album Full Moon Fever.
File format: mp3; file size: 55.1mb; Interview length: 57' 25"; sound quality: ****
Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages audio, 3 April 1999
The Head Heartbreaker talks at length about writing and recording latest album Echo; the craft of songwriting in general; the continued pleasure of playing with his band; his youth playing covers in Florida; and how the new technologies (internet, mp3s etc.) are changing the way music is made and consumed.
File format: mp3; file size: 80.1mb, interview length: 1h 27' 28" sound quality: ***
List of articles in the library
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (Shelter, import)
Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 1 January 1977
DONT KNOW much about these guys except that they breeze out of Los Angeles, have a great image and play very good '70's rock'n'roll which ...
Tom Petty: Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers (Shelter SRL 52006 Import) ★★★★★
Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 1 January 1977
I LIKE THIS RECORD so much that I'd hate for a single person out there to miss out on it because of my failure to ...
Tom Petty: Whisky A Go Go, Los Angeles
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 10 September 1977
IT'S NO accident that the tinny PA at the tacky Whisky was blasting out the Rolling. Stones' 'All Down The Line' prior to the Saturday ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Hogtown Boys Make Good
Interview by Stephen K. Peeples, Rock Around The World, October 1977
TOM PETTY casually strolls into the room, looking slightly slept-in and slightly more bored. ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 2 February 1978
Are the Heartbreakers on the Brink of Stardom? ...
Tom Petty: Animus Americus Unpoliticus
Interview by Stephen Demorest, Creem, August 1978
[L — Fair-haired, guitar-playing carnivore indigenous to America; leaves characteristic trail of Coke bottles.] ...
Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, Bangor Daily News, 14 August 1978
TOM PETTY HAS an obsession with rock 'n' roll. It's not just a glamorous occupation; it's virtually the only life the 26-year-old leader of the ...
Tom Petty: The Great White Hope
Interview by Gary Sperrazza!, Trouser Press, December 1978
Tom Petty Takes On Disco Menace ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Damn The Torpedoes (Backstreet)
Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 3 November 1979
IT'S BEEN a good two years since Tom's last sortie into the vinyl jungle, but even then You're Gonna Get It! was released to widespread critical apathy. ...
Report and Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 1 December 1979
THE STRAIGHT-looking I guy flipped open the leather case, revealing a row of gleaming bottles. "Liquid cocaine," he explained as he selected one of several ...
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA)
Review by Ariel Swartley, Rolling Stone, 13 December 1979
DAMN THE Torpedoes is the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album we've all been waiting for — that is, if we were all Tom Petty ...
Tom Petty: Damn the Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1980
DAMN THE TORPEDOES takes the American Stand: "Don't tread on me" When you've been ‘raised on promises’ like the heroine of Tom Petty's bicentennial debut, ...
Tom Petty: The Forum, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 February 1980
LIGHTERS COME on round the arena, a couple of firecrackers go off, then on strides Petty with his rockstar lope, leans into the microphone with ...
The Trials of Tom Petty: Petty gets it…
Report and Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, 8 March 1980
Washed clean by legal wranglings, Tom Petty is settling down to write good rock 'n' roll songs. "That's all I want to do," he tells ...
Call Tom Petty The New Springsteen And He'll Cut You!
Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 15 March 1980
THE PICCADILLY Hotel in Manchester is an anonymous modern structure slipped neatly inside a multi-storey car park — an injection of glass and concrete at ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Hard Promises (MCA)
Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 23 March 1981
WITH THE release of 'American Girl' back in '76, Tom Petty asserted that ability to articulate a native territory – both inherited and imagined – ...
Report and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 13 June 1981
BENMONT TENCH remembers the day well. "It was April Fool's Day 1974 when we drove to L.A.," he recalls. At the time, keyboardsman Tench, guitarist ...
Interview by Dave Marsh, Musician, July 1981
WHEN TOM PETTY burst into his manager's Sunset Blvd offices early this April he was exuberant. No wonder. He'd just finished mixing his fourth and ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Joe Ely: The Garden, Boston MA
Live Review by Julie Panebianco, Boston Rock, 3 September 1981
THERE IS always a part in a Tom Petty song when he knows he's got you, when he zeroes in and touches you. Like the ...
Interview by David Rensin, Playboy, September 1982
Rock's hottest heartbreaker reveals dark secrets — about record-industry execs, rock-'n'-roll marriages and what's in his pockets. ...
30 Years of Teardrops: from Del Shannon’s ‘Runaway’ to Tom Petty’s ‘Refugee’
Retrospective and Interview by Cynthia Rose, unpublished, 1983
THE SPACE inside our souls where real dreams arise is created by a particular breed of gambler: the emotional, sexually aware, desperately honest human who ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Long After Dark
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 20 January 1983
TOM PETTY and the Heartbreakers play a finely crafted band of meat-and-potatoes rock. ...
Interview by David Gans, Hit Parader, April 1983
Lighting Up The Night Under The Spotlight ...
Tom Petty: Long After Maturity
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, April 1983
STAR TRECK. Scene One: Writer meets Star. ...
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 7 July 1983
Rock & roll gets in bed with corporate America ...
Out In The Street: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the simple truths of blue-collar rock
Essay by Cynthia Rose, The History of Rock, 1984
In the heyday of Elvis, Chuck Berry or the Beatles, radio was revered. It constituted rock’n’roll’s channel to the teen heart, and it struck out ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, July 1985
PRETTY SOON, it will be an established practice for earnest rockers to start off albums by announcing the circumstances of their birth. ...
Tom Petty's Year (Or Two) Of Living Dangerously
Report and Interview by Bud Scoppa, Record, August 1985
Crackin' up/ I'm gettin' ready to go Had enough / I can't take anymore … I'd run, but I'd find no face I'd laugh, but ...
Glitches add spontaneity to Bob Dylan and Tom Petty show
Live Review by Charles Bermant, The Globe and Mail, 1986
BOB DYLAN FORGOT a lot of the words to his own songs. He blew the payoff line of 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' completely. ...
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 16 January 1986
Tom Petty teams up with new pal Bob Dylan ...
Bob Dylan In Concert - An HBO Special
Film/DVD/TV Review by Geoffrey Himes, Columbia Flier , 3 July 1986
THE RECENT HBO cable TV special, Bob Dylan in Concert, gave us a sneak preview of what we can expect when Dylan arrives in Washington ...
Tom Petty: Less Is More, More Or Less
Interview by Bud Scoppa, Creem, August 1987
"She hit me, Daddy!""I did not." ...
Bob Dylan/Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers /Roger McGuinn: Modena Autodrome, Turin
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 26 September 1987
ROCK HACKS aren't allowed near Bob. He's got no time for the press. In fact, someone who once met his grannie's dog-minder tells me Bob ...
Audio transcript of interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1989
This is a transcript of John's audio interview with Tom. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Tom Petty: Once In A Full Moon
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 5 May 1989
BY THE time Tom Petty became a Traveling Wilbury last year, he had every reason to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Roy ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, June 1989
Sans Heartbreakers, Tom Petty revives the Golden Age of Pop. ...
Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever (MCA LP/Cassette/CD)
Review by Michele Kirsch, New Musical Express, 24 June 1989
HAVING LIVED next door to the Tom Petty Experience — a guy who strapped himself into his Strat to make up new solo parts for ...
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, July 1989
Tom Petty survived the scuffling Southern bar circuit, soul-destroying legal wrangles and a self-inflicted hospital spell to bring his mid-tempo memories of fickle women and ...
Interview by James Hunter, Musician, August 1989
A Wilbury explains why Tom Petty's solo album sounds the way it does ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles
Live Review by Steven P. Wheeler, Music Connection, August 1989
WHAT CAN be said about Tom Petty and his crack band the Heartbreakers that hasn't already been said? They are quite simply the tightest and ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Into The Great Wide Open
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
THE TITLE says it all. Space, horizon and all those rich possibilities are so central to the idea of America that it's hardly surprising they ...
Tom Petty: Into The Great Wide Open
Review by Max Bell, Vox, August 1991
NOW TOM PETTY has developed the taste, his second solo album finds him in experimental mood. The post-Byrds vein of downbeat romantic country pop is ...
Profile and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Vox, September 1991
HEIR TO DYLAN or Bel Air airhead? Sometime Wilbury Tom Petty is 40 with kids, and even though his new album with the Heartbreakers is ...
Tom Petty: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 26 March 1992
IS TOM PETTY thrashing out a mid-life crisis or has he always been this way? His current show certainly leaves you wondering. American rock is ...
Tom Petty: Wildflowers (Warner)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1994
THE SURPRISING choice of Rick Rubin as producer after a highly successful liaison with Jeff Lynne over his last couple of albums might suggest a ...
Interview by Richard Williams, Independent on Sunday, 13 November 1994
HE REMEMBERS the day Elvis Presley came to town: the day his life was saved by rock'n'roll. He was 11 years old. ...
Tom Petty: This Is How It Feels
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 4 May 1995
"That's all we need is another dog onstage." Tom Petty's calm drawl has just gone as thick as black smoke from a smudge pot. Petty ...
Report by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1995
And other odd twists of the CD revolution. ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Playback (MCA)
Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, January 1996
Ben Edmonds rewinds 20 years of Tom Petty ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Songs And Music From The Motion Picture She's The One
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1996
TOM PETTY WAS BORN to be a classic runner. The only question with each new release is whether he's out for a canter or the ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Songs and Music from the Motion Picture ‘She’s the One’
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1996
Asked to provide one song for a film soundtrack, Tom Petty rather overshot the brief and wound up laying down an album’s worth. ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1997
Rockin', Writin', Survivin' in L.A. ...
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco
Live Review by Joel Selvin, MOJO, March 1997
AFTER MORE THAN FIVE YEARS OF THE IMMENSE SUCCESS THAT followed the popular breakthrough of Full Moon Fever, Tom Petty wondered what to do. His ...
Interview by Holly George-Warren, Oxford American, 15 July 2000
I GUESS YOU can say it was my theme song: its jangling, melodic guitar riff perfect for pogoing, and the urgent vocals laced with a ...
Essay by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, October 2002
FACED WITH the constant change and uncertainty that is life these days, it's a relief, on occasion, to be able to count on a band ...
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2002
BUSINESS AS usual for Petty is a decent business: good melodies, fat, ringing acoustics, his occasionally Dylanish delivery with those little lifts or drops at ...
Interview by Alan di Perna, Guitar World, January 2003
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers take on the corporate giants with their new concept album, The Last DJ. ...
Obituary by Phast Phreddie Patterson, Rock's Backpages, March 2003
Phast Phreddie Patterson on those gone but not forgotten ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Southern Accents
Retrospective by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, May 2004
IF YOU WERE COMPILING A LIST OF southern rock bands, you'd have The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and The North Mississippi All Stars pencilled in ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Southern Accents
Review by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, May 2004
IF YOU WERE compiling a list of Southern Rock bands, you'd have the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the North Mississippi All Stars pencilled in ...
Tom Petty: Anatomy of a rock star
Profile and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, July 2006
ALMOST EVERYONE that knows Tom Petty for any length of time calls him Tommy. ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2006
On his third outing without the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty mixes nostalgia, protest and resignation to pay bittersweet tribute to his rock'n'roll radio roots. ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2006
Hard-headed master of the American rock song, soft-hearted support system to superannuated superstars, Tom Petty crowns 30 years' making albums with his best since Wallflowers. ...
The Inside Story of the Traveling Wilburys… Rock's Greatest Ever Supergroup
Interview by Bud Scoppa, Uncut, September 2007
George Harrison hid in the bushes with a video camera. Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne sang harmonies on the porch. And Bob Dylan? ...
Gene Clark remembered: "Genius and insanity hand in hand…"
Retrospective by Luke Torn, Uncut, May 2008
IT'S ANOTHER DAY in the busy life of one of the biggest bands in America. The Byrds have just recorded 'Eight Miles High', and are ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2009
This is the full, uncut version of the piece that appeared in Mojo, October 2009. ...
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers: Mojo
Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, July 2010
NINE TRACKS INTO MOJO, Tom Petty's first album with The Heartbreakers for eight years, the band fire up a plodding blues groove, and Petty makes ...
Tom Petty: Madison Square Garden, New York
Live Review by Jeff Slate, Examiner.com, 29 July 2010
July 29, 2010 (New York, NY) – LAST NIGHT Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tore the roof off Madison Sqaure Garden. For the band it ...
Benmont Tench: You Should Be So Lucky
Report and Interview by Bud Scoppa, Uncut, March 2014
THE HEARTBREAKERS KEYS MAN debuts - with a little help from his friends. ...
Warren Zanes: Petty – The Biography (Henry Holt)
Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 11 November 2015
YOU WOULD THINK that Tom Petty had it all in the mid to late '90s. On the backside of his forties, he had already enjoyed ...
Del Shannon on Tom Petty and Drop Down and Get Me
Retrospective by Stephen K. Peeples, stephenkpeeples.com, 8 January 2017
ROCK 'N' ROLL HALL of Fame member Del Shannon of 'Runaway', 'Hats Off to Larry' and 'Little Town Flirt' renown in the early '60s – ...
see also Mudcrutch
see also Traveling Wilburys
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