Tom Petty: runnin’ down a dream

From Uncut’s September 2016 issue [Take 232]: TOM PETTY gets the old gang back together. That is, his doomed first band, MUDCRUTCH, a mix of Heartbreakers and guitar teachers reunited for a long-awaited turn in the spotlight. Uncut meets a reborn Mudcrutch in New York, and explores with them the lost hinterland of a rock superstar.

Tom Petty came to success in a very roundabout way. During his induction into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in New York in early June, Petty explains that, even today—having spent the best part of three decades refining back-to-basics American rock—he still considers himself to be an outsider. “I’m sorta the rock’n’roll white trash section of the show,” he deadpans from the podium of the Marriott Marquis Ballroom. Tonight, Petty is in illustrious company. His fellow inductees include Lionel Richie, Elvis Costello, Nile Rodgers and posthumously, Marvin Gaye. Petty is suitably dressed for the occasion, sporting a military-cut black tuxedo, a black silk shirt and a thin purple cravat. He is inaugurated by his friend Roger McGuinn and although the tone of the event is light and celebratory, Petty’s acceptance speech shares several hard truths about the nature of his craft. “Writing a song for a rock band—you’d better bring a really good song, because they don’t take it well if it’s not,” he says in a slow, laconic drawl. “Many times I’ve gone back to the drawing board.

“If no-one ever wrote another song, we’d be fine,” he continues. “There’s plenty of songs. But I still do it. I love it, it’s a gift. Everybody can do it, but everybody can’t do it good.”

But which band exactly is Petty talking about here? The Heartbreakers, perhaps; his long-serving sidemen on 13 studio albums? Or alternatively, is he referring to Mudcrutch — the proto-Heartbreakers outfit formed in Gainesville, Florida in 1970? In the event, Petty decides to honour both of his bands by playing “Angel Dream (No 4)“, a Heartbreakers deep cut, and a Mudcrutch track, “I Forgive It All“.

Many musicians in their late maturity have only a vague memory of their earliest days on the bandstand. For Petty, though, Mudcrutch represents the start of a creative partnership that exists up to the present day. There, he first worked with Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, who in the intervening years have become Petty’s closest lieutenants in the Heartbreakers.

Petty revived Mudcrutch in 2007, after seeing footage of the band in Peter Bogdanovich‘s documentary, Runnin’ Down A Dream. He invited the band members — who include rhythm guitarist Tom Leadon and drummer Randall Marsh — to his Malibu home to record a debut album, 32 years after they broke up. He reconvened them again his year, for a second record and a sell-out tour, which includes two nights at New York’s Webster Hall. “Tom goes out of his way to be a good friend,” explains McGuinn after the award ceremony. “He tries to give you a shot in the arm, if you need it. Like what he’s doing with Mudcrutch. Tom Leadon is a guitar teacher and Tom has elevated him to be a rock star for a month or two. It’s a very sweet thing to do.”

The following night at the 1,500-capacity Webster Hall, the mood onstage is like a high school reunion: plenty of banter about the good old days. Petty introduces Mudcrutch as “that little band from Florida. There are a lot of stories about Mudcrutch,” he continues tantalisingly. “I think you should go Google it.” Playing the bass guitar, Petty acts more like a master of ceremonies for the show, handing over the spotlight to the other members of the band to sing lead on the songs they contributed to Mudcrutch 2. He peppers the band’s two-hour, 20-song set with plenty of well-timed asides. As Tom Leadon introduces “The Other Side Of The Mountain” as a “psychedelic bluegrass” song, Petty notes, “I’m pretty sure it is the first psychedelic bluegrass song.” Later, McGuinn joins them onstage for a dip into the Byrds and Dylan songbooks. Critically, they steer away from Heartbreakers songs.

While it is easy to regard anything Petty does outside the Heartbreakers as a side-project, it is evident he has a complex relationship with Mudcrutch. The first line on Mudcrutch 2‘s opening song “Trailer” is “I graduated high school.” Elsewhere in their set, “Queen Of The Go Go Girls” recalls the time they were the house band at Dub’s Steer Room, a topless bar in Gainesville. It’s hard not to read more reflective autobiographical sentiment in “I Forgive It All“, where Petty sings, “I have not been down these roads since I was a child/I ain’t broke and I ain’t hungry but I’m close enough to care.” It is as if Mudcrutch allows Petty to reconnect with his younger self: a Tom Petty who still lives inside the Gainesville city limits, earning $100 a week playing Dub’s, hosting ad hoc music festivals at their base in a remote, dilapidated woodframe house. A Tom Petty, in other words, who is as yet unencumbered by the pressures of global fame. “The Bogdanovich film was moving,” admits Petty. “How close we were, and all those big life experiences we went through. We were kids, I realised, ‘God, what a childhood. It was just so sweet and I missed it.'”

“It’s not a busman’s holiday,” admits Tench after the Webster Hall show. “This is deadly for real.”

FIND THE FULL INTERVIEW FROM UNCUT SEPTEMBER 2016/TAKE 232 IN THE ARCHIVE