Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. It's been twenty six years since the
Speaker 1: release of Tom Petty's mid career masterpiece Wildflowers. On an
Speaker 1: early episode of Broken Record, Rick Rubin, who produced Wildflowers,
Speaker 1: recalled how Tom recorded more than twenty five songs for
Speaker 1: what was originally meant to be a double album. Those
Speaker 1: extra ten songs had been shelved and definitely until now.
Speaker 1: That's Lee Virginia alone, one of the brilliant newly unearthed
Speaker 1: Petty songs from the box set Wildflowers and all the rest.
Speaker 1: Along with those ten extra tracks, the box it also
Speaker 1: includes dozens of never before her demos and live recordings.
Speaker 1: The comprehensive collection was championed by Tom's daughter, Adria Petty,
Speaker 1: an accomplished director who shot music videos for Beyonce, Coldplay,
Speaker 1: and Regina Spector. Adria was born right around the time
Speaker 1: her dad formed The Heartbreakers, and she remained incredibly close
Speaker 1: to him until his death in twenty seventeen. In today's interview,
Speaker 1: Rick sits down with Adria, who's known for a long
Speaker 1: time together. They listened to some of the demos that
Speaker 1: were found in Tom's closet after he passed, and she
Speaker 1: shares intimate details about her dad's creative process. This is
Speaker 1: broken record Liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmondton.
Speaker 1: Here's Rick Rubin and Adria Petty. The interesting thing about
Speaker 1: the podcast for me is that for people that I know,
Speaker 1: I get to ask them about stuff that we just
Speaker 1: never comes up in normal life. So like, what was
Speaker 1: it like growing up in the house with Tom and
Speaker 1: your mom? Was that? Like? It was weird? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been a lot of time to reflect on it.
Speaker 1: At the beginning, it was really exciting because I was
Speaker 1: born right when the Heartbreakers were born. So there were,
Speaker 1: you know, times when we all lived in motels together.
Speaker 1: There were times when we all traveled together, or there
Speaker 1: were group houses that everybody lived in and you know,
Speaker 1: my recollection doesn't quite go back that far, but there
Speaker 1: was definitely an exciting camaraderie and community of people around us,
Speaker 1: and they sort of treated me as an equal from
Speaker 1: the time I was six, so I was just kind
Speaker 1: of like another person in this gang of friends and artists.
Speaker 1: It was always like a lot of music, a lot
Speaker 1: of music playing, a lot of reggae, and a lot
Speaker 1: of like just kind of great energy coming from the
Speaker 1: stereo all the time, or from Dad's acoustic guitar. Can
Speaker 1: you remember when you first realized that everybody's life was
Speaker 1: not the same as that? Yeah, when was that? There
Speaker 1: was a time when I was about seven, when Damn
Speaker 1: the Torpedoes came out, and you know, leading up to that,
Speaker 1: we really kind of lost Dad, like to Jimmy Ivy
Speaker 1: and like that. You can see that in a lot
Speaker 1: of documentaries and stuff where they were literally on the
Speaker 1: phone day and night or in the studio day and
Speaker 1: night trying to perfect that record and bring it somewhere.
Speaker 1: And after that record came out, my father's mother died
Speaker 1: and he didn't go to the funeral, and I remember
Speaker 1: him sitting by the window just looking like just he
Speaker 1: just changed, like something changed in him. And I was like,
Speaker 1: why didn't you go? And he was like, because I'll
Speaker 1: just be a distraction. I can't go, and distraction because
Speaker 1: of music or distraction because of their relationships in the family,
Speaker 1: because he was famous, because it was he would have overshadowed,
Speaker 1: you know, her life as a churchgo or her life
Speaker 1: in her community. Like the world that they had in Gainesville,
Speaker 1: which was very very I mean Kitty, Kitty Avery Petty,
Speaker 1: our grandmother. Kitty was like magical and compassionate and sweet.
Speaker 1: And I got to meet her before she died a
Speaker 1: few times and I remember her, but um, she loved
Speaker 1: my dad, I mean the sunshine out of my dad
Speaker 1: and his brother for her, and she was very loving person.
Speaker 1: But he changed after she died, and damned the torpedoes
Speaker 1: came out and people started like shout shooting our windows
Speaker 1: and stuff like doing weird stuff in the eighties, like
Speaker 1: and we started having a lot more a presence of
Speaker 1: like security, or a presence of handlers or people who
Speaker 1: cleaned our homes or things like that. That just wasn't
Speaker 1: normal at all, and it kind of I think that
Speaker 1: kind of got worse and worse, like does in terms
Speaker 1: of like living in the house with them, you know
Speaker 1: that feeling of like wow, the room is getting further
Speaker 1: and further away, and there's an intercom and there's there's
Speaker 1: all these other people that do basic functions that other
Speaker 1: people can do for themselves. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: this sort of mythology that if you're successful, you're isolated
Speaker 1: from people. You're up a long driveway, and other people
Speaker 1: do all these things that are so annoying to do.
Speaker 1: But when you stop doing those things for yourself, I
Speaker 1: think you get really disconnected and aimless about your own existence.
Speaker 1: Like you don't understand how much mess you're making around
Speaker 1: the house, or you don't understand what groceries you actually
Speaker 1: need as opposed to what this random person goes and
Speaker 1: buys for you, or you know, there's just a sort
Speaker 1: of disconnect that starts to manifest in depression. And the
Speaker 1: successful people that I've grown up around and with, and
Speaker 1: my dad was so down to earth that we would
Speaker 1: go to Florida every year and now have no one
Speaker 1: for a few months and we clean our own house
Speaker 1: and be with my uncle and normal people that they
Speaker 1: grew up with. And he would sort of isolate enough
Speaker 1: with normal people to stay pretty pure, cool guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did he enjoy those times. He loved it. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: loved that. And you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: songwriting and a lot of inspiration drawn from that time
Speaker 1: at the beach in Florida, and we still have that house, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a really special place. I remember when he got
Speaker 1: it and being really excited about it. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we had been going there renting for years. And like
Speaker 1: you know, he was a very pragmatic guy, my dad.
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't like to live beyond his means.
Speaker 1: He didn't extend credit, he didn't take mortgages. He just
Speaker 1: he liked to keep things simple. But things got less
Speaker 1: simple after he became famous. How much time do you
Speaker 1: spend on tour when you really live all the time,
Speaker 1: all the time, all the time. Did you ever go
Speaker 1: We didn't have enough money to take the families with
Speaker 1: us until the late eighties when my house burned down
Speaker 1: and we went on the Dylan Petty tour. And that's
Speaker 1: actually when me and Jacob met was on that tour
Speaker 1: and we traveled the world together for most of the year,
Speaker 1: and we went to Egypt and Israel. Together. It was wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean being a Carni folk or whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you know, the child of a musician becomes, you
Speaker 1: learned how to deal with transitional lifestyle like living out
Speaker 1: of a suitcase, having her bag packed every day and
Speaker 1: unpacking it every night, or so different from being the military,
Speaker 1: like you know, just being it's not and there's a
Speaker 1: camaraderie and there's a bro code, and there's a sort
Speaker 1: of you know what do we call it road etiquette,
Speaker 1: so where they used to us as kids, like you know,
Speaker 1: you don't walk certain places on stage, you don't trip
Speaker 1: over wires, you don't get people's way if you can help,
Speaker 1: you help. You know, there's a certain road etiquette to
Speaker 1: watching a road crew work. And my dad's road crew,
Speaker 1: you know, he famously had multigenerations of people that would
Speaker 1: just like replace themselves with their sons, and it was
Speaker 1: like forty years of taken care of those people. So
Speaker 1: once we started going on the road, that road etiquette
Speaker 1: and that sort of ability to be able to transition
Speaker 1: into any situation. I think for me and some of
Speaker 1: my friends that have grown up similarly, that has not changed,
Speaker 1: Like we always want to be on a plane, or
Speaker 1: like I became a director so I could shoot all
Speaker 1: over the world and have these little stints and I
Speaker 1: would be living in a hotel and here I am again,
Speaker 1: Like it's a different it's a different sense of feeling settled.
Speaker 1: But you can kind of feel settled anywhere, which is
Speaker 1: kind of nice. Gift, really nice. That sounds great. Do
Speaker 1: we know how the house that your dad wrote Wildflowers
Speaker 1: in burned? Do we know the story of that? It's
Speaker 1: a crazy story telling the story. I wish I could.
Speaker 1: I wish I could. The answer is, I have suspicions,
Speaker 1: but I can't. I can't publicly say them. I'm curious
Speaker 1: that I always wondered, like, yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: Losing a house like you did is a super emotional thing,
Speaker 1: and I know a number of men in particular who
Speaker 1: really took it hard when they lost their family home
Speaker 1: where they had their children, etc. Because I think it
Speaker 1: just is a symbol of something. It's a symbol of
Speaker 1: really being able to take care of your family. And
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a sacred wound. It feels really,
Speaker 1: even if you weren't that attached to the house or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, it just feels like really have the rug
Speaker 1: pulled out from underneath you. In our case, it became
Speaker 1: a very important nexus of the journey of my father's
Speaker 1: career and his life. And without it, I don't believe
Speaker 1: he would have said he would be a backing band
Speaker 1: for anyone. I think the necessity of just let's get
Speaker 1: us on a bus and we'll figure this out. He
Speaker 1: was at a really interesting point in his career and
Speaker 1: I don't want to get the dates ru but it's
Speaker 1: like post Southern accents, and they'd gotten really sober. They'd
Speaker 1: have been trouble with the drugs and sobriety before that,
Speaker 1: and he was sort of reinventing himself and had this
Speaker 1: opportunity to go out with Bob and have the band
Speaker 1: really put through its paces in a cool way. And
Speaker 1: that was the birth of meeting George and the Wilberries
Speaker 1: coming together and sort of elevating not just the music
Speaker 1: but the consciousness and just feeling a certain amount of
Speaker 1: like you're not the only one dealing with this man.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to be a rock star. It's really confusing,
Speaker 1: and actually rock and roll has sort of been something
Speaker 1: on the fringes since the seventies, and this is like
Speaker 1: he found he found his soul mates through being thrown
Speaker 1: out into the world and not just staying home. And
Speaker 1: that was for us. That fire was regenerative. It was
Speaker 1: definitely it elevated him to the next level as opposed
Speaker 1: to knocking him down. Yeah. Do you think that those
Speaker 1: relationships with George and Bob and Jeff were the first
Speaker 1: time he had that sense of community beyond just the
Speaker 1: guys in the band. I definitely feel like he had
Speaker 1: it with certain people, like there were there were certain
Speaker 1: magical people to my dad, like Del Shannon or Roger
Speaker 1: mcgwin that he had really deep connections with musically, but
Speaker 1: he was sort of reverential to, like he didn't feel
Speaker 1: he was on the same footing with I mean, they
Speaker 1: were his heroes and and he didn't feel that way
Speaker 1: about Georgia, Bob or Jeff either. I mean he thought
Speaker 1: the world of them. He was in all of them,
Speaker 1: probably until he died, you know. But he he felt
Speaker 1: like he was responsible for the band and their families
Speaker 1: and the crew and keeping the Tom Petty and the
Speaker 1: Heartbreakers organization running and seeing that other people handled that
Speaker 1: different ways and that they had already gone two decades
Speaker 1: deep into this experience, or him trying to fathom what
Speaker 1: it was to be a Beatle or to live with
Speaker 1: that sort of scrutiny that Bob had lived with for
Speaker 1: so long, and the intensity I mean, we saw a
Speaker 1: lot of crazy people on those tours with Bob, and
Speaker 1: there were bomb threats, and there were crazy fans that
Speaker 1: had changed our last name to Dylan and have like
Speaker 1: figured out how to pull their idea out and sneak
Speaker 1: into hotels, and like there were there were sort of
Speaker 1: like really really weird people around on that made our
Speaker 1: life look like so uneventful. I think it definitely changed perspective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think he liked not being the frontman for
Speaker 1: a second. It gave him a perspective on what a
Speaker 1: good frontman he was in certain ways. And also like
Speaker 1: just sort of like digging off of, you know, Bob's
Speaker 1: energy that that tour. I mean, I still think as
Speaker 1: a fan and Jacob too, I think I think we
Speaker 1: all feel that that music it was really important that
Speaker 1: they made during that tour. In my dad before he died,
Speaker 1: one of the last things he took me in the
Speaker 1: studio and played, because he would always get giddy and
Speaker 1: take me stadium play stuff was Dylan petty stuff and
Speaker 1: then playing with Roger mcgwinn and some things that were
Speaker 1: special from that tour that he had in his archive.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he definitely changed after that. He saw a bigger,
Speaker 1: brighter picture, a simpler picture, and I think that that
Speaker 1: got him to Wildflowers. I mean that got him to
Speaker 1: the point of wanting true independence. And there were different
Speaker 1: stages in that. There was fulm and fever as the
Speaker 1: first step of going, hey, I really am not stuck
Speaker 1: in this swamp rock world at all. I'm a songwriter
Speaker 1: and I'm in the car with my kids listening to
Speaker 1: Top forty and I my dad always listened to everything.
Speaker 1: People would not have believed with the kind of influences
Speaker 1: he had. But I mean, we had an eight track
Speaker 1: of Yello, for example. I remember when we were poor,
Speaker 1: like really poor before down the Torpedoes in the seventies,
Speaker 1: and you know, I remember that ll eight track going
Speaker 1: in and snapping into that deck and listening to that
Speaker 1: until it broke. The thing you mentioned about him liking
Speaker 1: not being the frontman for a minute, I got to
Speaker 1: see the same thing when we did the album with
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash, where he loved being in the band and
Speaker 1: not having to be the bandleader and not having to
Speaker 1: sing the songs, but just get to make music and
Speaker 1: play different instruments on different songs and just be in
Speaker 1: the creative experience with no sense of pressure. You know,
Speaker 1: there was no pressure on him in this because his
Speaker 1: face wasn't on the cover of that album, and he
Speaker 1: just felt like he was free to just play and
Speaker 1: he loved it. He loved that projects so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: he loved John. John and June were always around. There
Speaker 1: were fixtures at shows and would show up and he
Speaker 1: just loved John so much. And you know, they're such
Speaker 1: a special family and such kind people. But I know
Speaker 1: that when my dad could be a bass player, he
Speaker 1: would come in from like those unchanged stations or whatever
Speaker 1: and like bounce in the room like I got to
Speaker 1: be the bass, Claire, I'm just playing bass, like you'd
Speaker 1: tell you multiple times, and he would be so proud that, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm free and free. They just tell me when to
Speaker 1: do things and I do them, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think he felt like that when he worked with the
Speaker 1: Shelters and mentored them. I think he felt like that
Speaker 1: whenever he got to just sort of like be a
Speaker 1: part of something groovy like that. But it wasn't often
Speaker 1: he would let go of the rains, as you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from the outside, most people think of the rock star
Speaker 1: lifestyle as one of excess in terms of parties and
Speaker 1: people and being out all night and my experience of him,
Speaker 1: and I want to ask if this is correct or accurate,
Speaker 1: but he would watch TV and read and be home
Speaker 1: and other than that he was either on tour or
Speaker 1: writing music. Yeah, pretty much. I mean he wasn't doing
Speaker 1: any normal stuff. He wasn't doing any social stuff. No,
Speaker 1: I've been here. I mean friends, there were eras of
Speaker 1: you know, being social. I think you know, in the
Speaker 1: early eighties, the band still all hung out together, all
Speaker 1: their families would come over. There was still this sort
Speaker 1: of like camaraderie around us that was very social, but
Speaker 1: it was still just within you guys. It was a
Speaker 1: very heavily vetted group. I mean, my dad was married
Speaker 1: really young, he had kids really young, he had responsibilities.
Speaker 1: A lot of the other guys didn't have My cad
Speaker 1: a daughter year after him, so you know, he was
Speaker 1: in a similar groove. But you know, Jane and Tom
Speaker 1: did not have normal childhoods where they had sort of
Speaker 1: a reference for what a normal life would be. So,
Speaker 1: you know, he had a room that he would go
Speaker 1: in and he would write, and that was like when
Speaker 1: I was like five years old on roblar near Owner
Speaker 1: Valley Vista where we lived when my dad was probably
Speaker 1: writing like Breakdown and all those songs or whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: even in those times and they didn't have any money,
Speaker 1: they would make sure they had a little scrappy room
Speaker 1: and that discipline was his. That was his sort of practice,
Speaker 1: like that was his existence. Was every day, no matter what,
Speaker 1: I pour my coffee, I go in this room, I
Speaker 1: drummed this guitar. And would he usually be right when
Speaker 1: he woke up, like coffee it was first thing after coffee.
Speaker 1: I think it would be like in the afternoon when
Speaker 1: he was like very awake and very like much like
Speaker 1: through with whatever first impressions of the day. And then
Speaker 1: he would be in the room by himself with the
Speaker 1: door clothes. Oh yeah, yeah, it's a private process. And
Speaker 1: even now hours would you say that would typically be
Speaker 1: It would vary. Sometimes he'd go in for a little
Speaker 1: bit and sometimes he'd go in for weeks, like you
Speaker 1: just did not even see him. I remember one time
Speaker 1: he got really stuck on All or Nothing, which is
Speaker 1: a song on Into the Great Wide Open. It's a
Speaker 1: really cool song that has a great wailing guitar on it,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, God, he's got to solve
Speaker 1: this one. We had hearn this song for like months,
Speaker 1: is like, and it was it was like he was
Speaker 1: haunted by it. And it was one of the few
Speaker 1: where I just saw him like going, I can't figure
Speaker 1: this out. But he ended up obviously making it into
Speaker 1: a really beautiful song. But I think that these things
Speaker 1: they seemed to come easy to him, and he liked
Speaker 1: them to seem simplistic and like they came easy to him,
Speaker 1: but they were so kind of crafted and cared about
Speaker 1: and instinctive and by wrote, and he would listen and
Speaker 1: listen and listen and play until he would get this
Speaker 1: really sort of essence of something and the soul of something,
Speaker 1: and then he'd laid it down and know that it
Speaker 1: was good enough. And I think, you know, his discipline
Speaker 1: in reading was like amazing. He read all the time.
Speaker 1: He watched every film, he watched every classic film, every
Speaker 1: new film. He was a great lover of art and
Speaker 1: had a diverse knowledge of anything he was interested in.
Speaker 1: And he would go and like get every book on
Speaker 1: all of every book on JFKs fascination, every book on
Speaker 1: you know, you know, he never really got to like
Speaker 1: Google like he kind of was like, Google's a little
Speaker 1: too much for me. But he loved to sit down
Speaker 1: and just read three hundred pages on anything that vaguely
Speaker 1: interested him. No, he didn't hit. In the Wilbury years,
Speaker 1: they socialized a lot, they went out a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they pushed boundaries that tried new things. Yeah. That also
Speaker 1: might have been Jeff's influence, because I think Jeff liked
Speaker 1: to be out more. Not Jeff George, Joe George. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jeff's like that. Jeff was like just wants to be
Speaker 1: either in the studio or just chilling, you know. I
Speaker 1: think I thought it was more of a pub a
Speaker 1: pub guy. He might be. I don't know, I've never
Speaker 1: been down the pub with Jeff, but I'd take him
Speaker 1: as a pretty serious, disciplined creator of music absolutely, you know, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and it keeps his head in those clouds. That's one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think really benefited our experience
Speaker 1: together working on Wildflowers was the fact that he had
Speaker 1: just worked with Jeff for two albums. Right, Because Jeff
Speaker 1: was it seemed to be a real song disciplinarian and
Speaker 1: got your dad into really good, simple, super well crafted songs.
Speaker 1: Not that your dad didn't always have that ability. He
Speaker 1: always had that ability and would do it sometimes, but
Speaker 1: with Jeff it was like it was always that or
Speaker 1: it was nothing. And there was a side to your
Speaker 1: dad's music that was more blues based. That like, if
Speaker 1: you think of what it was like going to the
Speaker 1: film war shows, it might not be as song song
Speaker 1: song based, but more on great musicianship and playing great
Speaker 1: songs and great grooves and great vibes. And your dad
Speaker 1: resonated on that stuff too, But Jeff really hammered home
Speaker 1: the power of the melody and the concise songwriting. And
Speaker 1: I think the strength of Wildflowers is having that kind
Speaker 1: of rigor in the songwriting influenced by Jeff, and then
Speaker 1: taking off the shackles of that kind of production that
Speaker 1: Jeff does, which I also love, but it's much more perfect,
Speaker 1: it's less organic. He's a recording artist, he's someone who
Speaker 1: really his music is based in studio. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: based in the room. Yeah. But the difference between you
Speaker 1: and Jeff and the evolution of coming from Jeff to you,
Speaker 1: which I think is a really interesting part of me
Speaker 1: discovering Wildflowers and going back through all this stuff, is
Speaker 1: that my dad always kind of hid in the Heartbreakers.
Speaker 1: He was always in this sort of like full octane
Speaker 1: rock band, Let's rock, you know, and they just kind
Speaker 1: of wear this incredible sound, and they had this incredible shorthand,
Speaker 1: and they all came from the same place and they
Speaker 1: had this thing. And then when he went with Jeff,
Speaker 1: it was all sort of stripped down, and all that
Speaker 1: technique and all that ability was compartmentalized, almost like it
Speaker 1: was into a computer, right like it was. It was
Speaker 1: organized through a board, through this like little stems, and
Speaker 1: the process of creating much more automated, and this sort
Speaker 1: of yeah, you needed a machine in order to execute
Speaker 1: this vision and this sort of duplicating voices and all
Speaker 1: of the stuff that makes those big free fall in
Speaker 1: and I won't back down sounds with the beautiful jangle
Speaker 1: that Dad could do. But when you look at Wildflowers,
Speaker 1: and this is what's so cool about this box set,
Speaker 1: it seems like the journeying boys for him to trust
Speaker 1: you to bring him back to himself, and the poetry
Speaker 1: of Wildflowers and the song Wildflowers, I believe is that
Speaker 1: sometimes what's deep inside of us is just allowing ourselves
Speaker 1: to be free and respect ourselves, not to feel shame,
Speaker 1: to know that our first instincts are the best instincts,
Speaker 1: and to prioritize ourselves, prioritize how you feel. No one
Speaker 1: else is going to do it. And when you're someone
Speaker 1: who takes care of a lot of people and you
Speaker 1: have a lot of people depending on you, and sometimes
Speaker 1: you have the hard decision to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: you can't work for me anymore. And you know that's
Speaker 1: going to really hurt people or make them, you know,
Speaker 1: not have an income that year or whatever, and they
Speaker 1: feel like they're part of your tribe. It's really hard
Speaker 1: to permit yourself to let go of them and do
Speaker 1: something as honest and pure as he did in the
Speaker 1: studio with you. And I think looking at it from
Speaker 1: my perspective, which you know is only one perspective, and
Speaker 1: his wives might have a different perspective, or somebody else might.
Speaker 1: We had a pretty close relationship and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, me talking about the Beastie Boys to like
Speaker 1: a year later, he's sitting in a room with you,
Speaker 1: and you know, we didn't hear Wellflowers along the way much.
Speaker 1: And he brought me and my sister to the studio
Speaker 1: that day for the string recording, and you could tell
Speaker 1: he was just so proud to show us the mirror
Speaker 1: of himself. Here, this is really me, you know. And
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, wow, this is really you. This
Speaker 1: is you without the heart prickers. It was just him
Speaker 1: and what he came up with his guitar, just a
Speaker 1: little bit plussed, and he figured out in that process personally,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to leave a few things behind here.
Speaker 1: I'm going to change the personnel in this band. I'm
Speaker 1: no longer going to be with my childhood sweetheart from
Speaker 1: high school. I'm going to move on and allow myself
Speaker 1: a little bit more agency over my own life, because
Speaker 1: I've been saddled with crippling responsibility since I was twenty one,
Speaker 1: you know, and at that point I was off at college.
Speaker 1: My sister was older, you know, and like he could
Speaker 1: do that, there was there was a room to be
Speaker 1: able to say and it wasn't easy, and there was
Speaker 1: no snap of the finger, but the songs conveyed the
Speaker 1: purity of where he wanted to go and where the
Speaker 1: destination was going to be. And it was the future,
Speaker 1: and it was magic, and it was falling in love
Speaker 1: and it was it was I'm going to just put
Speaker 1: some acceptance into this journey and go. And I think
Speaker 1: that's been you know, listening to this music. Kind of
Speaker 1: the magic behind it, kind of the bottled sunshine. Is
Speaker 1: that that's real, that's really from him. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back with Rick and Adria Petty after a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back with Rick Rubin and Adria Petty. I never
Speaker 1: asked him about this, but do you hear anything in
Speaker 1: the lyrics that from being there you saw coming from
Speaker 1: a self reflective place, like, where are there any of
Speaker 1: the story of what was going on in his life?
Speaker 1: Impactful on the lyrics? There were. There was one song
Speaker 1: that I thought was so much cooler and demo formed
Speaker 1: than what ended up being recorded multiple times, which was California.
Speaker 1: And the demo is so shit hot. It's so amazing
Speaker 1: and it's so much less pop than the final I
Speaker 1: love that song too, and I love this super uplifting
Speaker 1: like beauty and simplicity of that song. But there's an
Speaker 1: edge to it in the demo, it has an extra
Speaker 1: verse and it says, I forgive my past, I forgive
Speaker 1: my enemy. I don't know if this will last. Guess
Speaker 1: I'll just wait and see and it was a level
Speaker 1: of acceptance going, I'm in this really difficult situation, but
Speaker 1: my eyes have been opened to the fact that things
Speaker 1: aren't always just conflict for conflict's sake. Sometimes you can
Speaker 1: be the bigger person and walk away and go I'm
Speaker 1: going to reap the bounty of just being able to
Speaker 1: let this roll off of me. And him and Jane
Speaker 1: fought a lot when we were kids, only were kids themselves,
Speaker 1: and I think that he had gotten no place. Knowing
Speaker 1: George and getting to know Yogananda and starting to do
Speaker 1: transidental meditation, starting a whole different perspective on life came
Speaker 1: with George in our lives, and he was such an
Speaker 1: angel as we're his wife and child who are just
Speaker 1: angelic and beautiful, magical people too, and that sort of hey, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't fight like that, like, hey, does not you
Speaker 1: don't go there, You don't go to that really early
Speaker 1: dark place even if you're right. Just let's make a
Speaker 1: left turn here and look for forgiveness. Let's look for
Speaker 1: a redemption and forgiving people and being an acceptance of
Speaker 1: the fact that yes, sometimes things are super messed up
Speaker 1: and they're not changeable for us, or it's not worth
Speaker 1: it for us to abandon all our responsibilities to invest
Speaker 1: in this super messed up thing, which I think we've
Speaker 1: all been through at one point in our lives or another.
Speaker 1: I mean, and when you are dealing with fame, you're
Speaker 1: dealing with green you're dealing with envy, You're dealing with
Speaker 1: people thinking that there might be an opportunity for them
Speaker 1: to grift something. They're also dealing with drugs, and you're
Speaker 1: dealing with mental illness sometimes too. There's all kinds of
Speaker 1: factors that come into creative communities and fame, and there's
Speaker 1: this isolation we discussed earlier, and they are a perfect
Speaker 1: cocktail for powerful people to feel really lost and really
Speaker 1: unable to have any control over their lives. They may
Speaker 1: seem powerful, they may have a big bank balance, they
Speaker 1: may own a lot of stuff, they may be the
Speaker 1: boss of a lot of stuff. But they can't just say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm turning my phone off for three
Speaker 1: months or I'm going to the park with my kid now.
Speaker 1: They can't do that. They don't have the ability to
Speaker 1: do that. And I think my dad got to the
Speaker 1: point where he was like, I want true freedom, like
Speaker 1: I want freedom from I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: make a Heartbreakers record. I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: take care of all these people. I don't want to
Speaker 1: have to live with someone I'm fighting with all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't want to have to do that that would
Speaker 1: actually be success to me. And I think this record
Speaker 1: is such a beautiful reflection on making that life decision.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I ever heard the California
Speaker 1: Let's hear the California demo, Let's hear that? So beautiful,
Speaker 1: so beautiful, I don't even know if I've ever heard
Speaker 1: that before. I'd never heard it before. And just the
Speaker 1: idea that he's saying, sometimes you got to save yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it plays right into everything we're talking about. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that's really where it was. Yeah. You know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because sometimes he would be very attached to a demo
Speaker 1: and he would bring the demo and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's learn the demo. And other times it would be
Speaker 1: he would have a demo, but he would never bring
Speaker 1: it up, never talk about it, never, and he would
Speaker 1: just sort of play the guitar, play the song on
Speaker 1: the guitar for the for the guys, like okay, this
Speaker 1: is how those and That was one that I don't
Speaker 1: remember ever hearing that version before. So beautiful. It's really special,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's like the it's the first
Speaker 1: I always felt was missing, Like I always liked that song,
Speaker 1: but it always just like what a goofy song, you know,
Speaker 1: And then when you hear it complete, it's really to
Speaker 1: me much deeper. Because Californias where he reinvented himself. It's
Speaker 1: where he left an abusive father behind. It's where he
Speaker 1: started his own family, surrounded by friends. It's where he
Speaker 1: had wild success on him and my mom were tenacious
Speaker 1: and crazy enough to be successful here and make it work.
Speaker 1: And I think he had a lot of appreciation for
Speaker 1: being a resident here, Like he felt very lucky that
Speaker 1: Los Angeles existed, and yet, like you said, he never
Speaker 1: went out or hung out with anybody. He just really
Speaker 1: liked like being on his little plot of land and
Speaker 1: making his art and having the whole machine here to
Speaker 1: be able to make a living doing what he was
Speaker 1: good at, you know. And he would reference, you know,
Speaker 1: living in Recita and like there were always local references
Speaker 1: you were real. Yeah, Yeah, Ventura Boulevard, Yeah, we lived
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, do you know where these were found
Speaker 1: because I remember for a long time the demos were missing.
Speaker 1: They were in his closet. It's amazing they were there
Speaker 1: in his closet. Yeah, we pretty much found everything, amazing
Speaker 1: because I can remember even when he was around, nobody
Speaker 1: could find these. Yeah, what's the other demo you suggested
Speaker 1: we listened to. Oh, I think There Goes Angela would
Speaker 1: be an interesting one, just because you guys never attract it, okay,
Speaker 1: and he might find it interesting. Yeah, beautiful, crazy right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: never tracked it. Yeah, that's no memory of it. It's
Speaker 1: his eight tracked demo mixed on the demos. Did he
Speaker 1: have dates on things or no? Sometime? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Just like demo on it or something. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like he was just wondering when like the order of events.
Speaker 1: As disciplined as my dad was, he was still a
Speaker 1: stoner that didn't label his tapes at times. But I
Speaker 1: think that song so cool. I think he probably didn't
Speaker 1: do it because it's let your Heart Be Free, and
Speaker 1: it's so similar to the lyric than Wildflowers or the other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it was kind of a competing sentiment or something.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that people finally get to hear it.
Speaker 1: Me too, me too. I mean, one thing was interesting
Speaker 1: was talking to one of the rock writers that was
Speaker 1: contributing to our liner notes, Jan Hulinsky, and she was saying,
Speaker 1: he finally gives these girls names. You know, there goes
Speaker 1: Angela or whatever. It's likely she was an American girl
Speaker 1: raised on promises. What was her name, girl? She loves
Speaker 1: her Mama. Really interesting. Mary Jane had a name kind
Speaker 1: of but it's a double on toonder, right, yeah, because
Speaker 1: we don't know if it's just some kind bud or
Speaker 1: a lady. But essentially the second half of all the
Speaker 1: rest coming out and the demos, he started to find
Speaker 1: names for these girls, like Somewhere under Heaven, which something
Speaker 1: here recorded a little later. It is talking about Jenny
Speaker 1: dancing in the rain. I mean, he so rarely gave
Speaker 1: his characters actual names. Yeah, and I guarantee it was
Speaker 1: an unconscious change. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, we just re released that.
Speaker 1: You don't know how it feels with the line from
Speaker 1: h crawling back to you and it has that I'm
Speaker 1: so tired of being tired of line in the original demo.
Speaker 1: He had kind of pulled it out. That was the
Speaker 1: first song we recorded for Wildflowers, and we recorded it
Speaker 1: that the take that's on the album was Steve Ferroni's
Speaker 1: tryout to see if Tom wanted to play with him.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, from that, from that, from that first take,
Speaker 1: from that performance, like, oh, this is the guy, and
Speaker 1: he ended up being the guy until forever. You guys
Speaker 1: were like great perfumery, like a nose or something. You
Speaker 1: guys were like sniffing out, like the perfect vibe, the
Speaker 1: perfect drummer, the perfect everything. I mean, I often wonder
Speaker 1: what it was like for you because at that time,
Speaker 1: I mean, for some reason, you've always seemed like a
Speaker 1: grown up to me. I was like eighteen when I
Speaker 1: think I first met you, but you were really young,
Speaker 1: you know, and you had a lot of responsibility thrust
Speaker 1: on you really early, and that I always I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that the beauty of working with your dad was
Speaker 1: he was such an expert that in some ways he
Speaker 1: was the producer, you know, Like honestly, it's like I
Speaker 1: definitely helped support him in being his best self and
Speaker 1: doing what I believe his best work, but so much
Speaker 1: of it, like the things like you guys picked the drummer,
Speaker 1: he picked the drummer. He almost all of the good
Speaker 1: decisions that were made were made by him. I guess
Speaker 1: I allow you allowed the space for him to be
Speaker 1: his best self without getting in the way and if
Speaker 1: anything supporting him, and you know, there were there were.
Speaker 1: It was rare that we even had a disagreement about something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I can remember one time we had a
Speaker 1: disagreement about a line in the song and I told him,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought that this line in this chorus
Speaker 1: was a little weak, and he's like, you're crazy, that's
Speaker 1: the best line in the song. It's got to stay.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, But that that was the only time
Speaker 1: I can remember this song. It was You Wreck Me
Speaker 1: and it was the line, the last line that the
Speaker 1: tagline is yes you do right, And I thought it's
Speaker 1: kind of a throwaway. It's like you have four lines
Speaker 1: to say everything you want to say. Yes you do
Speaker 1: is like h you're not There's no content there. So
Speaker 1: I thought it was like a waste of real estate.
Speaker 1: And he was like, no, that's the whole His dialect
Speaker 1: is so interesting to me because he's you know, the
Speaker 1: ants and the oh yes you do or the oh
Speaker 1: hell yes, or the you know the way he would
Speaker 1: use words and dialect was very um exciting and very
Speaker 1: interesting and very pure to him and very much influenced
Speaker 1: by the way that he grew up, and it's influenced
Speaker 1: by black culture in the South, because his dad had
Speaker 1: a supermarket in the black neighborhood in Gainesville and dry goods,
Speaker 1: and they would be there all day. They're just playing
Speaker 1: with other kids that worked in that he worked and
Speaker 1: lived in that neighborhood. But he you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: yes you do. It's like it's kind of the throwaway.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the sort of special sauce. It's the
Speaker 1: herbs and spices that he would bring to something. As
Speaker 1: I didn't know that that originally was you Rock Me Baby, either,
Speaker 1: because I remember he was reading about it in the
Speaker 1: track by track he was struggling with trying to find
Speaker 1: that chorus for a really long time. Apparently I don't
Speaker 1: remember that. Yeah, I think I think it was just
Speaker 1: called Mike's song for a really long time, you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember he was really excited about it, really
Speaker 1: excited about it's like this is and he always said
Speaker 1: he's like Mike always brings in a couple of really
Speaker 1: good ones. Really good ones. And he's like really good
Speaker 1: ones that I would not have written otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: I would not have done. Yeah, Mike, Mike is a
Speaker 1: very underrecognized, super mega magical songwriter. Yeah. And his guitar
Speaker 1: playing is as good as it gets. Yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: a magical being. We'll be right back with Rick and
Speaker 1: Adria Petty after a quick break. We're back with more
Speaker 1: from Adria Petty. When Wildflower was originally recorded, we were
Speaker 1: in our minds we were making a double album and
Speaker 1: we were ordered all the songs with the same belief
Speaker 1: that these are all this is all the A material,
Speaker 1: and this is all coming out and this is one
Speaker 1: big batch. And I remember your dad. This was your
Speaker 1: dad's first album for Warner Brothers Records after being unhappily
Speaker 1: at MCA for a long time, and he had battled
Speaker 1: with them in the past. Remember, they wanted to raise
Speaker 1: the price of the list price of one of his records,
Speaker 1: and he refused, and then he didn't record for years
Speaker 1: because or refused to refuse to release an album for
Speaker 1: a couple of years because of the pricing. He was
Speaker 1: always really wanted to give good value to the audience.
Speaker 1: He cared about his fans. He didn't want to price
Speaker 1: his material out of anyone's reach. Same with ticket prices.
Speaker 1: He always wanted to make make it accessible because I
Speaker 1: think he thought of himself as the person in the audience,
Speaker 1: because he was for so much of his life until
Speaker 1: he started doing it, until he died. He was the
Speaker 1: fan until he died. He always saw himself as the
Speaker 1: kid at the record store buying the records. And our
Speaker 1: responsibility now with carrying on his business, which without him
Speaker 1: making music and making live music, is to really protect
Speaker 1: the fan experience. It's weird. That's something that you almost
Speaker 1: can't explain to someone now, right when they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we want to capture these emails, I want to do
Speaker 1: this one, and it's like, hey, you know, one reason
Speaker 1: people really liked him and really like, you know, transacting
Speaker 1: with him as an artist was because he wasn't constantly
Speaker 1: stealing from his fans, and he wasn't sort of devaluing
Speaker 1: or debasing the songs and commercials or making them unspecial
Speaker 1: to line his own pockets. He wanted to keep them
Speaker 1: in this really special place. And you know he did
Speaker 1: that right down to the very end. He left a
Speaker 1: lot of money on the table all the time, to
Speaker 1: not be part of this fabric of consumerism, to make
Speaker 1: rock and roll a sacred place, and we revere that music.
Speaker 1: We protect that music. And when you start, you know,
Speaker 1: making that about hot pants and pepsi and whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: it ruins everything. You know, to him, it was never
Speaker 1: really like it was his business. But he never had
Speaker 1: this like lust for business success, Like he just wanted
Speaker 1: enough enough to be able to do fun stuff and whatever.
Speaker 1: But I mean, we weren't like private jet people. We
Speaker 1: weren't you know, done any of that stuff. He didn't
Speaker 1: need that. And that actually is going to play interestingly
Speaker 1: into it's giving me possible insight into a decision that
Speaker 1: always confused me that he made, which was when we
Speaker 1: played all of the material of Wildflowers for his new
Speaker 1: record company. Who are my friends? And new I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew them before I knew your dad. Actually, Austin
Speaker 1: was the one who introduced me to your dad. I
Speaker 1: believe Lenny Warnaker, who was the president of Warner Brothers, said,
Speaker 1: you know, Tom would be better to do a single
Speaker 1: album than a double album, and that double albums don't
Speaker 1: sell as well, and that this is your first album
Speaker 1: in this new environment, and let's do everything we can
Speaker 1: for it to do. It's the best that it can do.
Speaker 1: And would I would have guessed, knowing how obstinate your
Speaker 1: dad was about creative choices, because this was a creative choice,
Speaker 1: I would have assumed he would have said, no, I've
Speaker 1: made a double album. I'm putting out a double album.
Speaker 1: But instead he said, okay, let's do the single album.
Speaker 1: And maybe also part of that, and relates to what
Speaker 1: we were just saying, is that for the fans it's
Speaker 1: half as expensive. You know, It's like it's it's a
Speaker 1: more realistic and that's the reason double albums don't sell
Speaker 1: as well as because they're more expensive. That would have
Speaker 1: resonated with him, for sure. First, I've never made that
Speaker 1: connection before, just now having this conversation. Yeah, neither. It
Speaker 1: always seemed like that's not like him to fight for
Speaker 1: the creative right right along with anything right. Sometimes he would,
Speaker 1: but I mean he you know, he was obstinate about
Speaker 1: the art, and you guys this I still wish if
Speaker 1: we go in a time machine, I sit down and
Speaker 1: beg him to put the double album out, because I
Speaker 1: still can't find that original double album sequence. I've found versions,
Speaker 1: but I can't find the one he played for me
Speaker 1: and my uncle and then I had in my car
Speaker 1: at college. Never, I will tell you, honestly, it was
Speaker 1: never firmly established of these are the songs and this
Speaker 1: is the double album. It never got that far because
Speaker 1: the choice to make it a single app and album
Speaker 1: happened before we really got to sequencing. So there may
Speaker 1: have been, and there was probably there were probably multiple
Speaker 1: sequences that we were listening to as possible ways to go.
Speaker 1: He had, you know how, my dad had his notebook,
Speaker 1: Like he'd start a record and he'd do all the
Speaker 1: songs in that same notebook, and then he'd have like
Speaker 1: a legal path that he'd started. He'd write down everything
Speaker 1: to remember things like dumb things. It would always be
Speaker 1: like a coffee ring and like gross stuff all over
Speaker 1: it on the front page, and then like go through it.
Speaker 1: And he had a sequence. He had a sequence for
Speaker 1: the double album, and he had these gold discs made,
Speaker 1: and he had sent them back east to me and
Speaker 1: to my uncle, and we had them. And what I
Speaker 1: would give to have not thrown that on the floor
Speaker 1: of my car as a eighteen year old, But I
Speaker 1: I listened to it all the time, and it was
Speaker 1: half you know, hung up and overdue and songs that
Speaker 1: had ended up on She's the One, But really a
Speaker 1: lot of it was all the rest which we're putting
Speaker 1: out now. And it ended with girl and LST. That's
Speaker 1: all I remember. We both remember that was the last track.
Speaker 1: That was the sort of like joke at the end
Speaker 1: of the odyssey, you know, to lighten up, wake up
Speaker 1: time or whatever. But I wish it had been a
Speaker 1: double album that he had sequence because he was so
Speaker 1: good at sequencing and he cared so much about telling
Speaker 1: a full story and balancing a beautiful album side spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time on the timing between songs and
Speaker 1: you know, in mastering the way each song level wise
Speaker 1: came after the song before it. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of detail going into that final phase of crafting the
Speaker 1: sequenced album. Yeah, and the keys that the last song
Speaker 1: ended in and the key that the next song's beginning in.
Speaker 1: Him and Micer Mike's always like, just go to the
Speaker 1: back end in the front end and let me hear that,
Speaker 1: you know, But I think we would do both. We
Speaker 1: would do that. It was called the Tops and Tails,
Speaker 1: and we would make it on tape on you know,
Speaker 1: at that point it was half inch tape, and they
Speaker 1: would be the last thirty seconds of a song, and
Speaker 1: then the first thirty seconds of the next song, yea
Speaker 1: of the whole album. Yeah, they had a toolbox. They
Speaker 1: had learned. I think, I really think making Damn the
Speaker 1: Torpedoes was such a huge learning experience for Jimmy, for Dad,
Speaker 1: from Mike, for Stanley, for all of those guys. It
Speaker 1: was like, no, this is real now. This is not
Speaker 1: just like you're at the whiskey and you're cool as
Speaker 1: hell and young as hell, and it was like, this
Speaker 1: is real discipline times is recording process for you and
Speaker 1: the pre jeff Right. They're all learning what are the
Speaker 1: criteria for what we think is actually really good, really
Speaker 1: good recording of our playing really relevant really of the moment,
Speaker 1: and how do we tell this story? And there were
Speaker 1: you know, there's just the normal noises in here. You
Speaker 1: hear Marcy Campbell in the shower, or you could hear
Speaker 1: like tape speeding up and slowing down, and that sort
Speaker 1: of Beatles influence, which later you brought back in actually
Speaker 1: by bringing in the off white demos to Dad. Before
Speaker 1: you started wildflowers. But like that sense of going on
Speaker 1: the ride with the record. You turn on the record,
Speaker 1: you want to listen to the whole damn thing. I
Speaker 1: want to be on that ride with my dad, likely
Speaker 1: in your car, you know, and just kind of hear
Speaker 1: the whole thing from beginning to end and trust him
Speaker 1: even if there is a little long or a little
Speaker 1: songs the album in the car, because we would work
Speaker 1: on the mix in the studio and then we would
Speaker 1: go out and it was Richard Dodd had rented a
Speaker 1: little Toyota, tiny little Toyota, and that became the reference
Speaker 1: sound system for this album. And we would sit in
Speaker 1: the car and if it didn't sound good in the Toyota,
Speaker 1: the mix was not done yet, and we'd be running
Speaker 1: in and out all day, just car test, cartest cartest
Speaker 1: over and over again. Yeah, it was never work. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a job. I mean it was a job, and
Speaker 1: that he had to show up at a concert when
Speaker 1: it was booked. But it was always the creative process,
Speaker 1: always stimulated him, and it seemed like it was the
Speaker 1: most important thing in his life. It was, and so
Speaker 1: were those shows. Yeah, he practically died on stage. I
Speaker 1: mean he wanted to be there communing with people and
Speaker 1: connecting with them and lifting the vibration. And he knew
Speaker 1: my dad was more perfect person by any means, but
Speaker 1: he knew he had this power. Like you could walk
Speaker 1: up to my dad and if he would smile at you,
Speaker 1: there was no way you were having a bad day.
Speaker 1: There was just no way, Like he could light you
Speaker 1: up with a look, you know. And he wasn't the
Speaker 1: most attractive man on the planet. He wasn't the most
Speaker 1: this or that or the other, but he had a
Speaker 1: lot of soul, Like he had this really dynamic soul,
Speaker 1: and he protected things that allowed for soul. He was
Speaker 1: just so awesome. It's so hard to have to sit
Speaker 1: here and speak about what he may or may not
Speaker 1: have done or thought or whatever, because I don't really know.
Speaker 1: But really what he put into me as a father
Speaker 1: was be on time, be prepared, be creative, feed your brain,
Speaker 1: always look for more art. And he got to point
Speaker 1: after the internet came, you know where he was just
Speaker 1: like you know what, adra like, I really just want
Speaker 1: to watch to turn in classic movies, and I want
Speaker 1: to listen to the radio and do my radio show.
Speaker 1: And now I'm rediscovering new and old bands and new
Speaker 1: bands that I'm really turned on by. And he would
Speaker 1: feed the well with only this really really good information
Speaker 1: and take all of the rest away. I mean, he
Speaker 1: didn't really take a lot of negativity and noise into
Speaker 1: his diet anything. He could avoid it at the point
Speaker 1: real early in his career so that he could keep
Speaker 1: communing with that soul. Yeah, you know, so which other
Speaker 1: songs we're going to listen to? We should talk about
Speaker 1: something could happen? Maybe? Okay, would that be cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's hear a little bit of it at least. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's something could happen? So cool? What does it bring
Speaker 1: up for you? It's something it happened. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: such a great like look at the contradictions and my dad, like,
Speaker 1: the artist side of all of us is full of contradictions,
Speaker 1: and it's full of messiness, and it's full of all
Speaker 1: these subconscious thoughts and things influences on us coming out
Speaker 1: on the page or into the instrument of your choice.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm sure of who I am unless
Speaker 1: I feel like somebody else. You know, it's I'm not
Speaker 1: easy to know. You know. It's like it's hard for
Speaker 1: him to get to know himself. Yeah, it just it
Speaker 1: plays more into these themes of this self discovery. And
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean like I was torn in two
Speaker 1: is a is a brutal line and it sung so
Speaker 1: beautifully that that that you don't you know that that's
Speaker 1: that's a really heavy thing to say I was torn
Speaker 1: in two. But I actually know I'm going to heal.
Speaker 1: I actually feel this sense of hope, actually feel this possibility.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me, you know, just sitting here with
Speaker 1: you and thinking about the undecedent to this record being Echo,
Speaker 1: where it was like, Okay, I'm not going to make it.
Speaker 1: This is just too much to bear. This change has
Speaker 1: been too much upheaval for me. And I'm a sensitive soul,
Speaker 1: you know, And there's there's just the next Echo wasn't next.
Speaker 1: It feels like a world apart. There were completely different
Speaker 1: universes that he was living in at that time, and
Speaker 1: Echo was a very isolating post divorced moment for him.
Speaker 1: But I remember also he was going through some personal
Speaker 1: dark stuff apart from all that. Yeah, yeah, he was
Speaker 1: definitely using drugs at that time, yeah, and alone and struggling.
Speaker 1: He often didn't seem like himself like he seemed like
Speaker 1: a different character arriving. No, he wasn't himself. There was
Speaker 1: no he was walking with a cane and wearing dark glasses.
Speaker 1: It was a very unusual time. He is not He
Speaker 1: was not a good place, and I think he has
Speaker 1: so many, I mean regrets about that era of his life.
Speaker 1: He had just descended into such a dark place. But
Speaker 1: you can see he could see it could go that way.
Speaker 1: He didn't look at this song. He was like, hey,
Speaker 1: things could get really weird or maybe they'll just be great,
Speaker 1: you know. But they did. They got weird, and then
Speaker 1: they got much better, much much better, thanks to many
Speaker 1: good friends like you and other people. But one thing
Speaker 1: I can't I should know, but I can't remember what
Speaker 1: we decided to put in the lyric sheets. But I
Speaker 1: think he says, I walked the mall, come home, and
Speaker 1: fall down, like like a guy that goes to the mall.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean. They were sort of
Speaker 1: arguing with me back in at the ranch, saying, oh,
Speaker 1: it's walk them all like I walk all the streets
Speaker 1: or something like that. But I think he's saying I
Speaker 1: walk them all, go home and fall down. For him
Speaker 1: would be kind of like normal because he thinks of
Speaker 1: that is the normal American experience, you know, like I'm
Speaker 1: just what would a normal guy that's not Tom Petty,
Speaker 1: that actually gets in his car when he's bummed out
Speaker 1: and go and do or whatever writing exactly, which is
Speaker 1: why I had them draw like a little guy in
Speaker 1: an astronaut's outfit walking through a shopping mall. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: with the with the words I'm not easy to know,
Speaker 1: because I thought that was so like him. You know,
Speaker 1: he would have been like the I stick out like
Speaker 1: a sore thumb here. I've never been to a mall
Speaker 1: excepted in my music video. You know. Okay, how unrealistic,
Speaker 1: you know. But um, he was so proud of the song,
Speaker 1: like when he found these tapes and rediscovered um all
Speaker 1: the Rest and wanted to put the outs you know,
Speaker 1: first Wildflowers too. Then he talked to you and decided
Speaker 1: to call it All the Rest. Um. This was the
Speaker 1: song that was sort of like that Christmas that he
Speaker 1: dragged my uncle into the studio to listen to, And
Speaker 1: this was the song that he really thought was an
Speaker 1: undiscovered piece of magic for him. It's so interesting that
Speaker 1: we had the second half of this amazing album, and
Speaker 1: because we just moved forward making this stuff, we just
Speaker 1: sort of forgot that. It's almost like we forgot it existed.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I think you guys were so focused at
Speaker 1: the time, based on going back and talking everybody, that
Speaker 1: you were so in the moment of creating at the
Speaker 1: highest level on each track you were finishing for Wildflowers,
Speaker 1: including these tracks, which you obviously got to a finished place.
Speaker 1: You know, It's amazing how when you're like, I've experienced
Speaker 1: this on a very low level as a director, when
Speaker 1: you have this great crew around you and you all
Speaker 1: are aiming at the same thing and everyone on the
Speaker 1: crew is elevating it. There. He had the perfect environment.
Speaker 1: He was accepted, He had a younger producer that respected him,
Speaker 1: but he had respect for you because he didn't know
Speaker 1: your world, and he knew you were of the current world,
Speaker 1: and you were his ambassador to the current world, and
Speaker 1: you give him permission to be himself. This is the
Speaker 1: beauty of this stuff to me, is that you two
Speaker 1: had that connection and you know, I've known you for
Speaker 1: years and I know how he's spoken about you, and
Speaker 1: it's not like you guys were like, tell me all
Speaker 1: your deepest, darkest like secrets, or you were like the
Speaker 1: closest friends of all time that know everything about each
Speaker 1: other and each other's families. It was a real deep
Speaker 1: mutual respect in a dialogue of yes, trust yourself here,
Speaker 1: let's think about it. You know, you were this really
Speaker 1: magical barometer for him. He really enjoyed it. I knew
Speaker 1: the whole time he was with you, he just enjoyed
Speaker 1: it so much. He had fun. We had fun, and
Speaker 1: it was again it was like and I'll say, while
Speaker 1: it was hard and long, because while Wildflowers sounds like
Speaker 1: it was recorded in a weekend, it was two years.
Speaker 1: I think of grueling labor trying to make it sound
Speaker 1: like we weren't trying so hard. Rick, It does not
Speaker 1: sound like it was recorded in a weekend. It sounds
Speaker 1: pretty masterful and has a casual sense about it. It's
Speaker 1: casual if being casual as being absolutely perfect, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's not perfect like Jeff's records, like Jefs records
Speaker 1: are really perfect. It's different. It's a different thing. It's
Speaker 1: more oxygen in the room, oxygen in the room. It
Speaker 1: feels born of the miking, the live recording, and really
Speaker 1: selectively overdubbing, but really kind of you were able to go, Man,
Speaker 1: I've got players, I don't need to overdub, so I
Speaker 1: can do live recordings. I mean, And it really was
Speaker 1: about taking the time to get the performances and the
Speaker 1: starkness and the truth in those performances. That's everything was
Speaker 1: rooted in that. Yeah, a pleasure speaking to you, Such
Speaker 1: a pleasure for me. Thank you so much again. Thank
Speaker 1: you for protecting this art and sharing it with the
Speaker 1: world in a new way and expanding people's experience of
Speaker 1: this beautiful music. Oh, it's time, magic time in my life.
Speaker 1: It was a magic time to be on the very
Speaker 1: far periphery of it. And it is just such an
Speaker 1: honor and a privilege to be an ambassador for you
Speaker 1: and for Dad and for the band. And I'm so
Speaker 1: overjoyed to bring it to people at a time when
Speaker 1: I think they really need it. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of love and understanding and beauty in this music that
Speaker 1: will carry people and uplift people, and I think that
Speaker 1: that's the most exciting part for us. Thanks to Adrian
Speaker 1: Petty for sharing memories of her dad with us. You
Speaker 1: can hear Wildflowers and all the rest along with our
Speaker 1: favorite Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker songs on a playlist
Speaker 1: at broken record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken
Speaker 1: record Podcast. There you can find extended cuts of past
Speaker 1: episodes along with new ones. Broken Record is produced with
Speaker 1: help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler
Speaker 1: and his executive produced by Mia LaBelle. Our theme music
Speaker 1: is by Kenny Beats. Broken Record is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record, please remember
Speaker 1: to share, rate, and review our show on your podcast
Speaker 1: to appen. I'm justin Richmond.