Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream

The first time you hear a new Tom Petty song,

it sounds like, you know, a classic song.

Well, I've always

sort of considered them an institution, you know.

They're one of those bands that just have to be.

They just have to be.

I think I started

to become aware of Tom Petty around 1977.

1978... big fan of Tom Petty.

If Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had said,

"Leave Fleetwood Mac and come and join us,"

I would probably have joined.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

It's like a lost art, what they do... great players,

great band interaction,

great songwriting, and it shows

when you go to see their concert, and, you know,

it'll be two and a half hours,

and you could sing along with every song.

It's... it's mind-numbing how many great songs they have.

It's really the essence

of rock and roll, which is about

freedom and rebellion.

It's about doing what you want to do

and pursuing your dreams,

and, and, oh, you know,

it's about all the most important stuff.

It's about speaking the truth.

He is a world-class songwriter,

one of the great songwriters

in the rock era.

It's just the sound that he makes and the attitude he has.

You know, his records are so good and unusual,

usually, like, from a lyrical point of view.

It's quite amazing that the Heartbreakers

have just kept going,

and the fact that they're getting

bigger and bigger as well

is quite a remarkable thing after 30 years.

It's just, I don't think anybody else

has ever been in that position.

It was smart, you know,

even if you didn't know it at the time.

It was... It was smart... music.

He sort of defies

any kind of category, really.

It's just Tom Petty.

I was born in Gainesville, Florida, USA.

It was a little town in the '50s.

So I was born in 1950.

There was a very southern contingent there.

There's kind of a... a farming element,

and then there's the university,

so you had this mix of people.

You could run across just about any kind of person there.

And I remember it fondly, growing up.

It was just big enough that, you know, it had

two movie theaters, which was great.

You know, I liked westerns.

I was just obsessed with westerns.

That's a good one.

I always liked the idea of the guitar,

because cowboys played the guitar.

I must have been ten or 11 years old.

My aunt came over and said,

"Elvis Presley is making a movie,

"and your uncle's working on the picture,

"and I... I thought maybe you'd like to go down one day

and watch the filming, see Elvis."

The streets were just packed with hundreds of people.

Elvis appeared like,

you know, a vision.

He didn't look like anything I'd ever seen.

You know, I'm just... dumbstruck.

And my uncle said to him, "Elvis",

this is my family, this is my nephew, da-da-da,"

and Elvis kind of went, "yeah," you know,

and moved on, you know.

I went home a changed man.

When I hit the street the next day,

I was trying to find some Elvis Presley records.

The music just hypnotized me.

And I played these records

to the point my parents began to worry

that something was wrong with me.

Hey, you guys, there's that

rock and roll cowboy I told you about.

On a visual level, I thought rock and roll

was twice as cool because these guys played guitars.

The hook was in really deep.

I'm in about the fifth grade,

and I'm playing 1950s records,

and it's all I want to talk about.

Even the other kids thought it was weird.

I didn't have the faintest dream of being a musician

or anything like that.

I just loved to listen to it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!

Let's bring 'em out.

And when I was 13,

the Beatles came, and in those few minutes

when they hit The Ed Sullivan show,

it all became clear, you know.

This... This is what I'm going to do.

This is how you do it.

Within 24 hours,

everything had changed.

The more hardcore of us started to grow our hair long.

Instantly...

I want a guitar.

My dad,

one of the nicer things he did for me

was he threw down 35 bucks, bought me an electric guitar,

because I just wouldn't shut up about it.

He was more obsessed with rock and roll

than anyone I had ever met.

He wasn't into

a lot of other things except maybe girls, you know.

I wanted a group.

I set about scouring the neighbourhoods

for anybody that owned instruments,

that could play instruments,

and we just struck gold.

I will never forget it.

We went to my house.

We all plugged into the same amplifier,

found something we all knew.

Wham, the heavens split.

Like, this sound was incredible.

It was the biggest rush of my life.

Wow, you know, we're doing it, you know.

We're making this music.

We went to the dance, really nervous,

but we all got blue shirts,

and we started to play.

We were a huge success.

Everybody dug it.

We played our three songs, and, uh...

everybody yelled for more.

So we played them again.

Then we started working.

The Epics were playing the hits of the day.

The group practiced

at least five days a week.

That first time we got paid,

my mom really thought I had stolen the money

and was, like, really concerned

that I'd taken up a life of crime.

We thought the Epics was too corny a name,

so we picked this really terrible one...

Mudcrutch.