Toronto Star

Tom Petty introspect­ive in his final interview

Singer looked forward to time off with his family, working on his radio show

- RANDY LEWIS LOS ANGELES TIMES

This is not the Tom Petty story that I had intended to write.

Though I was more than thrilled to catch up with Petty, whom I had interviewe­d before, I had no clue that this would turn out to be the last, for me and for him — that he would die just a few days later after suffering a massive heart attack at age 66.

When I sat down with Petty in the outer room of the cosy but fully equipped recording studio at his home above Malibu beach, the idea was for him to reflect on the wildly successful 40th anniversar­y tour he and the Heartbreak­ers had wrapped less than 48 hours earlier at the end of three sold-out nights at the Hollywood Bowl.

It was a triumphant stand particular­ly rewarding to Petty, a Florida transplant who considered himself and his band mates California adoptees. He said as much from the stage each night, noting how the Heartbreak­ers, although composed entirely of musicians born or raised in and around Gainesvill­e, Fla., had been born at the Village Studios in West Los Angeles.

“This year has been a wonderful year for us,” he said now, sipping a cup of coffee he’d just poured at 4:30 in the afternoon and sinking into the plush sofa. “This has been that big slap on the back we never got,” he said, referring to the popular, critical and financial affirmatio­n that wasn’t always apparent throughout the group’s hard-working history.

But he did not see it as the end. There was supposed to have been so much more to come. Should have, would have, could have come.

Petty was excited about producing a second album for the upstart L.A. rock band he’s been championin­g the last couple of years, the Shelters.

He was looking forward to continuing his involvemen­t with the Tom Petty radio channel for the SiriusXM satellite radio service, including the show he organized and hosted, Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure, in which he picked songs he loved.

“I love doing my Buried Treasure show,” he said. “It keeps me listening like I used to do. I always listen. I could come home and I would spend the rest of the night just lying on the floor or the sofa listening to albums. It was like a movie to me. I still do really and doing the radio show ensures that I’ll be sitting there listening.”

After six rewarding but also physical demanding months on (mostly) and off (hardly) the road, Petty was supposed to get a moment to take a deep breath, relax and enjoy the return to domestic life with Dana, his wife of 16 years, and the rest of their family, including his two adult daughters, Adria and Annakim Violette, from his first marriage; Dana’s son, Dylan, from her previous marriage; and their 4-year-old granddaugh­ter, Everly Petty.

Even though the notion of kicking back in a hammock sounded antithetic­al to everything he’d ever believed in, or practised, he said, “I just have to learn to rest a little bit, like everyone’s telling me. I need to stop working for a period of time.”

Still, he confessed, “It’s hard for me . . . If I don’t have a project going, I don’t feel like I’m connected to anything. I don’t even think it’s that healthy for me. I like to get out of bed and have a purpose.”

Petty always had a purpose and a man like that, a man with a purpose, should have had more time — weeks, months, years — to practise what he called fishing and others call songwritin­g.

“It’s kind of a lonely work,” he said, “because you just have to keep your pole in the water. I always l had a little routine of going into whatever room I was using at the time to write in and just staying in there till I felt like I got a bite.

“I compare it to fishing: there’s either a fish in the boat or there’s not,” he said with a laugh. “Sometimes you come home and you didn’t catch anything and sometimes you caught a huge fish. But that was the work part of it to me . . . I just remember being excited when I had a song done and I knew I had a song in my pocket; I always felt really excited about it.”

No, this wasn’t supposed to be the end of the road for Tom Petty and the Heartbreak­ers, even though the group’s namesake talked about what might cause that to happen — one day, perhaps, far down the line.

“If one of us went down,” he said, “or if one of us died — God forbid — or got sick . . .” letting his voice trail off at the thought of it.

“We’re all older now,” he said softly. “Then we’d stop. I think that would be the end of it, if someone couldn’t do it.”

Until then, he said, there would be no talk of any proscribed retirement day — for this singer, songwriter and guitarist, or his band of brothers.

Petty already seemed to have weathered his allotted bout of infirmity during August when he came down with laryngitis and had to postpone a few shows. Did the incident spook him? “Yeah, because I don’t think I’ve missed a show in many, many years,” he said. “It freaked me out so bad, because it came out of nowhere . . . My doctor said ‘I don’t think you’ve been sick — I’m looking in my records — in over 17 years, since I’ve seen you sick with anything.’ And I’m always like, ‘I don’t get sick.’ But (stuff ) happens.

“My doctor said, ‘Despite great evidence to the contrary, it seems you’re human,’ ” he said with a laugh.

“But I take care of myself on the road. If you’re a singer, you’ve got to be responsibl­e. It’s a physical thing; you have to be in shape. It’s athletic. I have to make sure that I get enough sleep, that I eat right, that I don’t abuse my voice. Don’t talk too much. Don’t go to the bar and talk for three hours if you have a show the next day. I’ve learned that it’s just instinct, it’s built into me from all the years of touring.”

After six months on the road, Petty was supposed to get time to forget about those rules, just a little.

“The only happy thing about being off the road is I don’t have to worry about keeping myself ready to go the next day,” he said.

“The thing about the Heartbreak­ers is, it’s still holy to me,” he said with no air of loftiness or pretense. “There’s a holiness there. If that were to go away, I don’t think I would be interested in it and I don’t think they would. We’re a real rock ’n’ roll band, always have been. And to us, in the era we came up in, it was a religion in a way. It was more than commerce, it wasn’t about that. It was about something much greater.

“It was about moving people and changing the world, and I really believed in rock ’n’ roll; I still do,” he said. “I believed in it in its purest sense, its purest form . . . It’s unique to have a band that knows each other that long and that well.

“I’m just trying to get the best I can get out of it,” said Tom Petty, head Heartbreak­er and fisher of music, “as long as it remains holy.”

 ?? MARK HUMPHREY/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO ?? Tom Petty performs in 2006. In an interview just before his death, he revelled in the success of his latest tour with his band, the Heartbreak­ers.
MARK HUMPHREY/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Tom Petty performs in 2006. In an interview just before his death, he revelled in the success of his latest tour with his band, the Heartbreak­ers.

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