Tom Petty Gave a Brutally Honest Reason Why He Was Touring With Bob Dylan: ‘Money’
In 1986, Tom Petty toured with Bob Dylan, one of his childhood music heroes. While the Heartbreakers were a well-established band at this point, they hadn’t reached Dylan’s level of stardom. It was an incredible opportunity, one that many artists would have loved. When asked why they decided to tour together, though, Petty didn’t speak about being a fan of Dylan. Instead, he got honest about being in it for the money.
Tom Petty started listening to Bob Dylan’s music as a teenager
Petty explained that he started listening to Dylan’s music as a teenager in Florida.
“We hadn’t heard Dylan [growing up in Florida] until ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ came out as a single. And we loved that right away,” he said, per American Songwriter. “We learned that, did it in the show. We learned all his singles. We didn’t have Dylan albums until Blonde on Blonde [1966]. I had heard Highway 61 Revisited [1965]. A friend of mine had that. But I actually bought Blonde on Blonde. That’s where I really got into Bob. And I started to really dig his thing.”
Petty believed that Dylan directly influenced his own songwriting.
“He influenced my songwriting, of course. He influenced everybody’s songwriting,” he said. “There’s no way around it. No one had ever really left the love song before, lyrically. So in that respect, I think he influenced everybody, because you suddenly realized you could write about other things.”
They gave different answers when asked why they were touring together
Given Petty’s reverence for Dylan, the opportunity for the Heartbreakers to tour with him was a big deal. They successfully backed him at Farm Aid in 1985, and then Dylan invited them on his Australian tour.
“We’d all been huge Dylan fans, and we were very intrigued by the idea of playing with Bob,” Petty explained. “So off we went. And that went on for two years. We’d do part of it and then more would get added on, and then more would get added on. We really did the world with Bob Dylan.”
They announced that they would also be touring 22 US cities. Per Rolling Stone, “both looked bored; neither had much to say” during the press conference. When asked why they decided to tour together, Dylan answered evasively with, “We just felt like it.”
Petty gave a blunt and succinct answer when asked what brought them together: “Money.”
Tom Petty said he had an easy friendship with Bob Dylan
Petty wasn’t in it just for the money, though. He and Dylan formed a genuine friendship in the time they spent touring together.
“I always found that if I asked Bob a direct question, I would get a direct answer,” he said. “So maybe our friendship wasn’t that difficult, because I made up my mind that I would treat him like anybody else. Though I was certainly in awe of his talent. But people are just people [Laughs] And I don’t remember ever asking him a question when he didn’t give me a direct answer.”
After ending their tour, Petty and Dylan would later work together in The Traveling Wilburys.
