Tom Petty Said It Was ‘Embarrassing’ to Be Friends With George Harrison and Bob Dylan
When Tom Petty rose to fame, he had the chance to meet many of his adolescent heroes, like George Harrison and Bob Dylan. He said that he never actively sought them out, but he, somewhat serendipitously, was able to meet and befriend them. Though he valued the friendships, he said he rarely spoke about them with others. He explained that he found it embarrassing.
Tom Petty was friends with George Harrison and Bob Dylan
Before he worked with them in The Traveling Wilburys, Petty befriended both Dylan and Harrison. Dylan invited the Heartbreakers on tour with him, so Petty got to know him well.
“One of the nicest things about Bob is that he’s an honest guy. Really, really honest,” Petty said, per American Songwriter. “Not someone who would ever lie. Not someone who would blow his own horn. And I enjoyed all those years of working with him, and I think we had a genuine friendship. Still do. We had a lot of long talks.”
He also considered Harrison one of his closest friends. Petty said they clicked immediately.
“I think I needed a friend really badly,” he revealed in the book Petty: The Biography by Warren Zanes. “My friendship with the band was a different kind of friendship. And it was frayed. I’d become very lonely. George came along, and we got so close; it was like we had known each other in some other life or something. We were pals within minutes of meeting each other.”
Tom Petty said it was a bit ’embarrassing’ to admit he was friends with George Harrison and Bob Dylan
When asked what it was like to perform in The Traveling Wilburys with musicians like Harrison and Dylan, Petty said it felt like spending time with siblings.
“I’m seven years younger than them now,” he said in 1999, per The Petty Archives. “They’re like my older brothers. It’s very strange, you know. I was telling a friend of mine the other day how odd it is that I never sought out any of those people. Any of my heroes. And somehow the ones that really matter to me, I got to know them all well.”
He said that despite their closeness, he was hesitant to discuss their friendship with others. He found it embarrassing.
“I got to know them past what we’ve done. I got to know them really well as people and became really good friends with them,” he explained. “So it’s embarrassing. I never mention my friends to people because they think I’m bragging. But it is kind of cool.”
He informed his bandmates that he looked up to them
While Petty was a bit embarrassed about his friendships, he had no qualms about telling Harrison and Dylan that he admired them.
“I’ve always been up-front with them too, about how cool I think it is,” he said. “And they’ve been a big help to me in many ways. Especially George because he’s someone who’s been through all this. And I don’t have an older brother, and he’s always been there to advise me. He’d tell me, ‘It’s like this,’ or says, ‘I wouldn’t take that seriously at all.’ It’s great to know someone who has been through all that. Because it’s an unusual way to live sometimes, and to know someone who has been through it, it’s great.”
