Tom Petty’s Bandmate Was Frustrated Petty Didn’t Want to Accept His ‘Elvis Role’

As a child, Tom Petty idolized Elvis Presley and attributed his love of music to the other musician. When Petty began finding success with his band, he had an Elvis moment of his own. As the lead singer, he got the most attention from fans. He valued his privacy, though, and according to those who knew him, he didn’t embrace fame. This rubbed one of his bandmates the wrong way. 

Tom Petty was a big fan of Elvis growing up

When Petty was a kid, his uncle was working on the set of the Elvis film Follow That Dream. He had the opportunity to meet the star, and though they didn’t have much of a conversation, the moment left a lasting impression on Petty.

“I was introduced by my uncle, and he sort of grunted my way. What stays with me is the whole scene,” Petty told Esquire. “I had never seen a real mob scene before. I was really young and impressionable. Elvis really did look — he looked sort of not real, as if he were glowing. He was astounding, even spiritual. It was like a procession in church: a line of white Cadillacs and mohair suits and pompadours so black, they were blue.”

After this meeting, Petty traded his favorite slingshot for a box of records, determined to make his way through Elvis’ discography.

“I traded in my aluminium slingshot, which was my most prized possession, for this box of records, and my life was transformed from that moment on,” he told The Independent, adding, “I just didn’t do anything but play these records. I didn’t even dream of singing or playing an instrument. All I wanted to do was listen to this music.”

Tom Petty’s bandmate thought he should have accepted his ‘Elvis role’

Petty’s love of music led him to begin playing in a band as a teenager. By the end of the 1970s, he was famous. While he was in a band, his position as the lead singer brought him more attention than any of the other members. He seemed hesitant to wholeheartedly embrace fame, though, something that frustrated one of his bandmates.

“He got exactly what he wanted,” original Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch said in the book Petty: The Biography by Warren Zanes. “Too bad. You know what I mean? Like, ‘You want this? Now it’s all on you.'”

He thought Petty should have been more accepting of his newfound fame. 

“For me, the worm sort of started to turn a little in the whole tragicomedy of being in a band,” he said. “I thought, ‘Hey, dude, you begged for this, actually took it from others to have all this. Accept your Elvis role.'”

The Heartbreakers’ singer had a problem with greed in the music industry

Part of Petty’s hesitancy to accept his “Elvis role” may have had to do with his belief that the music industry was plagued by greed.

“You don’t hear any more of, ‘Hey, we did something creative and we turned a profit, how about that?’ Everywhere we look, we want to make the most money possible,” he told Rolling Stone in 2002. “This is a dangerous, corrupt notion. That’s where you see the advent of programming on the radio, and radio research, all these silly things. That has made pop music what it is today. Everything — morals, truth — is all going out the window in favor of profit.”

He believed that artists were also to blame. 

“I don’t think the industry is entirely to blame. Let’s face it: The music industry has always been laughably corrupt, always. It’s the artists themselves that often cause problems,” he said. “Artists aren’t necessarily business people. And they aren’t necessarily aware of all the things that go on in their names. Some just want to make some music, but there is a lot of greed among artists as well. Whether or not we know it, we are all to blame.”