Tom Petty’s Legacy with Adria Petty and Pierre Robert [INTERVIEW]
Losing Tom Petty on October 2nd, 2017 sent shockwaves down the music world that can still be felt to this day. While any loss can be a long, difficult road to cope with, his lasting legacy of music will certainly last the test of time. While this is certainly reflected in the body of work we are familiar with, his extensive vaults of unreleased material has become more available through-out the years. To celebrate another piece of that vault seeing the light of day, Pierre Robert is joined by Tom’s daughter Adria Petty.
Adria Petty: Daughter, Artist, Visionary
Through the power of Zoom, Pierre was able to be face-to-face for a wonderful chat with Adria Petty, daughter of Tom Petty. An accomplished artist in her own right with a majority of her work coming from behind the lens of a film camera. Adria has quite the extraordinary resume including films, commercials, documentaries, and even music videos for artists like Beyonce and Coldplay. She thanks her dad for her love of the medium and even drew inspiration from old movies they use to watch together.
She is also the unofficial head of the Petty Legacy Archive. They are a collective of those from the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers who comb though the massive unreleased vault of music to keep Tom’s musical vision moving forward. Previous releases include the 38 song greatest hits compilation The Best of Everything to the wicked home recordings, demos and more with Wildflowers & All The Rest. The latest offering celebrates Tom Petty & The Heartbreaks 1982 studio record
‘Long After Dark’ Deluxe Edition
Adria Petty went into detail on how the deluxe edition of Long After Dark came to be. It all started with revisiting the archive’s of a Cameron Crowe short film entitled “Heartbreakers Beach Party stating “We just realized the film was really important to preserve and we went to the archive and said, hey, you know, it’d be good to put Long After Dark out with this film … we managed to find 45 minutes of really viable, really important music that was recorded at the same time. We found some footage of Tom talking about … some of his regrets about leaving a few things off”.
One of those things left off was the song “Never Be You” which Pierre had the pleasure of debuting a few weeks prior. Adria tells Pierre of her fondness of that particular number saying “It’s haunting. It’s beautiful. It’s written by Benmont Tench originally. That riff, that beautiful piano riff that takes it through”
The song had some success in the country sphere as Roseanne Cash had a #1 hit with it in the early 80’s. Adria comments “My dad was super proud of that, but I never knew there was more than a demo of this song. I’ve never heard Tom sing the song, ever. So for us to find, like, a completely tracked version of it…was like unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable”.
Tom Petty as Dad
To all of us, Tom Petty was a rock and roll icon. To Adria Petty, he did play that role however he was always dad first. When Pierre asked what he was like around the house and what type of parent he was, she said with a grin “Somewhere between the Walt Disney and the Big Lebowski” which caused Pierre to erupt in laughter. She also imparts the wisdom Tom shared with her growing up which was “Dont be a jerk, be conscious of other people, and be a person of character”. Quite good works to live by
These topics just scratch the surface of Pierre Robert and Adria Petty’s conversation. They also dive into her and Tom’s passion for the Everly Brothers, the possibility of a Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers documentary and also the very famous New Jersey musician who explained to Tom the concept of an ATM. Check out the full conversation below and we thank Adria Petty for continuing Tom’s musical legacy!
