(Credits: Ирина Лепнёва)
Thu 2 April 2026 21:15, UK
Tom Petty didn’t want to settle for merely good whenever he made one of his records.
Some of the best albums of his career came from him diving into his own personal psyche and coming out with the kind of record that he felt would stand the test of time, the same way that his favourite records by The Beatles did back in the day. But even though there are a few scars that came with his masterpieces, there are a couple of others that were pure joy for him to work on every time he went to the studio.
But it’s not like he started out making the greatest rock and roll albums anyone had ever heard. He could barely make a dent in the charts when he first started, and even though Damn the Torpedoes set him up to become one of the biggest stars in the world, he already had to go through the hell of making the record with his label breathing down his neck and trying their best to take every single dime from his publishing. If there’s one thing that rock and roll fans love, though, it’s an underdog, and Petty was willing to stand up for the little guy at every opportunity he could.
He was going to do right by his fans, but when it came to his records, he wasn’t going to change with the times to cash in. Even when working with drum machines, a song like ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ feels a lot closer to what Petty was used to than any other schlock that was coming out of MTV at the time. But if you had to ask him about his true favourite performances, it was always about making music that was a bit more rootsy than what he was used to.
Some of his favourite artists were all about making the most simplistic rock and roll that you could, and even on his final albums, Petty was looking to go back to basics. Mojo was an all-out blues record, and his final Heartbreakers album was the closest thing to garage rock that he had done since his early years, but maybe that kind of simplistic attitude came from him getting back together with Mudcrutch after so many years apart.
No one would have given their teenage band the time of day after becoming a superstar, but when working on the documentary Runnin’ Down a Dream, Petty couldn’t help but remember how much fun they had when they were making music before getting a record. It was about time that they gave those songs their due, and compared to the Heartbreakers, you can hear Petty cutting loose a lot more on the first official Mudcrutch album.
He didn’t need to be the frontman on every single song, but compared to every album he ever made, Petty gave Mudcrutch a much higher placement than anything else, saying, “That album is really in my Top Five things I’ve ever done. Wildflowers, I think, was a good one. But Mudcrutch is right up there, you know, just as far as something of mine that I would put on and play and really enjoy. It was a tremendous experience doing that album. I can’t even get over how happy I was.”
That’s some high praise coming from someone who has worked with the Traveling Wilburys, but there was always going to be a little bit of bias there. Mudcrutch was a baby band for years before they got to release an album, and when you hear all of them playing together, you can feel Petty having a much better time than he would have if he were strictly writing for himself, like when he breaks out songs like ‘Shady Grove’ or gets to watch Mike Campbell and Tom Leadon trade guitar solos back and forth.
The record was never trying to be a smash hit by any means, but even if it only sold a few copies, Petty would have been happy to have made the record at the end of the day. Looking back on those years with his old friends melted his heart a little bit, and he wanted to do anything he could to get back there if he could.
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