How Tom Petty's Dave Stewart Experiment Led to a Lifelong Friendship

Tom Petty did not have particularly high hopes for the '80s.
His first album of the decade, 1981's 'Hard Promises,' came along with a slew of legal entanglements and Petty simply became exhausted. Doctors encouraged him to cut short his 1981 U.S. tour, so Petty took some time off before considering his next project.
'Long After Dark' brought some of Petty's spark back a year later, courtesy of a hit single in "You Got Lucky" that featured this prominent synthesizer riff. Where to go from there? Petty wasn't entirely sure, but fresh ideas would arrive in the form of a new collaborator - Dave Stewart of Eurythmics.
We're revisiting this unlikely partnership - and subsequent lifelong friendship - in the latest video from our Odd Couples series.
0:00 Introduction
0:22 Tom Petty suggests Dave Stewart....for another project
0:47 Stewart and Petty decide to collaborate
0:55 The pair found they had a good spark
1:06 "Don't Come Around Here No More"
1:31 The Band
1:41 Prince
1:52 Not everybody was happy
2:13 What didn't make the album
2:31 Could the music have been better?
2:35 ...how about some horns?
2:46 We probably also need a cello...
2:55 Petty and Stewart's friendship
3:25 The Traveling Wilburys
3:40 Conclusion
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[@WineSippingCowboy]

The Bangles did the backing vocals in Don't Come Around Here No More.

[@wendyfedun1419]

That is a very cool bit of trivia!

[@ClassicTVMan1981X]

Actually, the planned one-dollar price increase for Hard Promises was not the first time Petty had issues with MCA. The founding of Backstreet Records (which was dissolved in 1983) had ended Petty's first legal entanglement that occurred when MCA Records took over ABC Records. As that story went, Petty and the Heartbreakers had a deal with Shelter Records, which oversaw the release of their first two albums -- the 1976 self-titled debut and 1978's You're Gonna Get It! -- and that legal mess began when ABC took over Shelter in 1978, just after the release of You're Gonna Get It! The contract Petty had signed with Shelter, which dated back to his days with Mudcrutch, included a clause which stated that he was to be consulted if and when another record company had taken over Shelter; as a result, Petty renegotiated his deal when ABC Records bought Shelter (though this only included Petty and J. J. Cale; other Shelter contracts, from 1977-81, were under Arista/BMG), to guarantee his prior autonomy. Then, in early 1979, while Petty was recording the material for Damn the Torpedoes, ABC Records was in turn taken over by MCA Records (which ironically was Shelter's mass distributor at the time when Petty first signed the original contract as a member of Mudcrutch back in 1974), MCA threatened to sue Petty for breach of contract (Petty claimed this move by MCA was like being bought like a piece of meat); Petty again held fast to his promise that he would not allow another record company to acquire his existing contract without his approval, so he responded by first delaying the album's release, at whatever expense, and then filing for bankruptcy as a way to nullify his old Shelter deal. While Petty's court case against MCA was being decided, he arranged a series of concerts known as the "Lawsuit Tour" to earn back the money that was spent for the case against MCA. Danny Bramson of MCA Records convinced Petty that it was still a viable label, and Bramson thus created the new Backstreet imprint, thereby ending Petty's first legal battle. Upon its release in October 1979, Damn the Torpedoes became the Heartbreakers' first Top 10 album, peaking at number 2 (being kept out of #1 by Pink Floyd's The Wall); and its two singles, "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee," both made the Top 20. Then when MCA sought to raise the price of the Heartbreakers' fourth album Hard Promises by one buck from $8.98 to $9.98, in what the label deemed to be special "superstar" pricing, Petty again sought to delay the album's release or otherwise renaming it Eight Ninety-Eight; MCA again relented and released Hard Promises at the standard retail price of $8.98.