Conversations With Tom Petty

by Paul Zollo

  Did you learn those songs from records or from radio?

  From both. Usually somebody had the records.

  45s?

  Yeah, 45s. We didn’t have a lot of money. You couldn’t get all the records you wanted. Sometimes you’d go around town and find somebody who had the record. The word would be out that so-and-so’s got “Love Potion #9.” You’d go and borrow it. A lot of parties. You’d see these girls who had tons of records playing them at the party, and you’d try to hustle them, you know. ‘Hey, let me borrow this. I’ll bring it back Monday.’ [Laughs]

  Did you already want to be a musician then?

  Oh yeah. That’s all I ever wanted to be. I never thought of being anything else. What did your dad do for a living?

  He was an insurance salesman. He kind of jumped from job to job. There was awhile there, when I was really young, when he owned the only grocery store in the black part of Gainesville. It was all black clientele. Back then they had everybody segregated into neighborhoods. And so in the black neighborhood, he had the only grocery store.

  When I was quite young, like three and four, my memories of it are being taken down there, and I’d play out back of the grocery store with the young black kids of the neighborhood. It was kind of bizarre, because I’d spend most of the day with black kids. And then I’d come home to this white suburban vibe. [Laughs]

  And that went on for a while, and then I guess that went bust, and he got a panel truck that sold what he called “wholesale dry goods,” like handkerchiefs and cigarette lighters, and all that crap you see behind the counter in convenience stores. He had a whole panel truck of that stuff, and he had a route that he invented [Laughs] and he drove around North Central Florida, and he drove around selling this stuff off his truck to stores. And that didn’t pan out. That went on for a few years. And then he got into selling insurance. That’s what he did for the rest of his life. Those were the three jobs I remember him doing.

  Did your mom work?

  Yeah. My mom worked in the tax collector’s office in Gainesville selling car registrations and license plates. She worked there quite a long time. So they both did eight-hour days at least. And my dad really never came home much when we were awake. He usually came home after we were asleep.

  My dad was pretty wild. He used to always be going to get his car out of a ditch somewhere. [Laughs] I thought it was completely normal to run your car into a ditch. [Laughs] Because there were so many times he hit a ditch with his car. Now I realize, wow. And he was quite a gambler, he loved to gamble, and my mother hated it. It was quite a turbulent household, really. Very turbulent.

  Why was he hitting ditches? Was he drinking?

  Yeah, he was quite a drinker. He was just as wild as the wind, really. So my childhood wasn’t really all that bad, but it had elements of being bad because of the household—there was a lot of fighting. My mom and dad fought a lot. It wasn’t always good.

  So you and your brother were on your own when you came home from school?

  We were on our own till about 6:00, when my mom would come home. My grandmother looked after us quite a bit. My mom’s mom. I was quite close to her. And she was a really big influence in my life. She really favored me quite a bit and really tried to build up my confidence all the time. She was really sweet to me. She lived not too far away, and she’d come over and watch us when we were really young. But when we started to be, say ten or eleven, then we were on our own.

  When you were on your own, what would you do?

  We’d just bum around the neighborhood. Back in those days, people just let their kids out till dark. We’d just bum around with other kids. We lived near a big city park called the Northeast Park, in Gainesville. It bordered a small, wooded forest. We ran around, my brother and I, and we played a lot of cowboys and Indians. That was the big game back then. We had a lot of cowboy stuff. A lot of cap pistols. We did that when we were really young, and then when I got the guitar, that pretty much occupied all my free time. I’d come home and play the guitar.

  Did you know your mom’s father too?

  Never met him in my life. My grandmother hated him. A very interesting thing: My dad’s name was Earl. My grandmother on my mother’s side’s ex-husband’s name was Earl. My mother’s sister married two guys named Earl. [Laughs] First husband named Earl, no good; then she married another guy named Earl. And my middle name is Earl. My grandmother would not say the name Earl. She thought it was some kind of jinx. She called my dad “Petty.” And my uncle, they called him Jernigan, ‘cause his name was Earl Jernigan. And she referred to him as Jernigan and my dad as Petty, because her ex had been named Earl. She didn’t like my father at all, because he was a wild, gambling drinker guy. And her other daughter had two husbands named Earl. [Much laughter.]

  It was a trip. Earl Jernigan was a very interesting guy. He wasn’t a Southerner. He was the only Northerner in the family. And his whole love was film, motion pictures. And he had the only business in town that was a film business. He had the only place where you could develop film or buy it.

  And anytime there was a movie shoot, probably within a hundred miles, he would go. And they did quite a bit in this place called Silver Springs in Ocala, because it had the underwater tanks, because the water is crystal clear, and the glass-bottom boat originated there. You could ride and look at the fish through the glass bottom of the boat. And they had these big windows that you could film through. He worked on several big-time movie shoots. They would contract him to do whatever he did. He was a trip. He didn’t like my family much, and I see why, because they had nothing in common. He was actually far too hip to hang around with the Pettys; it really bugged him. At the time I didn’t understand why he never wanted to be around, but I understand it clearly now. But I remember, he had done Return Of The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and he actually had one of the rubber suits of the creature in his house, and we thought that was so cool. [Laughs]

  I was eleven years old. I remember this vividly. I was sitting in a pile of pine straw, underneath a big pine tree in my yard. And I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do today?’ Just kind of sitting there. Just old enough at eleven to kind of wonder what might lie ahead. And my Aunt Evelyn pulled into the driveway—her husband was Earl Jernigan.

  My aunt pulls in the drive and says, “Tommy, would you like to go and see Elvis Presley?’

  Well, I thought, ‘Yeah, sure.’ I didn’t know a lot about Elvis Presley. I remember when I was a kid of five or six there was some controversy in the household, and he was known to me as a fella who wiggled. And I did a little impression with a broom of wiggling like Elvis.

  But I couldn’t really put together in my head who Elvis was exactly. I knew he was a rock ‘n’ roll star. And I’d never thought much about rock ‘n’ roll until that moment. So it was gonna be in about a week’s time we were gonna go see Elvis. Because my uncle had been hired onto his film that he was shooting, which was called Follow That Dream. Which I’ve always thought was a cosmic title.

  My aunt picked me up with my two cousins and drove us to Ocala, which was about thirty miles away. And there was a huge crowd when we got there. The biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in the streets of Ocala. And we were driven through the crowd and around the back and into the film set. They were filming on the street, in a scene where Elvis pulled up in a car and walked into a bank. A simple scene. So they had set up a bunch of trailers with a chain-link fence around it. for a dressing room. And we were taken back to the dressing room area. And then, I swear to God, a line of white Cadillacs pulled in. All white. And I’d never seen anything like that. It wasn’t a funeral. They were all white. Cadillacs. And I was standing up on a box to see over everyone’s head. Because a big roar started up when the cars pulled in. And then guys in mohair suits and pompadours started jumping out of every car. And I said, to my aunt, ‘Is that Elvis?’

  She said, ‘No, that’s not Elvis.’

  Then the next one came out, and I said, ‘Is that E
lvis?’

  ‘No, that’s not Elvis.’

  And then suddenly I go, ‘That’s Elvis.’ He stepped out radiant as an angel. He seemed to glow and walk above the ground. It was like nothing I’d ever seen in my life. At fifty yards, we were stunned by what this guy looked like. And he came walking right towards us. And his hair was so black, I remember that it shined blue when the sunlight hit it.

  And he walked over and we were speechless. My uncle said, ‘These are my nieces and nephews, Elvis.’ And [Elvis] smiled and nodded at us. I don’t know what he said, because I was just too dumbfounded. And he went into his trailer. And then we got really excited. Like that first brush with fame will do to you. And now hundreds of girls were against this chain-link fence. And there were just photos of Elvis and albums everywhere you looked in their hands, and they were trying to get Elvis to sign this stuff. And one of his Memphis mafia guys was there. They were handing the record jackets over the fence, and he would take them into the trailer and come back with them signed, and give them to the kids.

  So being young, the way I put this together in my head, was, ‘Damn, if I had a record jacket, I could get an autograph.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that he could have just signed any piece of paper. I wanted a proper thing.

  So we stayed around the rest of the day, and we watched him shoot this scene. Which was really funny, because every time he pulled up in the car, the crowd would break through the barricades and just charge him. So it took them hours just to shoot this little scene of him getting out of the car and walking in the door. Because they couldn’t control the crowd; they were just insane. And I thought at that time, ‘That is one hell of a job to have. That’s a great gig—Elvis Presley.’

  And then my aunt said she would bring us back again. And so I made up my mind that if I was going back again, I’m gonna have an Elvis record for him to sign. And I caught the fever that day and I never got rid of it. I began collecting anything I could find on Elvis. There was a guy down the street who had a sister who had gone to college and was older than us. Because Elvis’ heyday had kind of passed. This was 1961, 1962. I traded my Wham-O slingshot to this kid for a box of 45s, and in this box there were so many Elvis records, and they were all the greatest ones. And there were a few others, like Ricky Nelson and Jerry Lee Lewis. And some stuff in there that was great, too. But it was the Elvis stuff I was really interested in.

  There were no books of any kind on Elvis, no information anywhere. The only place you could get information on him were teen magazines. Where you’d see photos of him. But there was very little information in those. Then I found one that had an ad in the back, where you could send away for something called The Elvis Presley Handbook. You’ve got to dig—I’m eleven years old, fifth grade, I’m completely enthralled with Elvis Presley. None of my friends could relate at all to Elvis Presley. But I thought it was cool, and I thought rock ‘n’ roll was cool, and I just loved the music. I played it endlessly. My dad was concerned that I didn’t go outside, that I just played these records all day. I wasn’t thinking of being a musician. I was just a fan.

  And so I sent a buck to England for this book, The Elvis Presley Handbook, much to the ridicule of my family for wasting a dollar. And it took months to come, but the day it came was like Christmas. The book came, and it had every fact and it had a review of every song he’d done, and the chronology of when the records had been released. And I could see what I had and what I didn’t have. And that’s what kicked off my love of music. That was the dream I followed, strangely enough.

  It would be some years later, two to three years later, when The Beatles came, that I would catch the fever and want to play guitar. But learning all of those Elvis songs, and having that kind of background in rock ‘n’ roll of where it had come from, has served me to this day. It became an invaluable thing to have. So for that, I thank him.

  And you never were taken back to see Elvis again?

  No, we were never taken back.

  Would your dad be home on weekends?

  Sometimes. He loved to fish and hunt.

  Would you go with him?

  It was kind of mandatory for a while that I went with him. But I never liked it. My dad was a hard man, hard to be around. He was really hard on me. He wanted me to be a lot more macho than I was. I was this real sort of tender, emotional kid. More inclined to the arts than shooting something. I didn’t want to be trapped in a boat with him all day. He was sort of a legendary fisherman around town. He was so good at it. That’s what he did all the time. Fish and hunt. If he wasn’t working.

  Did you eat the fish?

  Yeah, we ate a lot of fish. We learned how to clean fish. We ate it so much I couldn’t stand it, really.

  What kind of fish?

  He would catch everything from perch to bass to trout. If he got bass or trout, that was pretty good eating. Perch wasn’t that great.

  Did you like the time on the boat with him?

  No, I didn’t like him that much. I was kind of afraid of him the whole time. He didn’t mind just popping you. He’d really just kick your ass. [Laughs] So I was always kind of afraid of him, to tell you the truth. I didn’t want to be stuck in a boat with him. He carried pistols, and he was this really kind of wild character. What would he hunt?

  He hunted quail, dove, and deer. In deer season they would get out the heavy artillery.

  How did you feel about that?

  It was awful. I only went a little bit and then he realized I was completely useless in that situation. It was sitting in fields, just fucking cold, to shoot a bird. It always seemed stupid to me. I didn’t like it. But I remember it well. I remember birds stuffed in bags, and cleaning the birds, picking all the feathers off. It was gross. I hated it. Then you had to eat them. I ate dove and quail.

  How was that?

  Quail was okay, but eating a dove? It sucked. It tasted like shit. But he grew up in the swamps of Florida.

  One day this small alligator came up by the boat—and I actually saw my dad take his forefinger and his thumb, and punch the eyes in on the alligator. To show me that he could knock the alligator out. Took his thumb and his forefinger, pushed the alligator’s eyes in, and the gator rolled over in the water. It was like he was nuts. He was just nuts. But he wasn’t afraid of anything. I once saw my dad grab a rattlesnake by the tail, swing it round his head, and pop his neck. That’s pretty wild shit, you know? So I was kind of scared of him.

  When I got older, when I was grown, then we kind of bonded in some way where we could talk and hang out. But when I was younger, I was really kind of scared of him. I didn’t really want to cross him. I just kind of wanted to stay out of his way if he was home. But we didn’t really like him a lot. He just caused a lot of turbulence.

  Did he and your mom fight a lot?

  Yeah. Think about it: He was drunk every day. [Laughs] He’d get drunk every night, he’d disappear for days, he was just crazy.

  Was your mom there for you?

  She was always there for us. She was a great mom. But we felt really sorry for her, having to put up with him all the time. She should have left him; I don’t know why she wouldn’t leave him. It was a weird way to grow up, in some respects.

  But then my dad could turn around and be really kind and sweet. He had this duality to him. He’d give me so much shit about being in a band, you know, and then you’d turn around, and one day he’s bought you a Fender amplifier. [Laughs] ‘My God, thanks.’ So I think he kind of had this duality, where maybe he had a really rough life. But he did have a kind side where he could be really nice to you.

  When did you start guitar?

  My mom and dad got me a guitar for Christmas when I was twelve. But it wasn’t really a great guitar. It was just a cheap acoustic guitar called a Stella. Metal strings. I didn’t know how to tune it up. I had a Mel Bay guitar book. But it was so much work to even press the strings down on that guitar. So it sat around the house for years. And I think when I was about thirteen, Th
e Beatles came. And after The Beatles, everyone wanted to get a little group going in the neighborhood, and my dad bought me a Kay electric guitar. And that’s when I started to really take it seriously.

  My mom got me guitar lessons. I only went to two, because I went to one, and the guy taught me a couple of chords, and how to tune up. I went back, and it was like going into this other land that I didn’t really want to go into. He was more of a classical teacher, and he didn’t really want to deal with pop music. I think what did it was that he told me that you always keep your [left] thumb on the back of the neck, and then instantly I saw someone on television that I admired and his thumb was over the neck. And I went, ‘I’m not going back.’

  I met a kid in the neighborhood, who actually knew how to play, and he started showing me stuff, and I learned at a much quicker rate from my friend. He showed me chords, and we sat and played guitar. And you know, you learn really quickly that way. The first key I learned was C, so you had to have F, and F is a tough one. I remember playing “Wooly Bully.” It was the first one I mastered, and I could play “Wooly Bully” on guitar, and I was on my way. And from there it just went on.

  Who was the kid?

  There were actually two kids in the neighborhood. One guy was named Richie Henson and the other guy was named Robert Crawford. They lived not far away, and we’d get together and compare notes. I remember Richie teaching me the barre chord, and things like that.

  And you picked it up pretty easily?

  Yeah. I had to practice. But you do pick it up quicker if you’re sitting in a bedroom with friends and you all really want to play along. We’d have a lot of fun getting together. It was always like somebody showed somebody something, and then they show it to somebody else. ‘Here’s the solo to “I Saw Her Standing There.”’ This kid down the street figured it out. So he showed somebody else. And you learned that way.

  Were you playing acoustic?