Artist

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Gainesville, United States • 1976 – 2017

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is a music group from Gainesville, United States, active 1976–2017. Their discography on Gatefold includes 24 records.

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Albums tracked

882

In collections

1976

Since

Biography

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was a rock band formed in 1976 from Gainesville, Florida, USA and led by Tom Petty. Petty was supported by his band, The Heartbreakers, for the majority of his career. He has occasionally released solo work, as was the case with his 2006 album Highway Companion on which he performed most of the backing instrumentation himself. However, members of The Heartbreakers have played on each of his solo albums and the band has always backed him when touring in support of those albums.

The Arc of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The pivots — what forced Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to reinvent.

The Jimmy Iovine Standoff
After two records of being mislabeled as New Wave, the band hooked up with Jimmy Iovine and hit a wall during the Damn the Torpedoes sessions. Iovine was a perfectionist who made them do a hundred takes of 'Refugee' just to get the snare hit right. It was a brutal, clinical way of working that almost broke them, but it resulted in a massive, airtight sound that defined FM radio. This was the moment they moved from a club band to a stadium machine, trading their loose Florida swamp vibes for a high-tension, professional sheen.
The Southern Accents Identity Crisis
By 1985, Petty was trying to make a high-concept record about the South but got lost in the weeds of mid-eighties production and synth experiments. The tension in the studio was so high that Petty punched a studio wall and broke his hand, nearly ending his guitar-playing career. He brought in Dave Stewart from Eurythmics to co-produce, which added a weird, psychedelic textures to tracks like 'Don't Come Around Here No More.' It’s an uneven mess of a record, but it showed they were bored with being a straight-ahead rock band and were willing to blow up their own formula.
The Rubin Strip-Down
After the polished success of the solo Jeff Lynne years, Petty brought the Heartbreakers back to the center for the Wildflowers and She's the One era with Rick Rubin. Rubin basically told them to stop trying to make hits and just play like they did in the garage. They ditched the heavy overdubs for a dry, woody sound that put Mike Campbell’s vibrato and Petty’s weary vocals right in your face. It salvaged their legacy, proving they could still sound vital and dangerous without the studio trickery of the MTV era.

Influences

The Byrds — Roger McGuinn’s twelve-string Rickenbacker is the entire DNA of the Heartbreakers' sound. Petty was so vocal about the debt that he later hired McGuinn to open for them and helped produce his comeback record. You hear it most clearly on 'Waiting for Tonight' and the jangle-heavy 'The Waiting.'
The Rolling Stones — Petty saw them at the Gator Bowl in '65 and it ruined his life in the best way possible. The Heartbreakers' rhythm section, specifically the interplay between Stan Lynch and Ron Blair, was modeled after the loose, behind-the-beat swing of Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. It's that specific 'dirty' groove that keeps 'Breakdown' from being a standard pop song.
Bob Dylan — Petty famously said that seeing Dylan was the first time he realized he didn't have to have a perfect voice to be a singer. They eventually became his backing band on the 1986 True Confessions tour, which forced the Heartbreakers to learn how to improvise on the fly. You can hear Dylan's phrasing all over Petty's mid-period lyrics, especially on the more cynical tracks from Hard Promises.
Del Shannon — Petty was obsessed with Shannon's minor-key songwriting and eventually produced his final album, Rock On! The eerie, driving quality of 'Runaway' is the spiritual ancestor to 'American Girl.' It gave Petty the blueprint for combining dark, anxious lyrics with upbeat, major-key melodies.
The Beatles — Petty met Elvis as a kid, but seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan was the 'bolt of lightning' that made him want a band, not a solo career. He spent his whole life chasing their economy of songwriting—no wasted notes, no bloated solos. Every bridge on the first three Heartbreakers records is a masterclass in Lennon-McCartney structure.