How Dave Stewart Helped Tom Petty Tackle the ’80s

Tom Petty didn’t have significantly excessive hopes for the ’80s.

His first album of the last decade, 1981’s Onerous Guarantees, arrived with a slew of authorized entanglements — the buyout of his file label, Backstreet, by MCA after which, so as to add insult to damage, MCA’s transfer to boost the promoting worth of his albums from $8.98 to $9.98. It was a greenback distinction, however sufficient to maintain Petty’s toes firmly grounded in opposition to the choice.

“It simply ain’t proper. I do not want the additional greenback, and I can not think about that MCA wants it. They’re simply motivated by greed,” he advised Rolling Stone in 1981, admitting: “I am somewhat weary of making an attempt to carry ethics to this enterprise.” Petty was exhausted — his docs satisfied him to chop his 1981 U.S. tour early — so he took a while off earlier than contemplating his subsequent album.

Lengthy After Darkish introduced a few of Petty’s spark again in 1982. He was a rock ‘n’ roll artist by commerce, and but could not assist however be curious in regards to the sorts of recent sounds that could possibly be made within the studio. The LP’s hit single, “You Acquired Fortunate,” featured a distinguished synthesizer riff.

“A few of my purist associates assume that every one the expertise needs to be prevented in any respect prices, however I am fascinated by all of the devices which are popping out,” he advised Record in 1983. “They’re the devices of the occasions, and you must cope with them. Some folks most likely would not understand it, however I like synthesizer fairly a bit.”

The place to go from there? Petty wasn’t totally positive. However contemporary concepts would arrive within the type of a brand new collaborator, Dave Stewart of Eurythmics.

We’re revisiting this unlikely partnership — and subsequent lifelong friendship — within the beneath video from our “Odd {Couples}” sequence.