“I used to have these soul searching nights where I’d lie awake and think, ‘When it’s all over, all you’re gonna leave behind is the records,’” said Tom Petty. “That’s all the f— you’re doing.”
That’s not a recent quote from Petty, who died on Monday at the age of 66 only a week after performing his final show with his band the Heartbreakers. Instead, it came from a reflective 30-year-old Petty in the spring of 1981, as he was preparing to release his fourth album, “Hard Promises.”
During a series of interviews he and I conducted for a cover story in Rolling Stone magazine, Petty grew pensive as he talked about making music that would last.