First of all, Changed The Locks by Lucinda Williams is a fantastic song and her delivery of it is sublime and very intimate – a tone that is enhanced by the arrangement that is used on that recording. The Heartbreakers amp up the anger by speeding the track up slightly, making the guitar tones heavier,…

This song was a little bit of a grower for me and it’s one that’s definitely gone up a little since I sat down to pull it apart to see what secrets it’s hiding. The fact that, yet again, there is a density to the guitars on this song along with a real simplicity to…

“You think that you’re above me. You think that you’re so big. Well, I saw you kick that dog. When the wind blew off your wig” This is Tom’s brilliant whimsy, channeled through Dylan’s cynicism to fantastic effect. It really means nothing at all, just a very broad way of saying “you’re kind of a…

“We grew up fast and no-one seemed to notice. We grew up fast and we grew up alone”. All of us latch key kids can relate very easily to what he’s communicating here. Even though our parents loved and supported us, quite often we were just left to our own devices. During school holidays, once…

“Half of me is ocean. Half of me is sky”. There’s something so brilliantly grand and epic about that line. The ocean and the sky are both vast and hint at the complexity of being human. You also have the contrast between something that is heavy, and anchored to a point in the ocean and…

Pete Nester is down in Gainesville at the Tom Petty Weekend, subbing in for me as I can’t be there. He’s been doing a fantastic job of connecting me with the weekend via messages, video clips, and photos and he’s even gone the extra mile and interviewed a few folks down there! As well as…

Another roving report from our man on the ground out at the Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville. This time, my pal Pete Nester catches up with the main man, Jake Thistle, and also chats to Jared Hart, singer and guitarist with the best-named band you’re gonna hear in the next ten years; Lowly Worm and…

Tom Petty Weekend

Today’s bonus episode is the second part of my conversation with the wonderful Shawn Murphy. We dug down into which opening act he’d like to see at a Heartbreakers show and his choice for which artist to cover which of Tom’s songs is an absolute firecracker! Sit back, relax and enjoy my ten questions with…

Today’s special episode is part of a fantastic conversation I had with the brilliant Shawn Murphy, a lifelong Pettyhead who built and maintains the amazing Tom Petty Trail.com website. Shawn and I chatted about being an outsider growing up and how music can help us through those difficult formative years as well as his recent…