Tom Petty Gets Personal in New Biography

— -- Warren Zanes spent much of the '80s in the band The Del Fuegos along with his brother Dan. When the band broke up, Dan Zanes went off to make a string of successful children’s records and Warren went back to school while releasing his own records along the way. A celebrated author and music historian, Warren also teaches at New York University.

As a teen, Warren was exposed to Tom Petty’s music and it had a great effect on him. He got to know Petty over the years and the Del Fuegos even once toured as the Heartbreakers’ opening act.

Petty approached Warren about possibly writing a biography and he jumped at the chance. The book, “Petty: The Biography” is out this week; the audio version will be released on Dec. 15 and is currently available for pre-order on Audible.com. It is an often, raw, frank and sometimes painful look at Petty’s life from his childhood onward, with many amazing revelations. The most shocking of which might be that unbeknownst to the public, in the wake of his divorce in the late nineties, Petty found himself depressed, living in a “chicken shack” and fighting an addiction to heroin.

Warren spoke to ABC News' Allan Raible about how the book came to be, Petty's legacy and so much more.

First of all, thank you for doing this and thank you for writing this book.

Absolutely!

What made this book come about? What made you want to write about Petty?

Well, I was already writing about Petty before this started. I went back to school after playing in a rock and roll band [the Del Fuegos] and we had opened up for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers but then I left the music business and went and got my PhD. As I was getting my PhD, I wrote a book for the “33 1/3” series called “Dusty In Memphis” and Tom had written a song that he said was inspired by it for his “Highway Companion” record.

That album is so under-rated.

Under-rated. Under-recognized. But that put us back in touch, so I put together a companion volume for the Peter Bogdanovich movie [“Runnin’ Down A Dream”] and wrote notes to “The Live Anthology.” But in the course of all that, Tom approached me about writing a biography and that’s where it started.

What I find amazing is how open he is with the history of everything and it obviously speaks to the connection that you two have apparently developed over the years. That definitely strikes me when I’m reading this.

There’s a connection between us, but I can’t say I fully understand its character because it is a professional relationship, but as you say, he really opened up in this. I mean frankly, what I hope comes of this book is maybe there are a few people who will follow Tom Petty’s lead and open up in the same way because I don’t think this makes people think less of their heroes. I think it humanizes their heroes. But the biggest takeaway for me is that if you’ve already fallen in love with the songs, you get a better understanding of the guy who wrote them.

And yes, opening up about the dark, “chicken shack” period, I think that can only help people.

Life breaks down and more people come up against that than don’t, yet it is a thing we often keep as private information. The truth is, when you share your story, there’s somebody out there, going through something similar who needs to know they are not alone. So, I think it has a wider effect that is ultimately healing.

Well, yeah. And it has to be cathartic for Petty.

When I first read that you were the one who wrote this book, I thought, “It’s really interesting he picked another rock star to write his biography,” and that puts you in a very unusual place. I went back and listened to some of the Del Fuegos’ stuff and I could hear Petty’s influence in “Don’t Run Wild” or “I Still Want You.”

You’re absolutely right. It didn’t matter what we were listening to. Tom Petty was probably the one constant. We were always waiting for his next record. So when we were in a band and making records, we definitely had Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers in mind. Of the bands that were out there in the mainstream, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers was always the coolest. So when we wanted to break through –- and we never quite did –- they were our model in many ways.

I was shocked that Petty got to meet Elvis when he was a kid.

Telling the Tom Petty story, you are getting such a wide arc. Look at the characters in it. Elvis Presley at the outset, and then pretty soon it is Dylan, Johnny Cash and they are his friends. Petty really is there. You really can’t find a comparable case-study. I don’t want to say 'rock and roll is over,' but here’s a guy who is in it from beginning to end. He’s making each record as if it might be his more important. He’s very committed to this thing, but he’s also been in the room with some remarkable people. And they were there because they respected him for what he did musically.

It does seem like Petty is the last rock star of a certain kind in many ways. He fits into a classic mold and it is timeless stuff.

It’s the character of that voice. They didn’t have too many forays into working with drum machines and synths, but when they did, they approached it always as a rock and roll band and it came out sounding that way.

I always liked how Tom Petty always seemed to be standing up for the little guy. Like when he fought with his record company over the sticker-price increase on “Hard Promises.” “I Won’t Back Down,” I believe, was a response for someone wanting to use one of his songs for an ad. “The Last DJ,” I always thought was a very interesting song because it spoke to the way radio had become so corporate.

That emerged early on, particularly after [the band] declared bankruptcy or started the process of declaring bankruptcy...from that time forward, Petty was really very public in his defiance. This was the original deal with Shelter Records. And then they renegotiated it. This is one of the first instances of an artist really stepping up and saying, 'No, I can’t survive like this and I can’t survive comfortably watching you make all the money on my back.'

Even with our arrangement with this book there was some of that in there. It was a very bold move that he made when Petty came to me and said, 'Look. This is your book. It’s not co-written. It’s not ghost-written. It’s not even authorized. You have my full cooperation, but I can’t tell you what’s in it and what’s not in it.' So he set up a situation where I had the control to tell this story.

That’s a really brave move.

It’s a really brave move! Because you don’t see too many guys with careers as long and rich as Petty’s looking to relinquish control. So he found a situation where there was enough trust there. He set it up that way so that readers would believe in it.

You were recording the audio book version on Friday. Tell me about that process. Was that like reliving writing the book in a weird way?

Yes, it a weird way, it was. But I’ll tell you why I wanted to do it myself. I went and listened to the audio book of something else I had written and there was another person reading it. And I just felt like he was reading a book I’d never written. It was so different from what I’d intended. It made me realize that to read a book is almost like translating a book. When you translate into another language, it could become something else entirely. Reading itself is such an act of interpretation that I wasn’t buying this other person’s interpretation of my book. And so my agent said, 'This is hard labor, recording audio books. I suggest you get someone else to do it to save the time.' And I said, 'I have to do it! This thing has to sound like my book.'

Well, yeah, because then you get all the inflections right. All the things you want to emphasize get emphasized through another layer.

My agent was exactly right. It was very hard labor, but really…I was just talking to my girlfriend about this…I kind of thought I’d get choked up in a few spots. And that did happen, but not as much as I’d thought. It’s a very emotional thing writing a book. There’s always more of you in there than any reader will ever realize. And there’s emotional stuff in Tom Petty’s life. It’s just like recording songs. You have to get behind the lyrics or else the listener doesn’t buy into it. You don’t want to oversell it, but you’ve got to mean it because your listener can tell if you do or don’t. One reason I love Petty’s music is because I’ve never doubted it for a minute. It’s always felt honest to me. So, doing the audio book, I wanted the content to be represented accurately, but I also wanted it to be believable and to do that I really had to be present.

“Wildflowers” is his favorite record.

They are at work in releasing more content from “Wildflowers.” He really went in and made three records at once. And yeah, he called it his favorite. The interesting thing to me is listening to songs that didn’t make “Wildflowers.” That thing could’ve been so many different records. It’s interesting to me what they chose because they left off material that I consider not just strong, but singles. But he wanted a feel. He was making a record more based on an overall mood than a collection of potential hits. But that means that there’s another “Wildflowers” just sitting there.

Well he needs to release that, then.

Well, have you listened to [his recent single] “Somewhere Under Heaven?” That’s one of them. They didn’t even know they had that. It was their engineer and co-producer who found that song and played it for Petty. Petty didn’t even remember it. [Guitarist Mike] Campbell remembered it a bit. They weren’t sure who wrote it. Campbell said to Petty, “You know, that kind of sounds like something I’d write,” so they considered it a co-write. But it was just forgotten material. But you listen to it and it is just unbelievably strong.

What is your favorite Petty album?

There is no favorite Petty album for me. It really depends on my situation. “Into The Great Wide Open” just went big in my house because my sons got hooked on it. Sometimes now I’m following them. I just went through a phase with the debut, going, 'I just can’t believe how good this is.' After I was talking to Tom about episodes of unrequited love that happened when he was just a s***tkicker in Gainesville, that returned in “Even The Losers” and “The Wild One Forever,” you go back and you listen differently and things begin to breathe and resonate in new ways. I could never pick a favorite because it is a moving thing, but then again, that’s a testament to the strength of his output.

They’re still recording as a band standing in a room. They don’t even use headphones at this point. They just monitor and they leave the headphones off so they can feel each other as they are cutting records. Petty’s writing is incredibly strong. The band’s playing, it doesn’t stay in one place. It continues to grow. So the records remain entirely compelling.