![]() ![]() ![]() Stan Lynch had been the Heartbreakers drummer since they formed in 1976, but by the mid-Nineties so much friction had built up between Lynch and Petty that they finally parted ways. With Heartbreakers Tench, guitarist Mike Campbell and bassist Howie Epstein all ending up on Wildflowers, the most significant personnel change was behind the drum kit. “I think emotionally it was great to have new blood around.” “People will tell their life story to a stranger, even when they won’t tell those things to a friend,” points out Tench. And it was easier, perhaps, recording the more personal, introspective songs on Wildflowers with Rick Rubin, a producer he barely knew when they started making the album. Lynne was a hero of Petty’s, and had been his bandmate in supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, but Tench says Petty was looking for a new sound. ![]() It was recorded at a transitional time in his life he was privately aware that his 20-year marriage was falling apart, and publicly separating from both his record label MCA and producer Jeff Lynne, who had been instrumental in the creation of his two previous albums, 1989’s Full Moon Fever and 1991’s Into the Great Wide Open. Wildflowers is ostensibly a Petty solo record, although the majority of The Heartbreakers ended up playing on it anyway. “Even on the last tour, if we played a song from Wildflowers he’d say: ‘That’s the best record we ever made’,” remembers Benmont Tench, keyboardist and founding member of Petty’s backing group The Heartbreakers. Tom Petty released a lot of great albums over the course of his four-decade career as one of the great American songwriters, but none meant more to him than 1994’s Wildflowers. ![]()
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