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I can sort of imagine all of these legendary musicians coming together for
one song as a lark, but it's really hard to believe that you were all able to
keep it together for a full-length album.
Lynne: When George played "Handle With Care" for (Warner Bros Records
chairman) Mo Ostin, he said, "That's fantastic, why don't you use that as this
new group you keep talking about"? I guess it was something he was talking to Mo
about, not to anyone else. And when George was involved, he could do things that
nobody else can.
Petty: We were all hanging around together, anyway. We didn't go out and
hand-pick everybody -- we were just friends, spending a lot of time together.
How did the actual writing of the songs happen? Did people come in with
finished songs or unfinished parts, or did you actually sit and write together?
Lynne: We either sat there and somebody started a chord sequence and somebody
else joined in and it just went from there, or, in some cases, people would have
a bridge in their pocket, something finished that they didn't know what to do
with. So it came from both ways.
Petty: Everybody sat in the same room. It was all collaborative, working
together as songwriters.
What about the riffing on Springsteen's lyrics in "Tweeter and the Monkey
Man"? How did everyone respond when Bob sang the lines about "thunder road" and
"Jersey girl" and all those little quotes?
Petty: I don't think we knew that music well enough to rip it off. "Thunder
Road," that goes way back beyond Bruce, that was that old Robert Mitchum record.
Bob and I wrote most of those lyrics together and I don't remember that ever
coming up.
Was Roy Orbison's participation part of
the reason that everyone felt so committed to this project?
Lynne: Roy was the missing link -- having the best singer in the world in
your group. It was an unbelievable thrill. His presence was the icing on the
cake, and really made it the best group you could ever be in.
Petty: Jeff and I had written "You Got It" for Roy. We had just done "Free
Fallin'," and George was with us for "I Won't Back Down." I had been on the road
for two years backing up Bob. So we were all in the same circle and the group
just naturally materialized. It was George's band, really. He was the leader;
the whole idea for the band was his idea.
Lynne: It was always his plans that got it going, his connections at the
label, and what he could do was like no one else.
Petty: He said all the time that he wasn't comfortable out front, that he
wanted to be in a group, that he really did best as a team player. All of us
were solo artists, and so it really took the pressure off of us to go into it
this way.
I gather that there was some talk about a tour, or at least doing a single
show somewhere. How seriously was that pursued?
Lynne: George had great ideas for a tour. He wanted to get an aircraft
carrier and go around the world and we'd pull up and play in the docks or
whatever in different places.
Petty: He wanted to paint a different sponsor's name on it each day, and we'd
call it the "sponsor ship." We talked about doing a tour most every day, but by
the time we sobered up, we didn't want to do it anymore.
Orbison passed away soon after the album's release, right? How much did he
participate in those conversations about the future?
Lynne: Roy was gone very early on. He got to be there for some of it, but
after that first rush of success, he wasn't there.
There was talk at the time that you were considering adding Del Shannon,
who Tom was working with, after Orbison's death.
Petty: We never considered adding anyone else. That was just rumor and hype.
The big surprise for me has been going back to the second album. It's
actually looser and more raw than the first one.
Petty: Yeah, the second one is rougher, more rough and ready, maybe a little
more deep lyrically. We were really like a working band by then. We wrote the
same way, all together.
Was the writing experience different on the second album? Was there more
expectation about how it would go, after you'd already done it once before?
Lynne: We really didn't think that deeply about it. We just sat down around a
table and strummed our guitars until the songs came.
Petty: We just showed up and played music together, there wasn't any more
thought than that. We'd hammer out a song and then record it. Then work on it
some more from there.
Do any songs on the second album stand out to you now as favorites?
Lynne: "You Took My Breath Away" -- Tom and I did that vocal together, live,
in one take.
Petty: Yeah, on one mic. There was a lot of live playing on that record, with
the drums -- Jim Keltner, who played on all of it -- the drums weren't far away
from the guitars, so there was a lot of leakage, but the good kind of leakage.
I like "You Took My Breath Away," "New Blue Moon." That's a really fun album.
There's a lot of great lead guitar on that record from George, too.
The second album didn't sell as well as the first, didn't seem like it
captured the public imagination quite as much.
Lynne: I don't remember -- it sold pretty good, but I guess the novelty was
maybe less.
Petty: I don't know, I remember getting a great check for that record!
[laughs]
It's pretty astounding that you did this more than one time -- that you
actually got all these rock legends, with their own careers to worry about, to
sign on for a whole second album.
Petty: Well, we didn't want to do anything else! Once you're in a band like
the Traveling Wilburys, what else are you going to do? You don't get in a band
like that every day. We all considered doing another one after that, too. Bob
was very enthusiastic about it; he was right out front in the writing.
And was there more talk about playing live after the second album?
Petty: There was always somebody trying to do it. We'd get all liquored up
and talk about it, but when the morning came, we thought better of it, thought
it would be too much trouble. George would keep bringing it up, and I feel
really guilty that we never got around to it. I think we all thought we had all
the time in the world.
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