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(Credits: Far Out \/ The Bigger Picture)<\/p>\n
Sun 15 March 2026 22:00, UK <\/p>\n
Leaving your sleepy hometown for the big lights of Los Angeles has been a coming-of-age trope since the earliest days of Hollywood, but for\u00a0Tom Petty<\/a>, that clich\u00e9 was something of a blueprint, seeing him escape his Floridian beginnings to become not only an overnight rock star but one of America\u2019s defining songwriters.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was in Gainesville, Florida, that Tom Petty\u2019s story first began, developing an all-encompassing obsession with the blossoming world of rock and roll during his younger years, before joining the ranks of various fleeting groups while in high school. It was during this time that the songwriter formed the unfortunately-named Mudcrutch<\/a>, the band that formed the genus of The Heartbreakers, but never managed to reach quite the same heights. <\/p>\n A core part of that initial obscurity for Mudcrutch came from their location in Gainesville. Despite being a college town with a small but relatively decent music scene, which Petty quickly came to dominate during the early 1970s, local stardom was the highest rung of fame that Mudcrutch could set their sights upon. After all, the American music industry of the time focused so heavily on places like Los Angeles, New York, and, if you were lucky, Nashville. <\/p>\n If Petty was to realise his dreams of rock and roll stardom, then he couldn\u2019t stay in Gainesville forever; a fact which became overwhelmingly clear to the songwriter during the early days of Mudcrutch. \u201cMost people come to Florida to escape something \u2013 cold weather, their past, whatever,\u201d he told Spin back in 1989. \u201cAnd they\u2019re very content about it. I was always uncontent. I ran a little faster than Florida.\u201d <\/p>\n