(Credit: Press)
Thu 8 January 2026 13:45, UK
For most musicians, respect is hard-earned. For Tom Petty, it seemed like something he always had, even in the early days when his only driving force was an obsession with Elvis Presley and an unrelenting desire to follow in the footsteps of The King. Like many, Petty’s life changed the moment he caught a certain Liverpudlian band perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. The performance ignited a path that enabled t become one of rock’s ultimate heroes and, by proxy, gave him the ability to spot talent from a mile away.
The only difference in Petty’s case, however, was that he knew he could match up to their insatiable desire for revolution and innovation, no matter how out-of-reach it seemed. “I knew I could do it,” the musician once said, noting the influx of bands that attempted to follow suit. While The Beatles showed him the way, The Rolling Stones demonstrated the power of rock ‘n’ roll and its presentation as a worthy musical artform.
For Petty, the Stones represented something monumental: the power of pioneering. The Beatles were, of course, at the fore of such notions, but the Stones gave Petty something no one else could: a blueprint. “They were grittier, it was rawer,” he said on Q with Jian Ghomeshi in 2014. Continuing, “They were playing blues in this really energetic kind of raw way, but it wasn’t complicated. There wasn’t a lot of complicated harmony involved. It was sort of my punk music.”
The band’s impact on Petty cannot be understated, which makes his appreciation for another band even more surprising, especially considering the fact he once described them as surpassing his favourite rockers. “They’re bigger than the Stones ever were,” the musician once said of Guns N’ Roses, high on the pleasure of meeting Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan for the first time in the late 1980s.
At the time, the musician was approaching the entrance for Norm’s Rare Guitars in Reseda when he saw the two men, who then extended their hands in greeting after introducing themselves as members of Guns N’ Roses. Petty respected and admired the band for a number of reasons, not least because the rock outfit hails from his honorary home of Los Angeles.
The band also represented every aspect of innovation and forward-thinking Petty had appreciated from a young age, including their penchant for reinventing parts of their earlier material for contemporary audiences. The respect was mutual, and both parties enjoyed the odd element of surprise and a dose of controversy every now and then. At the 1989 MTV Awards, for instance, McKagan and Steve Adler accepted an award in the absence of Axl Rose.
Later, Petty began a live performance of ‘Free Fallin”, new and exciting under the fresh hype of the recently released Full Moon Fever. After the first verse, Rose joined Petty on stage, and the crowd erupted in a celebratory roar. Although Petty later regretted not having a lot of rehearsal time, the performance was undeniably a memorable event, particularly as they also delivered an unforgettable ode to another of their other heroes, Elvis Presley.
While comparing Guns N’ Roses to founding fathers like The Rolling Stones, Petty saw something bright in the band that enlivened his soul just like the Stones and The Beatles had done before.
Petty’s admiration for Guns N’ Roses was never about hype or commercial dominance. It was about recognising that same combustible spark he had felt decades earlier when he first heard The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. In Guns N’ Roses, he saw a band that didn’t smooth its edges for approval, one that embraced danger, swagger, and imperfection as virtues rather than flaws. That sense of volatility felt honest to him, a reminder that rock and roll only works when it risks falling apart.
That ability to spot kindred spirits across generations speaks to Petty’s enduring relevance as much as his songwriting does. He never treated rock history as a closed book or a sacred museum, but as a living, breathing continuum that demanded fresh blood. By placing Guns N’ Roses in the same lineage as the Stones and The Beatles, Petty wasn’t rewriting the canon. He was acknowledging that the same fire still mattered, no matter who was holding the matches.
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