Credit: Far Out / Tom Petty / Netflix
Sun 20 September 2026 18:15, UK
Tom Petty has always been considered the little brother of classic rock throughout his lifetime.
Even though he had plenty of opportunities to make great music of his own, it was hard for him to think of himself as one of the best songwriters in the world when he was hanging out with members of The Beatles and Johnny Cash in his spare time back in the day. He was just happy to be another link in the chain for rock and roll, but there were times where he could get more than a little bit agitated even when working with some of the biggest names in rock and roll history.
But it was hard enough for Petty to even get the right sound for what he wanted out of his own music half the time. Mudcrutch was an overwhelming flop when they first started back in the day, and even though he had the Heartbreakers to fall back on when he made a name for himself as a solo artist, there was always going to be a long road ahead before the real hits started turning up.
He wanted to be able to make the best tunes that he could, but there was never any way for him to do that with the clashes he had with everyone. Jimmy Iovine had a clear idea of what he wanted his music to be, but with someone like Stan Lynch behind the drum kit, Petty was always going to sound the same as he used to on his early records. Lynch might have seemed like the weak link of the band, but there are pieces of their career that wouldn’t have sounded nearly as good without him.
Aside from being a phenomenal backup vocalist for Petty across their early songs, Lynch was the one that could bring a song like ‘The Waiting’ to life every single time they performed. He was the main cheerleader of the band, and when you’re working with someone as stoic as Bob Dylan on tour, you’re going to need someone like that to keep the morale up in the group every time they play.
That’s at least what Petty expected, but Lynch didn’t make it any easier working with a legend like Dylan. He would occasionally walk out of rehearsals if he felt that he had something better to do, and while that did put him in Dylan’s good graces when he invited the songwriter to see Sammy Davis Jr on one of their nights off, Petty had had enough of Lynch’s antics midway through one of their sets.
It’s one thing to leave the jokes in the rehearsal room, but on a particular night when things weren’t going well at all, Petty was willing to throw his guitar down in front of one of his idols because of Lynch, saying, “I don’t even know what it was about anymore. I looked at him for some reason, and he took his drumsticks in one hand and just shot me the bird. I don’t know what it was, but something about it made me so mad. I went into a rage, just pushed my guitar off, walked from the stage, shut myself in the dressing room.”
Further reading: From The Vault
His eventual Wilbury was able to calm him down long enough to get him back onstage, but that was already the first sign that Lynch wasn’t going to stick around for much longer. Petty needed some time away, and when he eventually found what he wanted to do on Wildflowers, Lynch didn’t really seem to have a place in the general picture of his music anymore after years of playing together.
Neither of them did anything inherently wrong, but after arguing for years over how the drums sounded, Petty was much more willing to leave Lynch behind if it meant hearing the songs as he intended them to sound. It wasn’t an easy trade, but sometimes the closest members of bands are usually the ones that end up falling out the hardest later down the road.
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