{"id":868363,"date":"2026-10-02T15:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868363\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T15:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:04:09","slug":"heartbreakers-stan-lynch-remembers-tom-petty-on-high-flying-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868363\/","title":{"rendered":"Heartbreakers’ Stan Lynch Remembers Tom Petty on ‘High Flying Bird’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers<\/a> 50th anniversary commemoration gets into gear, original drummer Stan Lynch<\/a> is adding his own tribute with \u201cHigh Flying Bird,\u201d a sentimental song and video dedicated to his late musical cohort.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe song is something Lynch \u201cstarted years ago,\u201d while the video is comprised of photos and home movies he unearthed about a year ago and had an archivist catalog. \u201cI didn\u2019t really think about the whole 50th kerfuffle,\u201d Lynch, 71 \u2014 who left the Heartbreakers after their Bridge School Benefit performance during October of 1994 in Mountain View, Calif. \u2014 tells Billboard via Zoom from his home studio near Gainesville, Fla., where he grew up. \u201cI was just kind of condensing things \u2014 hundreds of Polaroids, lots of movies just from that era that I\u2019d never seen before.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt the time I had this song I had started years ago that was evoking my feelings towards Tom, but that\u2019s such a touchy, personal thing.\u00a0I wasn\u2019t sure I would ever want to put out a song with that kind of through-line. But then when I saw all the (archival material), I kind of went, \u2018Hey\u2026.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCoincidentally, Lynch was contacted around the same time by Petty\u2019s eldest daughter Adria, who oversees her father\u2019s legacy and archives and was in the process of putting together the upcoming Origins 1971-1978 box set (out Nov. 6). She invited Lynch to participate in the project and others she had planned. \u201cI love that Adria has become my friend,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause when I was in the band she was a little girl. I re-meet her and she\u2019s a woman and she\u2019s doing all of this to keep (Heartbreakers) things together and keep finding music. And having her as a filter has been great.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI showed her the video, \u2018Hey, would you like to see this?,\u2019 and she immediately pinged me back and said, \u2018It\u2019s cool.\u2019 When I got that, really, I was already done. Mission accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the poetic, melodic \u201cHigh Flying Bird\u201d \u2014 recorded with members of Speaker Wars, one of his current bands \u2014 Lynch converses with Petty, asking \u201cWhat do you see from way up there\/What\u2019s it like in that soft clean air?\u201d And he certainly pulls some heartstrings later in the song when he sings, \u201cI know you\u2019re out there flying \u2019round\/Hiding in the broken clouds\/Will you be singing when it\u2019s my turn?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is cleaning,\u201d Lynch explains. \u201cI was writing it for me. I wanted to hear myself, how do I feel about a brother I lost? It came off my skin organically. At this point in my life I follow my joy and my creativity, and I follow friendship. It was important for me to do something positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the acrimony over his departure from the Heartbreakers 32 years ago, Lynch \u2014 who subsequently came back to good terms with all of his bandmates \u2014 is feeling positive about what\u2019s going on in the band\u2019s orbit these days.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent years he filled in on drums for guitarist Mike Campbell\u2019s Dirty Knobs band, and on Sept. 16 Lynch joined the other Heartbreakers at the 25th Annual Americana Honors & Awards in Nashville, where the group performed with Chris Stapleton in front and also received a Lifetime Achievement Award. \u201cWhen you go play with people from your past,\u201d he notes, \u201cthere\u2019s expectation we\u2019re all gonna be a little bit like we used to be. And we\u2019re not; physically and cosmically and musically, we\u2019ve changed. So everything\u2019s changed, but\u2026 it\u2019s still fun to hear \u2018and the Heartbreakers!\u2019 It\u2019s a very unique fit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of trust. Without ever saying it, we really do believe we\u2019re really good with each other. Nobody wants to cop to that, but I will. I\u2019ll just say look, it\u2019s pretty special when those guys get together. Hearing\u00a0(keyboardist) Benmont Tench is the most luscious experience for me\u2026 and Ron (Blair, bassist) as well. There\u2019s all this space you don\u2019t get with other musicians.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOf course,\u201d Lynch adds, \u201cthere\u2019s a huge hole in the donut with Tom not being there \u2014 musically, cosmically, spiritually \u2014 because he was an extraordinarily talented rhythm guitar player, even beyond his songwriting ability and singing style, which was all very rhythmic. For the drummer, that\u2019s the standard bearer; my North Star is how he\u2019s going to sing or move his shoulder, the way he cocked that gun, y\u2019know what I mean. So that will obviously always be missing, but when we\u2019re together, it\u2019s still us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLooking back, Lynch \u2014 who last spoke to Petty at the Heartbreakers\u2019 2002 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in New York \u2014 says there\u2019s really nothing that could have kept him in the Heartbreakers. \u201cThat was how it was meant to be,\u201d he explains. \u201cMy journey was done in that band. They didn\u2019t want that drummer anymore, and I had another whole journey and a second act that was staring me in the face.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThat included working extensively as a producer, writer and player for Don Henley and Eagles, Ringo Starr, Eddie Money, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and many others. \u201cI am sorry for the clumsiness of the exit,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t friendly, and a goodbye can actually be friendly. But back then we weren\u2019t a demonstrative bunch of guys, and we didn\u2019t know how to speak to each other. It just could\u2019ve been sweeter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLynch is staying busy with his own work, including continued writing and production. That includes Speaker Wars and the Chefs \u2014 a \u201cbrutal noise\u201d band he\u2019s in with the Georgia Satellites\u2019 Dan Baird and Joe Blanton from the Royal Court of China and the Bluefields. Both have albums in motion. \u201cI\u2019m always writing,\u201d Lynch adds. \u201cI have a wonderful A-client list, and they\u2019re wonderful people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe is, however, always available and interest for any Heartbreakers-related project that may pop up, too.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m struck by how fortunate I am to be part of something much bigger than myself,\u201d Lynch says, \u201chow fortunate I was to have run into Tommy and Mike and Ben and Ron. That was a great pinball experience, just to bounce off these guys my whole life as a boy and kind of go into manhood and make music with those guys. It\u2019s beautiful. Honestly, it\u2019s extraordinary \u2014 those are the only terms that seem to come to my mind.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 50th anniversary commemoration gets into gear, original drummer Stan Lynch is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[74839,88,216],"class_list":["post-868363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-bbnews","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}