Bob Dylan’s Son Didn’t Know How Tom Petty Wrote Songs That Were so Consistently Good 

Bob Dylan’s son Jakob grew up watching his father play music with Tom Petty. The Heartbreakers joined Dylan on tour in the mid-1980s, and they later performed in The Traveling Wilburys together. Jakob explained that he took a great deal of creative inspiration from Petty and looked up to the other man. He explained that he didn’t know how Petty was able to write so many good songs. 

Bob Dylan’s son grew up watching Tom Petty perform

In the 1980s, Petty and the Heartbreakers joined Dylan on tour. Jakob attended many shows and learned a great deal from the performing musicians. 

“I used to sit with Bugs [Weidel, Petty’s longtime friend]. By the amplifiers,” Jakob told Warren Zanes for the book Petty: The Biography. “Soaking it up, learning as much as I could. I couldn’t have asked for much more at sixteen years old than to watch those guys play every night.”

He noted that Petty’s daughters impressed him simply because they had him as a father.

“On that tour, [Tom] had his two daughters there,” he explained. “And I remember sitting there with his daughters, I remember thinking, ‘Jesus, your dad is Tom Petty.'”

He was in awe of the other musician’s talent

In the years since Jakob watched his father and Petty play together on tour, he became a musician in his own right. Through music, he bonded further with Petty.

“I’d been around him plenty when I was younger but, in the last few years, I got to spend even more time with him,” he told The Sun. “He became powerful in my personal life … and it was towards the end of his life.”

Jakob began taking part in Pettyfests, or gatherings of musicians playing through Petty’s catalog.

“You just can’t find a Petty song that’s not worth singing,” Jakob said. “And at those shows, the songs just fill the room with joy. I don’t know how you write songs that are that good that consistently.”

Bob Dylan’s son inducted Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Heartbreakers’ impressive collection of music eventually landed them a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Jakob gave a speech at the ceremony. While he initially didn’t think he was the right person to induct them in, Petty’s manager explained that he was the only person the band wanted. 

“I belonged up there and deserved to be there if Tom was asking me to do this,” he said, adding, “I knew their career so well. It began to make sense to me. I hung up the phone thinking, ‘Hell yeah, you’re going to do that. Are you kidding?’ I was younger then.”