Tom Petty Dispelled Rumors That He and His Bandmate Knocked Out Bob Dylan in a Fight
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers toured with Bob Dylan in the 1980s. The opportunity gave the band a chance to play with one of their heroes and meet a number of music legends. While this was exciting, it did little to quell some of the simmering tensions among the band members. On a night when several big names were at the show, Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch had an explosive argument. In the aftermath, rumors flew that Dylan was knocked out in the crossfire. Petty later told the truth behind the night.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers toured with Bob Dylan
After successfully serving as Dylan’s backing band at Farm Aid, the Heartbreakers got the invitation to join him on a tour of Australia.
“We’d all been huge Dylan fans, and we were very intrigued by the idea of playing with Bob,” Petty said, per American Songwriter. “So off we went. And that went on for two years. We’d do part of it and then more would get added on, and then more would get added on. We really did the world with Bob Dylan.”
Petty dispelled the rumors about an argument with his bandmate
One night on the tour, Petty and Lynch got into an argument onstage.
“I looked at him, not to communicate something, just looked at him for some reason, and he took his drumsticks in one hand and just shot me the bird, mouthed the words’ F*** you!'” Petty said in the book Petty: The Biography by Warren Zanes. “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 my dressing room.”
Musician Al Kooper took over the set, and Dylan followed Petty backstage.
“He was really being the diplomat, ‘Oh, come on back, it didn’t mean anything, John Lee Hooker’s here and wants to play with us,'” Petty told Mojo in 2006, per The Petty Archives.
Petty agreed to rejoin the concert. The moment was mythologized into something far more dramatic, though. At some point, someone backstage passed out, and rumors swirled that either Petty and Lynch got into a fist fight and accidentally knocked out Dylan. Petty firmly denied this. He was only briefly offstage, and Dylan, who enjoys boxing, likely would have been able to hold his own in a fight.
“There were no fists thrown, but this was typical of the relationship Stan and I had,” he said. “By [Petty’s solo album] Wildflowers I wasn’t getting along with Stan and I didn’t want to play with him on that record.”
Petty explained that Lynch had the ability to get under his skin more than most people.
“That was a bad night for Tom and I. Tom and I had a very, very bad night,” Lynch later told Flagging Down the Double E’s. “We argued terribly. John Lee Hooker and Al Kooper came out and saved us from being a**holes. That’s about as nice as I can put it.”
Tom Petty once talked Bob Dylan into coming back onstage
At that show, Dylan convinced Petty to come back onstage. At another, Petty coaxed Dylan back. One night, Dylan complained that the stage lights were too bright and eventually walked off stage, leaving the Heartbreakers alone up there.
“Bob was going, ‘F***ing lights. I’m not going back out there. It’s like f***ing Disneyland out there,'” George Harrison’s son Dhani told Rolling Stone. “And Tom says to Bob, ‘You’ve never been to Disneyland.’ Bob just started laughing. Tom called him on it, straight out. They walked back out there and carried on playing.”
It was clear that Petty and Dylan worked well together, and both went on to play in The Traveling Wilburys.
