Tom Petty was an absolute legend. He died Monday at 66, far too early, but his songs “American Girl”, “Running Down a Dream”, “Free Falling” and so many more will live forever.

Petty was a HUGE influence to all kinds of musicians and made a huge impact on the world of rock.

Here’s 3 times Tom Petty was a total badass:

Motivated Dave Grohl to form Foo Fighters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtlBnxyXNGI

Foo Fighters might not exist if it wasn’t for Tom Petty. After Kurt Cobain died, Dave Grohl was DONE with music, never wanted to drum again. Until Tom Petty called him… said “hey, we need a drummer, we’re on SNL in a few weeks, wanna be in the band?”

Dave said it was the first time since Nirvana ended that he looked forward to playing the drums. After that, Dave Grohl got back into music… and a year later released the first Foo Fighters album.

Totally Chill About People Using His Music

A couple years ago Tom Petty was given songwriting credit for Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” for it’s similarities to “Won’t Back Down”… but it’s not the first time it happened.

The Strokes’ “Last Nite” has a VERY similair riff to Petty’s “American Girl” and Petty was totally cool with it. In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone he said “There was an interview that took place with them [The Strokes] where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, ‘OK, good for you.’ It doesn’t bother me.”

Fought Record Labels to Keep Album Prices Down

In 1981 Tom Petty’s record label wanted to raise the price of his upcoming album “Hard Promises” to $9.98 without Petty’s consent. Petty was against the so-called “Superstar Pricing” and held back the release of the album and threatened to change the name to “Eight Ninety Eight” in protest. In the end Petty waited them out, the record label relented and Tom Petty kept music prices down for fans.

 

Filed under: Foo Fighters, The Strokes, Tom Petty