Things I Learned This Weekend From Rolling Stone Magazine (Part One)

Because I spend a lot of time on airplanes, I read a lot of magazines. Lately I've tried to save some money by borrowing books from the library, but I owe them a few bucks for some overdues so I need to go in and settle up before I can borrow some more. In the meantime, I'v ebeen spending quality plane times with my magazines of choice, namely Esquire, Popular Science, Newsweek, and occassionally The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Spin, and GQ. It's funny that I read two mens fashion magazines even though I am far from a clothes horse. The articles and interviews just happen to be really good in those mags.

This past weekend we were on the beach, another great place to read a magazine, so on the way to the beach we stopped at a drugstore and picked up some. I grabbed the latest Rolling Stone and it was a great pick-up. It's sometimes hit-or-miss with Rolling Stone, but this issue happens to be great. It has Johnny Depp on the cover if you're looking for it. So anyway I was going to list all the interesting stuff I found in the magazine in this one posting, but I thought many of them deserved their own post so I'm going to spread them out over the course of the week.

For this post I'll write about who else but Tom Petty, who is featured all overthe magazine, including a full length interview by Neil Strauss. On a side note, a big deal is made of the fact that Tom says in teh interview that "This is the last interview I am doing for a long time." Well, apparently Neil got a little carried away, because Petty clarified on his website this week that by "a long time" he meant a few weeks, while he was touring but that he would definitely be doing some interviews later this month as his new solo album Highway Companion is released on July 25th. Misunderstanding aside, the interview did include quite a few gems:

-Tom does not care one bit about this whole Dani California/Mary Jane's Last Dance hoopla:

"I serously doubt there is any intent there. And a lot of rock & roll songs sound alike. Ask Chuck Berry. The Strokes took American Girl [for their song "Last Nite"], and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it, That made me laugh out loud...I think there are enough frivilous lawsuits in this country without people fighting over pop songs."

-Tom's new solo album, Highway Companion, is his much more truly a solo album than Full Moon Fever or Wildflowers were. Tom actually plays drums and piano on this record, whereas his previous "solo" efforts were really more like Heartbreakers records sans Stan Lynch.

-In addition to the solo record, Tom has " a good sixty percent" of a Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers album "just sitting there waiting to be finished." It should come out next year and it "is going to be a big one." Tom's bandmate Mike Campbell is also producing a live Heartbreakers album.

-Tom also wants to get his original band "Mudcrutch" back together at some point for a project.

You can listen to the interview at www.rollingstone.com/pettytalk