The Tom Petty Project

This week's episode is the fifth installment The Petty 8ight!I love talking to Pettyheads, musicians, and other people who have been influenced by Tom or his music in myriad ways, but I thought it would be neat to see what non-fans, or non-hardcore fans think of Tom's music if I threw deeper cuts at them.My latest #Petty8ight guest is the wonderful radio host, a top notch podcaster, seasoned musician, and gigantic Queen fan, Paul Bradbury.I met Paul over on my Queen podcast, Seaside Pod Review and over the last few years, we’ve chatted online a few times so I thought, who better to introduce to Tom's music! As a drummer, I wanted to change up the Petty Eight to focus more on drum tracks I hoped Paul might find interesting and/or unusual. We talk all about those eight tracks but first we get into Paul’s musical upbringing, his recent forays into publishing his own original collaborations, and his highly successful Queen podcast, Radio Pod Pod.Go check out all the cool things Paul is doing at the following links:Radio Pod Pod : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561062531521Tell me what Mojo means to you!https://tompettyproject.com/mojo.phpAmerican English : https://soundcloud.com/american-englishReal Human Beings (Paul's cover band) : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61585442585326

The track comes out firing on all cylinders with those aggressively swept ascending notes. Yet again, we’re being treated to something that’s a million miles from anything we’ve heard before. Mike and Scott Thurston are in complete harmonic lockstep here and Tom tells Mike Mettler, “There are a lot of dual guitars on it, so Scott and Mike worked a long time on the double harmony parts. They rehearsed that a lot.” and you can hear it in the performance. It would probably have been much easier to do if Mike added his part first, with Scott adding in his guitar afterwards so he would have had time to get it right, but the fact that this was done live makes it all the more impressive. Tom actually says “We rehearsed that one on the studio floor for a long time before we even rolled and were finally able to say, "Okay, we're ready to do a take." What we wound up keeping was the second pass. This group tends to play most passionately early in a session. They can surprise me sometimes, but usually it's early. So that's the one we kept.”Song : https://youtube.com/watch?v=QfEwYYSq1sITell me what Mojo means to you! https://tompettyproject.com/mojo.php

Here's the second of this special two parter episode. As a reminder, on the day this episode drops, Jake Thistle’s full length label debut album, A Stranger by Design, is now available on all streaming platforms. Part one of this chat saw us catch up since we last chatted and this part of the conversation sees is dig deep into the set of songs that make up the new record. We go through all thirteen songs and Jake gives me background and insights into their writing and recording; this is a great nerd out for Jake and music fans alike.So sit back, relax, and enjoy the second part of my conversation with the always wonderful, Jake Thistle!You can find "A Stranger by Design" here.Apple Music : https://music.apple.com/ca/album/a-stranger-by-design/6808386067Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/album/489tOsGTqiKq8NjLnRuPZLYouTube Music : https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kPBZCWvH9d7En-EGyLQ9NYUhSZhHhS7jc

As this episode drops, our pal Jake Thistle has released his full length label debut album, A Stranger by Design. As always, Jake very graciously gave me an overgenerous amount of his time to chat about the album but also about all the things he’s been up to since we last saw talked. This first part of the episode covers the 2025 Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville, his experience during his time on American Idol, and how the new album came together. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the first part of my conversation with Jake Thistle!You can find "A Stranger by Design" here.Apple Music : https://music.apple.com/ca/album/a-stranger-by-design/6808386067Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/album/489tOsGTqiKq8NjLnRuPZLYouTube Music : https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kPBZCWvH9d7En-EGyLQ9NYUhSZhHhS7jc

When the album finally dropped, people who hadn’t heard this song must have been slightly surprised to be assaulted with a howling harmonica part straight out of the traps. Almost every Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album opens with a volley of guitar. THe guitar is still there, but after Steve Ferrone’s double shot on the snare, it’s Scott Thurston’s blues harp that draws there ear - with Mike’s Les Paul doubling that line. In an interview with Sound and Vision shortly after the album came out, Tom tells Mike Mettler, “I kept handing Scott these assignments: 'Okay, I want you to play harp on this song.' It's not all that easy. So he'd gimme stuff back, and I'd say, 'Wow, I didn't know you played the harmonica that well.'” Now we know! Song (Official Video) : https://youtu.be/5LAA6lF6uFI Parade of Loons : https://youtu.be/o074UPAjFxc

For Episode 300, I figured we should do something a little special. So I called up my pal John Paulsen to combine the two things he does best; fantasty drafts and playlists!We each had fifteen picks from the Tom Petty deep cuts catalogue. It's a big volume of songs! How did we decide what a "deep cut" is? Well, first of all, the song couldn't have charted on the Billboard 200 chart. Then, we limited it to any song that has fewer than 7,000,000 streams on Spotify (at time of recording). That still left us with a bucketload of songs to choose from! We included Mudcrutch and the Traveling Wilburys as well as Tom's solo and Heartbreakers output.At the end of the episode we each had a fifteen song playlist and a broader thirty songs that we could present to a casual fan to entice them into exploring Tom's work futher.This was an incredibly difficult process of whitling and regret! As the NFL season is upon us - all your fantasy draft folks should really be following John and taking advantage of all sorts of offers for subscriptions to 4for4.com.You can find John online on: Twitter: https://x.com/4for4_John andBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/4for4-john.bsky.social

Season Fifteen begins.The first song I remember hearing from this album was I Should Have Known It. But I didn’t hear it on the radio. A good friend of mine, Kris Klyne, who is also an immensely talented songwriter and musician, was over at my place as we were sharing a couple of rather delicious craft beers. He asked me if I’d ever heard this song. I clearly hadn’t reached Mojo in my Petty deep dive but as soon as I heard it I knew I had to prioritize listening to the rest of the record.I have a few guests lined up this season and we have a fantastic collection of songs to work our way through in the next four to five months! This record is stacked with phenomenal deep cuts and I can’t wait to dig into it fully on this season of the podcast.To leave me a message, go here : https://tompettyproject.com/mojo

We were due to start Season Fifteen today and start thinking about Mojo, but the day of recording, well the legend that was Dolly Parton passed away and I decided to write an episode in her honour. I’ll come completely clean - I could never call myself more than a greatest hits fan of Dolly’s music because I haven’t listened to a lot of it, but every song I’ve ever heard her sing I’ve enjoyed, particularly vocally. So I thought what I’d do is research her life and give you a more biographical episode with some interview clips from the lady herself. That way, I learn about an artist I didn’t know that much about and maybe some of you will too.If you want to donate to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, you can find their website here: https://imaginationlibrary.com

Obviously, Tom is the primary focus of most of this project, but as I said last week, one of the joys of the last five years has been discovering how astonishingly good a band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were. One of the ten questions I always ask my guests is “Who is your favourite band member other than Tom” Here are the answers. See how many voices you remember!Thanks to all my guests who answered this one!In order, they are: Dallas Heliker, Jake Thistle, Gwen Jones, Nic Apostoleris, Jeff Slate, Megan Volpert, Corey Morrissette, Katie Moulton, Dan Spiess, Michael Washburn, Ivan Anderson, Tommy Edwin, Dan Durkin, Django Bayliss, Matt Jaffe, Russell Mark, Will Porteous, Doc Wiley and Chris Gillette, Mark Lindsey, Peter Nester, Mary Beth Donnelly, Tim Bulman, Nora Hayward Olsen, Eric Senich, Shawn Murphy, Greg Wolfe, Rich Gibson, Shine, Sam Krishnan, Matt Burke, Steve Ursell, and Robin Vincent.Don't forget to leave me a voice note telling me what "Mojo" means to you! https://tompettyproject.com/mojo.php. You can also email me at kevin@kevbrown.ca with your thoughts.