Home News Classic Rock News Tom Petty’s bandmate found pain and solace in building new “The Best...

Tom Petty’s bandmate found pain and solace in building new “The Best of Everything” compilation

825

Geffen/UMeIf listening to the new Tom Petty collection, The Best of Everything, makes you miss the late rocker terribly, well, his surviving bandmates feel your pain…and then some.

In an interview with Billboard, longtime Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench admits, “It’s hard. And it’s still hard…and it’s probably getting harder, in a way, as time passes by because it just becomes more of a reality.”

Tench says assembling material for The Best of Everything became “part of, I guess, the cliché of the grieving process,” but it enabled him to relive some great moments with his late friend, who passed away 17 months ago tomorrow, at the age of 66.

Tom Petty fans hoping the Heartbreakers will reunite for live shows, though, will be disappointed to hear that it’s highly unlikely. Tench says, “It would be very hard, emotionally, for me to be in a room with everybody without him being in the center of the room.”

He adds, “The other component is…[Tom] was a guy in the band, but he was the focal point of the band…you can’t take that out and have it still be the band…it’s too hard for me to even contemplate anything other than the band as we were, with him there.”

The Best of Everything is in stores and digital outlets today. As for the future, Tench says there’s “a bunch of really great stuff” still in the vaults.

Here’s the track listing for The Best of Everything:

Disc 1
“Free Fallin'” — Petty solo
“Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
“You Wreck Me”
“I Won’t Back Down” — Petty solo
“Saving Grace” — Petty solo
“You Don’t Know How It Feels” — Petty solo
“Don’t Do Me Like That”
“Listen to Her Heart”
“Breakdown”
“Walls (Circus)”
“The Waiting”
“Don’t Come Around Here No More”
“Southern Accents”
“Angel Dream (No. 2)”
“Dreamville”
“I Should Have Known It”
“Refugee”
“American Girl”
“The Best of Everything” (Alternate Version)*

Disc 2
“Wildflowers” — Petty solo
“Learning to Fly”
“Here Comes My Girl”
“The Last DJ”
“I Need to Know”
“Scare Easy” — Mudcrutch
“You Got Lucky”
“Runnin’ Down a Dream” — Petty solo
“American Dream Plan B”
“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (featuring Stevie Nicks)
“Trailer” — Mudcrutch
“Into the Great Wide Open”
“Room at the Top”
“Square One” — Petty solo
“Jammin’ Me”
“Even the Losers”
“Hungry No More” — Mudcrutch
“I Forgive It All” — Mudcrutch
“For Real”*

* = previously unreleased.

Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.