Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – ‘Refugee’
  • Writers: Tom Petty and Mike Campbell
  • Producers: Tom Petty and Jimmy Iovine
  • Recorded: 1979 at Sound City, Van Nuys, California, and Cherokee Studios, Hollywood, California
  • Released: Fall 1979
  • Players:
    Tom Petty — vocals, guitar
    Mike Campbell — guitar, bass, squeeze box
    Benmont Tench — organ, vocals
    Stan Lynch — drums, vocals
  • Album: Damn The Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA, 1979)
  • Also On:
    Pack Up The Plantation: Live! (MCA, 1985)
    Greatest Hits (MCA, 1993)
    Playback (MCA, 1995)
    Anthology: Through The Years (MCA, 2000)
  • The second single from Damn The Torpedoes, “Refugee” peaked at Number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.
  • Damn The Torpedoes was the breakthrough album for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, hitting Number Two on the Billboard 200 for seven weeks. Pink Floyd‘s The Wall kept it out of the top spot.
  • Just before Damn The Torpedoes was released, Petty & the Heartbreakers performed at the No Nukes benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
  • “Refugee” began with a demo by lead guitarist Mike Campbell. Petty then wrote the words and a melody. “The verse and chorus are actually the same chords,” Campbell said.
  • Recording “Refugee” was a difficult process, as the sound the group wanted for the song proved elusive. Campbell recalled, “It was a nightmare… It was very tedious. We spent days on the drum sound alone. It got so bad that I actually left the studio, walked out the door and left town for two days. It was so emotionally draining. We just couldn’t find the groove on it. We just couldn’t make it sound as good as the demo. We knew the song was strong, so we’d leave it and come back. This went on throughout the whole album… It took a lot of emotional fortitude. We must have cut it 110 times.”
  • Turbulence also surrounded the release of Damn The Torpedoes. It was delayed first by Petty’s split with his manager Denny Cordell. Then the Shelter label was sold to MCA Records, and when Petty sued to get out of his contract, the new label threatened to impound the Torpedoes tapes. Petty even declared bankruptcy to prevent MCA from grabbing his assets.
  • As part of the battle, the tapes were kept in a roadie’s car so Petty could honestly claim they weren’t in his possession.
  • The matter was eventually settled out of court and Petty landed on the MCA-distributed Backstreet label. But Petty said it affected the way he approached the album: “It was a topic I couldn’t get very far from — consciously, subconsciously, and otherwise. I didn’t set up to write an album about it, but it just crept into everything. It was a very dramatic period of my life.”

FAST FORWARD:

  • Besides his solo albums and working with the Heartbreakers, Petty has also been a member of the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys.
  • Drummer Stan Lynch left the Heartbreakers in 1989 and was replaced by Steve Ferrone, who remains with the band.
  • In 1994, Petty was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 11th annual MTV Video Music Awards.
  • Petty and company were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 18th, 2002.
  • Petty has lent his voice to the character “Lucky” for the Fox animated TV series King Of The Hill.
  • In 2005, Tom Petty was given the prestigious Century Award by Billboard magazine.
  • Petty’s most recent release is a solo album titled Highway Companion.

There’s a band documentary in the works from director Peter Bogdanovich, who followed the band on their 30th anniversary tour last summer.