(Credits: Far Out / The Bigger Picture)
Wed 1 October 2025 20:15, UK
There are plenty of heartbreakers, ain’t that the truth. But there was only one Tom Petty.
OK, actually, over the years, there were seven heartbreakers. Backing up Petty as they launched a takeover attack on classic rock and succeeded throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, the group delivered more than their fair share of timeless classics. They’re perhaps one of the ultimate, epitomising examples of an ‘all-American’ act given that songs like ‘American Girl’ and ‘Free Fallin’’ seem to be to the States what ‘Wonderwall’ is to the UK.
Petty made himself an idol. When thinking about the most important musical moments of the ‘70s, ‘80s and onwards, he always seemed to be there, like his presence at Live Aid. But beyond events, he made friends in high places as a player that his peers deeply admired. He toured with Bob Dylan, he supported Bruce Springsteen, and essentially became the reason why Springsteen no longer has support acts, and he was part of the Travelling Wilburys, earning a place in a supergroup of epic proportions.
But all of that came down to the fact that Tom Petty was deeply liked, and his band were loved. He was the type of person that people wanted to be around, to be next to, or even the type of musician that other musicians wanted to be.
That’s why the title of being an ‘honorary Heartbreaker’ felt to so many like a true badge of honour.
It was one that Stevie Nicks wore with absolute pride. Often called “The Heartbreakers’ little sister” by the band, Nicks and Petty collaborated on ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’. If there was one band Nicks truly and deeply loved, it was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. More so than any of her other powerful peers, she’s always seemed to see them as the pinnacle, and as exactly the kind of rockstar she always wished to be if she wasn’t to be a witchy woman.
Stevie Nicks always admired Tom Petty. (Credits: Far Out / Atlantic Catalog Group)
“So, listen, what I’d really like to do is be in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ band,” Nicks recalled telling Atlantic Records when she launched her solo career. “I asked Tom if I could be an honorary Heartbreaker,” Nicks said when she finally got the chance, so it was a privilege to her when he replied, “‘You already are one, Stevie.’”
The Bangles were another band that turned their love for Tom Petty into being taken under his wing. “We’d call him, like, ‘Hey, you want to go to dinner?’” Vicki Peterson recalled after her band and his became fast friends, “And it’d just be: ‘I’m. Calling. Tom Petty. Oh My God.’”
“With The Bangles, we’d never gotten into the whole ‘pop’ thing — we are basically a garage band that moved onto the stage. The Heartbreakers felt that way too. So when we’d happen to be in the same city, out on the road, we’d hang out,” she said as the two acts were like kindred spirits.
When he called them in to sing backing vocals on ‘Waiting For Tonight’, the deal was sealed that they were essentially honorary members with Peterson saying, “I felt like I was in The Heartbreakers for a few days.”
The last honorary member is a moving one. For years, Tom Petty and George Harrison were close friends and collaborators. So, as Petty then shared a stage with his son, Dhani Harrison, during a memorial tribute performance, it was a striking moment. “Tom and I played together hundreds of times. He let me be an honorary member of Heartbreakers,” Harrison said in 2017 as their own relationship endured in memory of his father and as Dhani’s own musical abilities impressed Petty more and more.
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