Tom Petty Opens Up About George Harrison, Mudcrutch and Keeping Out of Politics

In an exclusive interview posted on his Website (conducted by fellow rocker Warren Zanes), Tom Petty talks about his Super Bowl performance, Mudcrutch and Barack Obama. On the Traveling Wilburys, Petty says "I think George [Harrison]'s move -- I'm sure of it, really -- had to do with the fact that he just didn't want to be the guy up front, no matter that he had a Number One album at the time. He never wanted that. And the Wilburys gave him a way around it."

"I think I often feel the same way. There are times I'd just like to step into the crowd, but I have to be responsible for standing up front and singing every song," Petty says about his side project. "With Mudcrutch there's not much pretense. They just treat me like everybody else. That makes a difference and really allows the band thing to happen in an authentic way." As for Mudcrutch's upcoming Extended Play Live, "I didn't want to do a live album because I thought it would be too much of a mirror image of what we had done in the studio," Petty says. "But when I heard things like the 15-minute version of 'Crystal River' from the Troubadour, my mind was changed." As for his closely guarded presidential pick, "Right now change is certainly more necessary than it has ever been, so I do have strong feelings about an Obama victory. But I don't go out on stage and campaign for him. I think it's up to the individual to vote the way he or she wants." Read the entirety of Tom Petty's interview here.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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