Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers : Refugee
On January 26, 1980 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released "Refugee" b/w "It's Rainin' Again". The single would peak at US #15, but its recording nearly broke the band. Producer Jimmy Iovine had the band do more than 70 takes, as he and Petty tried to find the right feel. Part of the problem: drummer Stan Lynch and Iovine kept butting heads. Lynch was fired and rehired and in the meantime version of "Refugee" were recorded with Phil Seymour and session drummer B.J. Wilson.
“Iovine really disliked Stan,” Benmont Tench tells Petty biographer Warren Zanes.. “I think they didn’t like each other. I owe Jimmy a hell of a lot. He gave me a career as a session musician, expanded my life in a million ways. But I think he poisoned the well a little bit with Stan, starting with Damn the Torpedoes. Jimmy and Shelly put Stan through the fucking ringer. He’s not a session drummer. He’s not supposed to be a session drummer. He’s a band drummer. Of course, I’m not in charge, and that’s probably a good thing. But Jimmy came from the East Coast, from working with East Coast drummers, like Max Weinberg. Now he’s on the West Coast, working with a southern drummer who listened to English drummers who listened to black drummers.”
“On ‘Refugee,’” Campbell tells Zanes, “I had a mental breakdown. I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was my song, a cowrite with Tom, and we kept playing it over and over and over, changing the thing, changing the sounds. It sounded like Nazis marching. There was no groove. We got into this hole of misery cutting that song. And I said, ‘I need to get out of this room for a few days. This is not healthy.’ It’s the only time I’ve walked out of a session.”
"It's Rainin' Again" is the 91-second B side. An amusing throwaway.
The Heartbreakers would spend March touring the UK where they first received critical and popular acclaim.
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