Benmont Tench of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Opens Up About Working With Bob Dylan - Noise11.com
Bob Dylan Shot of Love

Benmont Tench of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Opens Up About Working With Bob Dylan

by Paul Cashmere on October 21, 2021

in News

Benmont Tench, a co-founding member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, first met Bob Dylan in 1981 when he was invited to play keyboards on Dylan’s ‘Shot of Love’ album.

Earlier today: Tom Jones covers Bob Dylan

Benmont would later tour the world with Petty and Dylan. That tour came to Australia in 1986. He has first-hand insight into Dylan, the person.

Benmont tells Noise11.com, “(Bob) has a sense of humour but he doesn’t clown around in my experience. But then again I never went out to drinks with him. He is smart. He is very funny. When you listen to his words, there is a lot of humour in those songs. They might be scathing but ‘Positively 4th Street’, it is scathing … “You’ve got a lot nerve to say you are my friend” … its really scathing but it ends with “I wish for just one moment you could be inside my shoes, and just for that one moment I could be you. I wish for just one time you could stand inside me shows, you’d know what a drag it is to see you”. That’s a really funny line. Its mean but its hysterical.”

To hear the humour in Dylan lyrics Benmont says you need to listen. “If you listen to his entire body of work up until the latest, it is serious and its got plenty of wit in it. Maybe not ‘ha ha’ but wit in the sense that its smart and it will make you smile”.

Dylan is one of a kind, a once in a generation artist says Benmont. “Look, the guy is Bob Dylan. I was listening to some stuff recently. I did an interview about him for the Bob Dylan archives, the Dylan Center, and he is unique in my experience during my lifetime. He absolutely stands above everybody else I think. The people who could touch him didn’t write the kind of song people had to have on their radio over and over and over again. Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, who are undeniable geniuses, but Joni had a few hits, and I don’t think Leonard had a hit. He was loved and he was successful. Maybe ‘Suzanne’. But Bob had the ability to write works with were depth and with a really compelling melody. ‘Idiot Wind’, that is a dark, dark, deep, deep song off ‘Blood On The Tracks’, but the music is really gripping”.

“Bob is not a hype,” Benmont says. “I met him on the ‘Shot of Love’ sessions. I did a song with Jimmy Iovine. Jimmy and Bob were going to try and work with each other if they could. They didn’t click and Jimmy left the session but they called me a couple of months later to come in to come and do the ‘Shot of Love’ record. I played on two thirds of it and I really got to work with him. Its like with Tom, you come to work and you are handed these songs that are a cut above any other artist. ‘Wildflowers’, nobody writes like that! And Bob’s whole body of work… ‘Shot of Love’ is a really good record that is overlooked. He has a song on that called ‘Every Grain of Sand’. To have Bob Dylan sit down at a piano and show you and then you have the privilege of playing on it. Playing music in my life has been a privilege”.

Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers’ has a limited screening in cinemas worldwide this week.

NEW: Noise11 on YouTube SUBSCRIBE

Noise11.com

Follow Noise11 on Social Media

Noise11 on Instagram

You’ll discover music news first following Noise11 on Twitter

Comment on the news of the day, join Noise11 on Facebook

Gavin Ryan reports with thanks to Australian-Charts.com

Related Posts

5678s by Mary Boukouvalas
The 5.6.7.8’s, Guitar Wolf and Gnome, 25th March, The Tote #REVIEW

The Tote is one of the last standing bastions of seminal music venues replete with the distinctive stench of decades of musos and punters’ blood, sweat and tears seeped into the carpet and walls.

1 day ago
George Clinton, Parliament: Photo Ros O'Gorman
George Clinton Is Bringing Parliament-Funkadelic Back To Australia

Funk legend George Clinton is bring Parliament-Funkadelic back to Australia in September 2025 with dates in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Gold Coast.

3 days ago
Paul Hester from the Peter Green archives
Paul Hester Mini-Doco ‘Hessie’ Goes Live To Mark 20th Anniversary of Paul’s Passing

26 March 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Crowded House/Split Enz drummer Paul Hester.

3 days ago
Frank Ferrer Guns N Roses perform at the MCG in Melbourne on Tuesday 14 February 2017. Guns N Roses are touring Australia on their Not In This Lifetime tour.
Guns N’ Roses New Drummer Is Isaac Carpenter of AWOLNATION

Guns N’ Roses have announced the new drummer for the band is Isaac Carpenter of AWOLNATION.

5 days ago
UK Subs
UK Subs Denied Entry Into the USA

UK punk band UK Subs have been denied entry into the United States.

5 days ago
Andy Peebles picture from his Facebook page
UK Radio Legend Andy Peebles Dies Aged 76

Former BBC Radio One DJ Andy Peebles has died at the age of 76.

5 days ago
Hoodoo Gurus photo by Ros O'Gorman
Hoodoo Gurus To Headline Party At The Point

Hoodoo Gurus will headline Party At The Point, an event to mark the 10th anniversary of Sandstone Point Hotel as an entertainment venue.

6 days ago