Tom Petty didn’t sign up to be a rock and roll star for all the glitz and glamour that comes with it. The fact that the Heartbreakers managed to have a hit at all was through sheer persistence on Petty’s part, and once he reached the top of the charts, he wasn’t looking to be around for a few years by following the trends. He could switch up his style every now and again if he wanted to, but everything he did was in service to making the kind of tunes that could stand alongside some of his favourite British acts he heard as a kid. Because while there are more than a few times where Petty has pulled a few pages out of Elvis Presley’s playbook or sung alongside people like Carl Perkins, what really turned his head was listening to The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. That was the wake-up call for every kid that you could be a member of your own little gang in a group, and since the fans were reacting like they saw four different Elvises at once, Petty figured that was the best job he could ever hope to have. But when you think about it, not everything that The Beatles played was within reach. Not every kid was going to be able to play those strange chords that they threw into every one of their songs, but even if the Fab Four gave everyone something to aspire to, The Rolling Stones felt a lot more attainable compared to everyone else. They were playing the blues, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards weren’t afraid to be a little rough around the edges. A lot of their tunes did have a few blemishes that weren’t exactly meant to happen, but that’s the reason why it’s easier to jam with The Stones than The Beatles. Every one of their classics had certain moments on the record, but when they stretched the song out, all bets were off as to where they were going to do every single time they played. And for Petty, that kind of excitement all started with ‘Satisfaction’. There had been plenty of bluesy tunes like this before, but that fuzzy guitar line is the textbook definition of what a great guitar riff should sound like. Which is funny because Richards didn’t even want it to be played on guitar. He was trying to emulate the sound of a horn whenever he performed, and while you can hear it just a little bit in the way that he’s playing on the record, the result is about as close to heavy rock as the early 1960s ever dared to get during that time. And while Petty considered The Beatles one of the finest bands to ever walk the Earth, he considered ‘Satisfaction’ one of those defining moments for the genre, saying, “They had so much attitude, it dripped off the plate. The riff and distortion grab you, and the lyric is so worldly. It’s hard to talk about ‘Satisfaction’ because everyone knows it so well. But it’s a great moment in rock history. Just the phrase is worth a million bucks.” The riff is one thing, but the fact that Jagger managed to sound so snide singing the chorus of the tune is what really made the song work. The Stones were already becoming known as the antithesis of The Beatles in many ways, and throwing in some punk-ass lyrics about not being able to get what you want was the genesis of everything from hard rock to punk all in one little package whenever he sang. Petty didn’t exactly want to be known as a punk for any reason, but The Stones were at least the one piece of common ground that he had with bands like Sex Pistols when he debuted. He wanted to make his guitar sound mean whenever he played, and even if his parents in Gainesville weren’t always understanding of what he was doing, he was willing to stick his neck out and go against the grain just like Jagger did. ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE The post The “great moment in rock” that blew away Tom Petty in 1965 first appeared on Far Out Magazine.