How Stevie Nick’s One-Way Obsession With Tom Petty Turned Into A Lifetime Friendship

Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty were long-time collaborators and also shared a long-term friendship. Their bond was very famous in the rock and roll world; however, it didn't start from a mutual interest.

It originated with a one-way obsession on Nicks' part. Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac and heard Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's music for the first time and fell in love with it.

Nicks admired Petty so much that she put him on a pedestal and wanted to be as good as he was. However, this admiration was not reciprocated.

Petty was never quite sure of Nicks, and it took him quite a while to secure the friendship, but with a little resolve and a lot of stubbornness on Nicks' part, the one-way admiration blossomed into a four decades-long friendship.

In "Petty: The Biography" by Warren Zanes, Nicks said, "I just fell in love with his music and his band. I would laughingly say to anyone that if I ever got to know Tom Petty and could worm my way into his good graces, if he were ever to ask me to leave Fleetwood Mac and join Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I'd probably do it — and that was before I even met him!"

They eventually met in 1978, and Petty wasn't as fixated as she was. He thought she was a super fan who wanted to get with The Heartbreakers.

In the book "Conversations With Tom Petty," Petty spoke about how he perceived Nicks initially. "She was this absolutely stoned-gone, huge fan. And it was her mission in life that I should write her a song."

He went on to say, "We were a little wary of Stevie. We didn't quite know whether to like Stevie or not because we kind of saw this big corporate rock band, Fleetwood Mac, which was wrong; they were actually artistic people. But in those days, nobody trusted that sort of thing, and we just kept thinking, 'What does she want from us?'"

While Petty might have been cold to her, Nicks was hot enough for both of them. Her love for Petty's music led her to go extreme lengths to get in touch with him.

She made several calls to his management, which went unanswered, then she decided on another route. In his biography, she said," If I can't be in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I want to make a record that sounds as much like T.P.'s as possible."

When she started working on her solo career, she began showing up in places Petty and the Heartbreakers would often go.

"We weren't really welcoming to her," Petty said in his biography. "It wasn't like she received a lot of warmth. We weren't impressed by superstars — it just wasn't our nature."

Nicks' approach, although bullheaded, led her to get everything she wanted. Stephen Davis, the Rock biographer, told Interview, "She didn't have a band, she didn't have a single, and she didn't have anyone to produce her record."

"She basically stole the Heartbreakers from Tom Petty, stole his producer Jimmy Iovine and then stole their next single, which was 'Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.' She got everything she wanted," Davis concluded.

Petty's biography noted that he decided not to produce Nicks' album even though she made concessions to align her schedule to his. Instead, he introduced her to Iovine.

One of Nicks' demands to Iovine was to make her a "Girl Tom Petty." Funny enough, Nicks was living with Iovine barely two weeks later as his girlfriend.

This duo's friendship strengthened over the years. Petty didn't just influence her music; he also gave her good advice, no matter how hard it was.

According to Nicks, "He was the kind of person who said, 'Here's my advice. If you take it, great. If you don't, that's fine too,'"

She spoke about a time in 1994 when she just got out of rehab and was left shaken from a visit by an old flame. "I had dinner with Petty at the Ritz-Carlton," Nicks told Rolling Stone. "I asked Tom if he would help me write a song, and he said, 'No. You are one of the premier songwriters of all time. You don't need me to write a song for you.'"

He was right, of course. That forced the singer to write the song herself, and that's how "Hard Advice" was born.