Benmont Tench, the keyboardist and founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, shares his artistic journey and inspirations. He discusses how consuming diverse art fuels his songwriting, claiming that inspiration can come from anything, even a glance out the window. Tennch touches on the balance between daily practice and spontaneous creativity, and highlights the connection between poetry and music. His new solo album, The Melancholy Season, is a testament to his reflections on artistry, imperfection, and the beauty found in everyday moments.
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Inviting Inspiration
To invite inspiration, play piano, read, and listen to diverse music.
These activities open you up to language, ideas, and new forms of expression.
insights INSIGHT
The Songwriting Stenographer
Benmont Tench considers himself a "stenographer" of songs, waiting for them to arrive.
He believes songs percolate in the subconscious and arise when ready.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Unexpected Inspiration
Benmont Tench's song "I Pity the Devil the Day You Arrive in Hell" was inspired by a line from the movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
This demonstrates how inspiration can come from unexpected sources.
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In this landmark work, Toby Wilkinson tells the epic story of ancient Egypt, spanning three thousand years from its unification under the first pharaoh, Narmer, to its final absorption into the Roman Empire. The book delves into the lives of legendary leaders such as Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and the pharaohs called Ramesses, and explores the complexities of state power, propaganda, and repression that underpinned the Egyptian civilization. Wilkinson draws upon forty years of archaeological research to provide a detailed and nuanced account of the rise and fall of this great civilization, including its political intrigues, social structures, and cultural achievements.
Desolation, A Heavy Metal Memoir
Desolation, A Heavy Metal Memoir
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Mark Morton
Ben Okapari
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr
The novel tells the story of Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl, and Werner Pfennig, a German orphan, whose paths converge in occupied France during World War II. Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her father, a locksmith at the Museum of Natural History, and later flees to Saint-Malo with what might be the museum's most valuable and dangerous jewel. Werner, fascinated by radios and science, is enlisted to track the Resistance. The book explores themes of kindness, greed, love, and perseverance amidst the harsh circumstances of war. Doerr's writing is praised for its vivid descriptions, moral complexity, and the way it illuminates the human spirit during times of great hardship.
Benmont Tench is the keyboardist and a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. That’s reason enough to listen to this podcast. I’ve interviewed other icons—Duff McKagan, Johnny Marr, and Jerry Harrison, to name a few—and they all have one common thread: a voracious appetite for art in all its forms. They consume books, movies, paintings, poetry, sculptures, you name it. Artists with longevity know that to create art, you have to constantly consume it.
Tench is no exception. “The more I read, the more chance I have to get inspired because I’m opening myself up to language. But I’m inspired by all art; I’m even inspired by looking out the window. It all comes in, and it all shows up in my writing,” he says. When I asked Tench if he favors any certain medium, his response was simple: “From Milton to Milton Bradley.” He’s also the first songwriter I’ve interviewed to cite both Manet and the Steve Martin movie Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid as inspiration.