For Benmont Tench, the path to rock history required walking away from a very different future.
The longtime Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist turned 73 on Sept. 7. Before helping launch the legendary band in the 1970s, however, Tench was a college student who made a life-changing decision to leave school behind and return to his native Florida to play music with Tom Petty.
Born in Gainesville, Florida, in 1953, Tench began playing piano as a child and crossed paths with Petty while the two were still young musicians. After graduating from high school, Tench enrolled at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Music soon pulled him back home.
“I loved music from the day I was born, and from the moment that I seriously decided, ‘I’ve got to figure the piano out,” Tench told The Big Takeover. “I didn’t love practicing scales. I didn’t love trying to learn to sight read a classical piece. But I loved music, I loved making music, and I loved trying to write songs. So I knew I wanted to be a musician and/or a songwriter from a very early age. I didn’t know that I could actually make a living at it, but The Beatles showed up at the right time, and suddenly everybody had a band, and some of them were making it.”
Tench left college to join Petty’s band Mudcrutch, which also included future Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. The group eventually headed to Los Angeles in pursuit of a record deal, but its initial run proved short-lived. Mudcrutch released a single before breaking up in the mid-1970s.
The setback ultimately led to something much bigger.
Tench and Campbell joined Petty, guitarist Ron Blair, and drummer Stan Lynch to form Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Their self-titled debut arrived in 1976 and included future classics “Breakdown” and “American Girl.”
Tench’s keyboards became a crucial ingredient in the band’s sound.
Rather than constantly competing with the guitars, his piano and organ could slip around Petty’s vocals, adding everything from subtle flourishes to instantly recognizable hooks. His playing can be heard across the Heartbreakers’ catalog, including albums such as Damn the Torpedoes, Hard Promises, Southern Accents and Full Moon Fever, Petty’s solo debut on which several Heartbreakers contributed.
His talents also made him one of rock’s most sought-after session musicians.
Outside the Heartbreakers, Tench has recorded with an extraordinary range of artists, including Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Aretha Franklin, and The Rolling Stones. He eventually stepped forward with his own music as well, releasing the solo album You Should Be So Lucky in 2014.
“The Heartbreakers record songs quickly but we take our time in how long a period of time we have to sift over the songs because we have our own studio,” Tench told 13th Floor. “We have a little rehearsal space that has a good recording set up and a good sounding room. So we can go back and say, ‘Not sure about that one let’s try it again,’ But I literally had eleven days in which I had the studio, the producers and the musicians [to record You Should Be So Lucky]. So we had to go ahead and do it. It was really fun.”
Tench and his fellow Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, cementing the legacy of the band he helped build.
At 73, Tench’s career makes that early decision to leave college look particularly consequential. What began as a young keyboardist heading home to play in a Florida rock band ultimately became more than five decades of music history.
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