10 Bands That Fell Out Over One Song

In the late ‘80s, Tom Petty needed a break from being Tom Petty. After someone tried to murder him by setting his house on fire, the next few years saw him doing a bunch of projects outside of the Heartbreakers, including working with fellow rock legends in the Traveling Wilburys. While he used some of the Heartbreakers on his first official solo release Full Moon Fever, not everyone was happy about being called into work.

Made up primarily of Petty, Mike Campbell, and producer Jeff Lynne in the studio, the rest of the Heartbreakers felt left out and couldn’t really gel with the feeling of the record. When bassist Howie Epstein came into record a bass part one day, he actually said that he didn’t like the song that he was being asked to play on and packed up for the day.

Tough luck for Epstein though, since the song that he said no to turned into Free Fallin, which gave Petty’s career a second wind and became one of the biggest hits that he would ever have. The biggest fracture that happened with this song was with drummer Stan Lynch, who expressed feeling like he was in a cover band when he was on the road before being fired a few years later. Petty might play by his own rules, but it’s sometimes hard to reconcile when you have your bandmates to work off of.