10 Insane Stories Behind Classic Albums

After a few years of making letter perfect heartland rock, Tom Petty had started to hit on something a bit more ambitious for Southern Accents. Going into the studio with fellow Heartbreaker Mike Campbell, the idea was to make a double album celebrating the American South, with the title track being the spearhead of the entire project. Then again, drugs can be a hinderance when you're shooting for this kind of perfection.

With half of the band abusing cocaine at the time, sessions started to grind to a halt, with Petty getting more and more frustrated by the day. Going in to listen to the demos, Petty became so infuriated about how bad the finished song sounded that he smacked his hand against the wall...into powder. After it ballooned in size, Petty realized he had completely pulverized his hand, tearing ligaments and tendons left and right.

While the rest of the album was able to get scaled down to a single release, it would be a long road before Petty could so much as make a fist, undergoing therapy where electrodes would close the hand for him at times when he physically couldn't do it. For as much as the album may have been successful after the fact, this was as good an incentive as any for the Heartbreakers to start cleaning up their act.