Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty said in an interview with Rolling Stone on Tuesday his past use of the Confederate flag on stage and in a 1985 album was a “downright stupid thing to do.”
Petty, who grew up in Gainesville, Fla., described the Confederate flag as the “wallpaper of the South” during his childhood.
The three-time Grammy winner made “Southern Accents” as a concept album about the South, he told Rolling Stone, but the “concept part slipped away probably 70 percent or so into the album.”
“I just let it go, but the Confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour,” he told the magazine. “I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do.”
Petty regretted using the flag onstage for a performance of the song “Rebels” from that album. He later asked fans to stop wearing and bringing Confederate flags to their shows.
Petty said the South Carolina legislature made the “right decision” to lower the flag from the statehouse grounds.
“That flag shouldn’t have any part in our government. It shouldn’t represent us in any way,” Petty said. “The war is over.”
The flag’s removal should not be the end of the conversation, Petty said.
“The way we’re losing black men and citizens in general is horrific,” he said. “What’s going on in society is unforgivable. As a country, we should be more concerned with why the police are getting away with targeting black men and killing them for no reason. That’s a bigger issue than the flag.”
The MTV documentary about the album “Southern Accents” opens with Petty wearing a hat with a Confederate flag.
Well, Tom, at least you made the decision a long time ago to do what was right and that counts for a lot.
And this, Tom Petty, is why you’re one of my favorite artists of all time. Well, that and the incredible music.
Tom Petty puts on a hell of a show (or did at least 18 years ago when I saw him play Fresno). I had no idea they were ever associated with the confederate flag. He’d clearly put it behind him a long time ago.
Indeed. And “Southern Accents” (the song from the same album) is actually a terrific song about the song…brings out a lot of the paradoxes, the ugly and the beautiful, of being in the South.
On a side note, the song “American Girl” is also about Gainesville, or more specifically, about a girl he was dating that attended school at UF and jumped off Beatty Towers (dorms) and killed herself “Yeah she could hear the cars roll by out on 441, just like wave crashing on the beach” 441 is one of the main drags (13th street) running by the campus.
Though I personally was a little mad that he didn’t bring the Southern Accents tour to Gainesville, and instead went to Tallahassee. I got over it though, having seen him twice. Excellent showman.
Obviously Petty has given no thought to how this gets him stricken from Rush Limbaugh’s Christmas card list.