Benmont Tench on ‘Depression Season,’ Tom Petty Releases & Extra

Benmont Tench says that “existence” is the cause of the 11-year hole between his two solo albums.

With The Depression Season out Friday (March 7), the keyboardist says {that a} heavy paintings load with each Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch saved him busy all through the meantime (each teams toured and launched what became out to be their ultimate albums within the length). A just about decade-long fight with oral most cancers (which incorporated jaw reconstruction all through 2023), Petty’s loss of life in 2017, and the delivery of Tench’s first daughter, Catherine, in a while after that — to not point out the pandemic — additionally contributed to the space between works.

“Lifestyles were given in the way in which of constructing any other file,” Tench, 71, tells Billboard by the use of Zoom from his house in Los Feliz, Calif. Already an A-list consultation participant, he additionally stuffed one of the crucial time after Petty’s passing taking part in for Ringo Starr, Jenny Lewis, Chris Stapleton, the Who and the Rolling Stones and was once just lately a part of the Lifestyles Is a Carnival all-star tribute excursion to The Band. “I would like to have made it quicker,” he says of The Depression Season. However, with the good thing about some point of view, he’s happy he didn’t.

“I made a greater file as a result of I didn’t make it straight away,” explains Tench, who had a lot of album’s songs written by means of, he estimates, the tip of 2018 and recorded it with manufacturer Jonathan Wilson (Dawes, Father John Misty, Margo Value) all through 2020 and 2021. Not like 2014’s Glyn Johns-produced You Must Be So Fortunate, which was once recorded in simply 13 days, Tench lived with The Depression Season — to its get advantages, he feels.

“I saved fine-tuning and pondering, ‘oh no, no, no, that’s all fallacious. It will have to be this,’” he explains. “It was once nice to have that chance. I may sit down with the imagery in some songs and I may take a look at to make certain that I stated issues the way in which I sought after do.”

The Depression Season’s 13 songs — whether or not the elegiac name monitor or the stripped-down “Underneath the Starlight,” the striding, boogie-styled “Rattle” or the extra dramatically organized “Pledge” and “The Drivin’ Guy” — all proportion a spare and spacious sensibility. The songs are performed most commonly by means of Tench, Wilson on guitars and drums and Sebastian Steinberg on bass, with appearances by means of Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith and Jenny O and, at the remaining monitor “Dallas,” Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins, who was once a part of the musical group at Los Angeles’ Largo that Tench has frequented.

“I really like information with numerous area,” says Tench, mentioning a lesson he discovered from authentic Heartbreakers manufacturer Denny Cordell whilst making the band’s first two albums all through the ‘70s. “Denny stated early on {that a} file is louder if it has fewer tools. A music like ‘Breakdown’ has extra layers than you could suppose, however the essence of the music is the guitar riff and the Wurlitzer (piano) riff. There are different layers, however there’s numerous room in ‘Breakdown.’” Moreover, Tench says he was once “profoundly affected” by means of Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding and John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band albums. “Every of the ones is, for probably the most section, 3 musicians and 3 tools,” Tench explains. “They’re only a songwriter with the tools he wrote the songs on, plus bass and drums, and they’re whole.

“I believe it’s nice you probably have a wall of sound and also you do it neatly. There are implausible information that use numerous tools; the Beatles did numerous the ones. There’s Motown, in fact. There’s what Brian (Wilson) did, what Phil Spector did… All of these items, and so they’re glorious. However there’s additionally some way to make use of fewer tools and be simply as efficient. That’s what we did in this file; there have been some songs we minimize with extra (instrumentation) and pulled them again to make (the songs) higher.”

Tench dipped into his deeper previous for a pair tracks, too. “Wobbles” was once an instrumental on You Must Be So Fortunate, which Tench sub-titled “Trio with Vocal Association” for the brand new album. “Underneath the Starlight,” in the meantime, dates again a excellent twenty years to a Nashville songwriting consultation with Don Henry and was once by no means launched.

“I dug it and we set it apart and I went house, and years went by means of and I didn’t take into accounts it,” Tench says. “After which possibly 8 years in the past I went, ‘What about “Underneath the Starlight”?’ And I didn’t wish to hassle Don, so I believed, ‘Lemme see if some phrases arise.’ I had a whisper of an inkling of what I sought after to discuss that I understood higher ’purpose I’ve lived so much longer and been via much more and started to peer easy methods to do it.

“I were given in contact with Don Henry and stated, ‘Hello, I ended that music we began.’ He stated, ‘That’s great, however what do you imply completed? We completed it that day.’ (laughs) We wrote all the music and I spaced out one way or the other. He despatched me the lyrics that we’d firstly completed and so they have been in point of fact excellent, however they made a distinct level. I’m hoping any person information it that, approach, too.”

The Depression Season is being launched by means of Darkish Horse Information, the label the past due George Harrison began in 1974 and that’s being persisted by means of his widow, Olivia, and son Dhani. “It manner a hell of so much,” notes Tench, a teenage Beatles fan who met Harrison (who labored with Petty within the Touring Wilburys) a number of instances. “It’s were given his vibe and it’s were given their vibe, which is like amplifying George’s vibe. For them to imagine on this file and wish to put it out manner relatively so much to me. I’ve had a blessed existence in 1,000,000 techniques — and I intend to stay it going.”

That incorporates at the highway as neatly. Tench previewed The Depression Season all through a solo residency on the Cafe Carlyle in New York final month, and he has West Coast dates beginning March 12. He hopes to hit extra of the rustic as neatly.

“It’ll be smaller venues as it’s simply me with a piano, and I believe that the songs come throughout best possible that approach,” Tench says. “For me, I don’t in point of fact ‘get’ it till I see any person do it reside, so I wish to drag it round, and if anyone presentations up out of interest or as a result of they prefer what I do, or as a result of they prefer the Heartbreakers, it’ll give them a possibility to peer what they suspect up shut.”

Tench has “a couple of sketches” of alternative songs he’s been running on however isn’t but that specialize in a subsequent album. It’s relatively most likely his taking part in will display up on any other Petty and Heartbreakers archival set, then again, and Tench — who was once a part of Mudcrutch first, which then morphed into the Heartbreakers all through 1976 — says he’s been happy with how that musical legacy has been treated, essentially by means of Petty’s daughter Adria together with Ryan Ulyate and guitarist Mike Campbell.

“I’m more than pleased as a result of I don’t suppose (Petty) would free up such a lot of this,” says Tench, who’s learn portions of Campbell’s e-book Heartbreaker: A Memoir, that’s popping out March 18 and is looking ahead to the audio model. “They nonetheless stay me within the loop but it surely’s basically Adria and Ryan who’re going via the whole lot, and I really like what they’re discovering. Songs that I don’t be mindful however, ‘Oh, yeah, I beloved that music. How come we left that off?’ It isn’t inferior stuff; it’s stuff that I believe, should you just like the band and want it’s good to’ve heard extra, there’s extra, and it’s excellent. And should you haven’t heard a lot of the band, it’s a great way to test it out. I believe they’re doing a super task.”

Tench’s upcoming live performance itinerary comprises:

March 12—Los Angeles, CA—Largo

March 19—Los Angeles, CA—Largo

April 2—Ojai, CA—Ojai Playhouse

April 4—Santa Cruz, CA—Kuumbwa

April 5—San Francisco, CA—The Impartial

April 8—Seattle, WA—Triple Door

April 9—Portland, OR—Previous Church

April 11—Grass Valley, CA—Middle for the Arts

April 12—Sonoma, CA—Sebastiani Theatre