Heartbreakers Drummer Stan Lynch Remembers His ‘North Star’ Tom Petty on ‘High Flying Bird’

As the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 50th anniversary commemoration gets into gear, original drummer Stan Lynch is adding his own tribute with “High Flying Bird,” a sentimental song and video dedicated to his late musical cohort.

The song is something Lynch “started years ago,” while the video is comprised of photos and home movies he unearthed about a year ago and had an archivist catalog. “I didn’t really think about the whole 50th kerfuffle,” Lynch, 71 — who left the Heartbreakers after their Bridge School Benefit performance during October of 1994 in Mountain View, Calif. — tells Billboard via Zoom from his home studio near Gainesville, Fla., where he grew up. “I was just kind of condensing things — hundreds of Polaroids, lots of movies just from that era that I’d never seen before.

“At the time I had this song I had started years ago that was evoking my feelings towards Tom, but that’s such a touchy, personal thing. I wasn’t sure I would ever want to put out a song with that kind of through-line. But then when I saw all the (archival material), I kind of went, ‘Hey….'”

Coincidentally, Lynch was contacted around the same time by Petty’s eldest daughter Adria, who oversees her father’s legacy and archives and was in the process of putting together the upcoming Origins 1971-1978 box set (out Nov. 6). She invited Lynch to participate in the project and others she had planned. “I love that Adria has become my friend,” he says, “because when I was in the band she was a little girl. I re-meet her and she’s a woman and she’s doing all of this to keep (Heartbreakers) things together and keep finding music. And having her as a filter has been great.

“I showed her the video, ‘Hey, would you like to see this?,’ and she immediately pinged me back and said, ‘It’s cool.’ When I got that, really, I was already done. Mission accomplished.”

In the poetic, melodic “High Flying Bird” — recorded with members of Speaker Wars, one of his current bands — Lynch converses with Petty, asking “What do you see from way up there/What’s it like in that soft clean air?” And he certainly pulls some heartstrings later in the song when he sings, “I know you’re out there flying ’round/Hiding in the broken clouds/Will you be singing when it’s my turn?”

“This is cleaning,” Lynch explains. “I was writing it for me. I wanted to hear myself, how do I feel about a brother I lost? It came off my skin organically. At this point in my life I follow my joy and my creativity, and I follow friendship. It was important for me to do something positive.”

Despite the acrimony over his departure from the Heartbreakers 32 years ago, Lynch — who subsequently came back to good terms with all of his bandmates — is feeling positive about what’s going on in the band’s orbit these days.

In recent years he filled in on drums for guitarist Mike Campbell’s Dirty Knobs band, and on Sept. 16 Lynch joined the other Heartbreakers at the 25th Annual Americana Honors & Awards in Nashville, where the group performed with Chris Stapleton in front and also received a Lifetime Achievement Award. “When you go play with people from your past,” he notes, “there’s expectation we’re all gonna be a little bit like we used to be. And we’re not; physically and cosmically and musically, we’ve changed. So everything’s changed, but… it’s still fun to hear ‘and the Heartbreakers!’ It’s a very unique fit.

“There’s a lot of trust. Without ever saying it, we really do believe we’re really good with each other. Nobody wants to cop to that, but I will. I’ll just say look, it’s pretty special when those guys get together. Hearing (keyboardist) Benmont Tench is the most luscious experience for me… and Ron (Blair, bassist) as well. There’s all this space you don’t get with other musicians.

“Of course,” Lynch adds, “there’s a huge hole in the donut with Tom not being there — musically, cosmically, spiritually — because he was an extraordinarily talented rhythm guitar player, even beyond his songwriting ability and singing style, which was all very rhythmic. For the drummer, that’s the standard bearer; my North Star is how he’s going to sing or move his shoulder, the way he cocked that gun, y’know what I mean. So that will obviously always be missing, but when we’re together, it’s still us.”

Looking back, Lynch — who last spoke to Petty at the Heartbreakers’ 2002 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in New York — says there’s really nothing that could have kept him in the Heartbreakers. “That was how it was meant to be,” he explains. “My journey was done in that band. They didn’t want that drummer anymore, and I had another whole journey and a second act that was staring me in the face.”

That included working extensively as a producer, writer and player for Don Henley and Eagles, Ringo Starr, Eddie Money, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and many others. “I am sorry for the clumsiness of the exit,” he acknowledges. “It wasn’t friendly, and a goodbye can actually be friendly. But back then we weren’t a demonstrative bunch of guys, and we didn’t know how to speak to each other. It just could’ve been sweeter.”

Lynch is staying busy with his own work, including continued writing and production. That includes Speaker Wars and the Chefs — a “brutal noise” band he’s in with the Georgia Satellites’ Dan Baird and Joe Blanton from the Royal Court of China and the Bluefields. Both have albums in motion. “I’m always writing,” Lynch adds. “I have a wonderful A-client list, and they’re wonderful people.”

He is, however, always available and interest for any Heartbreakers-related project that may pop up, too.

“I’m struck by how fortunate I am to be part of something much bigger than myself,” Lynch says, “how fortunate I was to have run into Tommy and Mike and Ben and Ron. That was a great pinball experience, just to bounce off these guys my whole life as a boy and kind of go into manhood and make music with those guys. It’s beautiful. Honestly, it’s extraordinary — those are the only terms that seem to come to my mind.”