Photo by Josh Giroux
As the keyboard player for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Benmont Tench performed on some of the most iconic songs of the 1970s and 1980s; his contributions are especially prominent on track such as “Refugee,” “Don’t Do Me Like That,” and “You Got Lucky.” But Tench is also a talented singer-songwriter, as he proves on his second solo album, The Melancholy Season, which was just released in March via Dark Horse Records. It’s been more than ten years since he released his solo debut, You Should Be So Lucky, but as he told The Big Takeover during a recent phone call, everything finally aligned for another album.
What feedback have you been getting on your album so far?
BENMONT TENCH: I’m getting really good feedback, which is really gratifying. When you write songs, it’s always gratifying when people understand the point you were trying to get across. And so far, it seems like a lot of people understand what I’m up to. Because I’m not trying to write just little glib love songs. A well written glib love song is the thing of beauty, but that’s not what I’m after right now. So it’s been really nice to see the audiences when I sing the songs, and hear feedback from people who have the record, where it seems to affect them in the way that I was hoping.
What themes or ideas were you hoping to get across with these songs?
BENMONT TENCH: I don’t know if I can really put it into words because my feeling is that if there’s another way to say it, you wouldn’t write it in a song. You can’t really tell somebody who’s never seen the color red what the color red is; you have to show them. So that’s the same principle, I think, as a songwriter. I’ve always liked poetry. I’ve always liked writers like Bob Dylan, who are not obscure, but say a lot of things. Sometimes, there are a lot of different feelings underneath what the most obvious interpretation is, and I just want to learn a little bit of that lesson and apply a little bit of that. I’m not trying to write like Bob Dylan. Nobody will. I’m not trying to get above my station, either. I just want to try to get at some things that are a little bit beneath the surface, and at some things that can be read several different ways.
How did you know it was the right time to do another solo album now, since it’s been more than a decade since your last one?
BENMONT TENCH: I had the songs, and I had the opportunity to make it like six or seven years ago, but I had a newborn, so I couldn’t do it then. Then came the pandemic. I couldn’t do it then. And then I made the record, and before I could release it, I had to have major surgery, and that put back when it was put out. So I just figured it was the right time to make a record when I had time to make a record, when everything aligned. And I think that I’m very happy about it because it wouldn’t come out like this in any other time period, or with the slightest change in production staff or players. It wouldn’t come out like this, and I really like the way it came out.
This doesn’t seem like a sad album, so why did you pick this particular title for it?
BENMONT TENCH: The song “The Melancholy Season,” I really like the title of that, and I thought it would be a good title for the record. But the songs aren’t all melancholy [on this album], but a lot of them are reflective, and a lot of them have some regret or sadness in them. Not all of them, by any means, but a lot of them do. So I thought, “Well, this title will work for this collection of songs, for sure.” But I think there’s a fair amount of humor on the record, and I think there’s a lot of allusion to a lot of different things in it. It’s kind of fun because as I sing the songs I go, “Oh, wait, is that what this means?” You sing them and you find out what you were trying to get at sometimes. That’s always kind of fun.
After working with the Heartbreakers and as a session musician, was it hard to decide what your own sound should be as a solo artist?
BENMONT TENCH: I’ve always done well when left to my own devices. This record, I wrote the songs, almost all of them, on piano, and a few of them on guitars, so I didn’t want to have great big production – not even a simple string quartet. I’d rather just have the record where you hear the song. I think one reason that [Tom Petty’s 1994 album] Wildflowers was such a successful record is that [producer] Rick Rubin had us keep it down to the song. There is production on Wildflowers, but it’s essentially, “Here’s the song,” and there’s nothing on there to distract from the song. So I like records like that. And when we made this one, it kind of naturally leaned that way because any time I tried to put any frills on it, it just led me away from the structure of the song, so I scrapped it.
How did you come up with your own distinctive sound?
BENMONT TENCH: I think I grew up in a fortunate time when there were a lot of really creative musicians in bands and as session musicians showing up on the radio. So if you’re the sum of your influences, then what you grew up hearing from a very young age, you’re going to absorb it. And the people I absorbed were Billy Preston and all these wonderful players who I have something of them somewhere inside my heart. And so sometimes, when something is needed, that’s what comes out naturally, without me trying to find it. And I guess that’s what makes whatever sound I have; I guess that’s how that evolved. And of course playing with Tom was huge because I started sitting in with his band Mudcrutch when I was seventeen or eighteen. I quit college when I was nineteen to play with them full time. And you listen back years later and you go, “Boy, that was great. Why did I start getting more complicated?” Or you might see something you’ve done years ago and go, “Oh my God, what was I thinking?,” and learn from your mistakes. So I didn’t try to craft anything. I just played by instinct. You listen. You learn. If you work with somebody who’s really good, you learn from what they do. And so I guess that’s how that all evolves.
How did you know you should be a musician in the first place?
BENMONT TENCH: I loved music from the day I was born, and from the moment that I seriously decided, “I’ve got to figure the piano out.” I didn’t love practicing scales. I didn’t love trying to learn to sight read a classical piece. But I loved music, I loved making music, and I loved trying to write songs. So I knew I wanted to be a musician and/or a songwriter from a very early age. I didn’t know that I could actually make a living at it, but The Beatles showed up at the right time, and suddenly everybody had a band, and some of them were making it.
As you look back across your entire career, what do you think about the legacy that you’ve been creating?
BENMONT TENCH: Right now, the only legacy I’m focused on is my daughter. That’s my whole focus: the legacy I want is just to bring up my daughter well, and to have a world that’s safe for her to grow up in. But I hope that people hear the records I played on and they enjoyed them. I’m well aware that nobody knows the name of whoever played piano on an infinite number of great records. But the main legacy I want to have is to help my wife and my daughter live well.
