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31st Annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards

Source: Jason LaVeris / Getty

 

While Tom Petty may have come across as the lovable, mellow, stoner-next-door type, in real life he was quite the opposite, according to his children. Petty’s kids — Adria, Annakim and Dylan — say their dad was the most “intense, neurotic person” they ever knew. Even Petty himself confirmed their assessment of him in a 2010 interview, saying, “My kids have this huge laugh about me. They said, ‘The world pictures you as this laid-back, laconic kind of person, and actually you’re the most intense, neurotic person we’ve ever met.’”

Still, Petty claimed to have calmed down with age. “I was a pretty turbulent person,” he said shortly before his death. “I don’t think I was an a**hole. But I think I was intense. Very intense.”

Does a person have to be intense to make it in the music business?