The Apple TV+ Vince Vaughn series Bad Monkey features a soundtrack of Tom Petty covers, and the show’s music supervisor, Tony Von Pervieux, says it wasn’t hard to get artists to agree to take part in the project.
In an interview with Vulture, Von Pervieux says the original plan was to include 10 Petty covers in the Florida-set series, but that ballooned to 21, and all the artists they reached out to were quick to jump on board.
“It was the easiest sell to say, ‘Hey, we have this cool show and really cool experience to do a cover. This is the specific way I want this cover to be done based on the scene,’” he says. “And they were all like, ‘Yeah, of course. We’re huge Tom Petty fans. You don’t have to explain.’”
Van Pervieux says it was also important the Petty estate was happy, noting they kept the rocker’s daughter Adria in the loop as the songs progressed.
“I had a little bit of anxiety going through it because you don’t know what you’re going to get out of covers and I didn’t want to make any kind of mockery about the music,” he said, sharing he’d send Adria demos of the covers. “We would get comments like, ‘We really like this one, great job.’” Their only requirement was that no lyrics could be changed.
The soundtrack, dropping Oct. 4, features covers from artists like Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Weezer, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Sharon Van Etten and more.
“Tom Petty is just a healthy diet for anyone,” Von Pervieux says. “What we did was bring together a family of artists whom we respected and loved and also respected and loved Tom Petty right back.”
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