When musician/author Warren Zanes set out to write a biography of Tom Petty, the rock star told Zanes that it has to be unauthorized. As Zanes puts it, “He didn’t want it to be authorized because he felt like authorized meant bullsh*t.”

Interestingly, one of the major features of the biography was an extensive interview with Petty, where he opens up about being addicted to heroin in the 1990s. Zanes tells the Washington Post, addiction for someone like Petty can happen “when the pain becomes too much and you live in a world, in a culture, where people have reached in the direction of heroin to stop the pain. He’s a rock and roller. He had had encounters with people who did heroin, and he hit a point in his life when he did not know what to do with the pain he was feeling.”

The full interview with Zanes talks about Petty’s struggles with the drug, as well as the Heartbreakers’ struggle with bassist Howie Epstein, who also became addicted to cocaine and was kicked out the band for it. Epstein died shortly after, but Zanes explains that the band had tried to get Epstein in rehab, until the situation became “untenable”.

There are also stories of Zanes witnessing the birth of The Traveling Wilburys, as he was friends with Petty and stumbled in on the star jamming with Jeff Lynne and George Harrison. How cool is that!

Petty: The Biography is due out next month, an anyone interested in this in-depth look at Petty’s life can pre-order the book on Amazon.