Tom Petty broke several things making his latest album Southern Accents — his hand, a lot of rules, and finally the mould of the American MOR star.

Tom Petty stares through fatigued eyes at the traffic inching its way along Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard. It's 3.30 in the afternoon on a shimmering spring day, but Petty has only recently risen; the previous night had been spent tinkering in his newly built home studio, Gone Gator One. Seated in the second-story offices of his management company, he gazes out of the window.

A length of blond hair falls across one eye, and with his hand — the right one — Petty brushes it back. His left hand is cradled gingerly in his lap, an inch-long incision clearly visible. Petty lowers his head to examine the scar and is lost momentarily in some sort of painful reverie. Last October the Gainesville, Florida-born guitarist, now 33, had taken a casual backhanded swing at a stairwell wall. After spending seven days mixing Rebels, a track from his new album, Southern Accents, and coming up empty, Petty tested the plaster with his metacarpals.

"Breaking my hand was unfortunate but I think that improved the album quite a bit," he drawls. "It made me really sit back and take stock of it a little bit longer. I was too deep into the album; my perspective was hurting. I had spent a year and a half on it and was trying to mix it down real quickly and get it out for Christmas.

"I wasn't trying to cripple myself," adds Petty, dressed simply in boots, blue jeans and black long-sleeve shirt, "I just backhanded a wall, but I hit it wrong."

At 4.00 in the morning Petty was rushed to Cedars Sinai Hospital in LA, and following sedation, X-rays and bandaging, eventually underwent four hours of surgery. Two pins were inserted in his left hand and a cast constructed, and after months of therapy and conditioning, the appendage is near normal. Guitar playing is still painful, but Petty's doctors are confident that will disappear in time.

"I got lucky," cracks Petty, paraphrasing one of his own song titles while lighting a cigarette and gently clutching it between still-swollen fingers. All the tracks for Southern Accents, Petty and the Heartbreakers' sixth album, had been completed save for one small rhythm overdub when the accident occurred at Petty's cramped 24-track studio, located in the basement of his Encino, California, home. By that time, the group had already spent nearly 18 months on the album, the long-overdue follow-up to 1982's Long After Dark. Never a prolific songwriter (six LPs in nine years), with this record Petty was attempting to breakout of the band's stylised sound of Byrds-like guitars, Hammond organ and acoustic drums. As he had declared several years ago, he was willing to go to any length to accomplish that end, and with Southern Accents has made good on his promise: Many novel and exciting elements are present, including sundry instrumentation such assitars, drum machines, strings and horns; outside musicians, a rarity for the Heartbreakers' general members-only policy; and producers other than Jimmy Lovine, who'd presided over every record since 1979's Damn the Torpedoes.

"I guess all that stuff comes from madness," suggests Petty, a one-quarter Cherokee Indian who portrays the Hatter of Madness in the video of Don't Come Around Here No More, the album's first single. "It came from the desire to do something different. We've been together a long time now (10 years, though Petty's association with Heartbreakers lead guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench extends back even further to a Gainesville band known as Mudcrutch), and there was a strong feeling among all of us. We butted our heads and tried to get to somewhere else, just for the fun of it."

Petty had spent the year prior to beginning the record, in his words, "just wandering," and wondering who would be a suitable songwriting collaborator. Campbell, Tench, bassist Howie Epstein and drummer Stan Lynch, meanwhile, were guesting on records and live dates by the likes of Bob Dylan, Don Henley and John Hiatt. Petty felt that American Bock & Roll was beset by a malaise of conservatism, and opted to work with an unlikely musician: David A. Stewart, guitarist/composer for Britain's Eurythmics, one of the '80s most popular purveyors of synthesizer-based Pop music. Stewart was introduced to Petty through Jimmy Iovine, and the chemistry jelled instantly. Stewart played for Petty the backing tracks of a song called Don't Come Around Here No More, complete with sitar line.

"He immediately picked up on it and started singing it great," recounts Stewart. "Within 10 minutes it was finished, and we were drinking from this bottle of old whiskey and said, 'Let's write another one!'"

Make It Better (Forget About Me) emerged next, evolving from a basic rhythmic idea Stewart had already set to memory. Petty added the "I wanna make it better, baby" chorus section, and after recording it solely with drum machines, they summoned the Heartbreakers. The track, with Stewart on guitar, was captured live. Saxist Molly Duncan and trumpeter Dave Plews of Eurythmics' live horn section were flown in from England to add their parts.

It Ain't Nothin' To Me, a humorously cynical tune that contains the self-mocking line "We got smilin' politicians/Got songs from rich musicians... It ain't nothing to me," came to light one day in Petty's bedroom and again features horns and a rousing chorus, with Stewart on guitar, bass and vocals.

"These mishmashes or hybrids of influences is something I've always been interested in," says Stewart, referring to the seemingly odd coupling of himself and Petty as well as the exotic array of instruments present on their three co-written track. "Because I think the world is like that now, all mixed up. But Tom and I found it really, really easy to write together. We didn't even have to think about it."

"Breaking my hand was unfortunate, but I think that it improved the album quite a bit."

Petty takes a sip from a soft drink and eyes two oversized stuffed animals sitting at the far end of the office. Momentarily transfixed, he glares hard. The look says "I may be blond but I ain't dumb." It is a tenacity mixed with passion, a temper softened by conviction — more than once Petty has had to fly the flag of personal resolve and weather major personal and professional traumas.

In 1976 the group's debut, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, was released, a year later sprouting a Top 40 single in Breakdown. You're Gonna Get It! was recorded two years later and established the quintet as a band to be reckoned with, poised on the brink of stardom. But the following year Petty's label, Shelter Records, collapsed, and the group found itself mired in legalese of the deadliest sort — record company in fighting. At one point in 1979 Petty filed for bankruptcy, and the resultant pressures of not being able to record until matters were settled nearly broke up the band. In the heat of frustration, volatile drummer Stan Lynch quit at least once. But upon Damn the Torpedoes' release late that year, Petty and the Heartbreakers became a major act, the LP going to #2 and selling well over two million copies. And the band's well-publicised legal woes lent songs such as Even the Losers ("keep a little bit of pride... they get lucky sometimes") an inspirational edge.

But even as a bona fide star, Petty's legal wrangles with record companies were far from over. In 1981 his new label, Backstreet/MCA, wanted to charge a list price of $9.98 for the Hard Promises LP. Petty would have no part of it and went public with his protest; the label was forced to lower the retail tag. Just before the recording of Long After Dark, the Heartbreakers underwent their first, and thus far only, personnel change when charter bassist Ron Blair retired and was replaced by Howie Epstein. And then during the Southern Accents sessions there was Petty's accident, which for a time appeared so serious, there was concern that he would never be able to play guitar again. All in all, it seems like a helluva way to advance-promote LPs...

"Things have happened to me, but lately life has been real rosy," attests Petty. "I'm sure all those problems put an edge on things. But I hope," he sighs, "I don't have to go through a major disaster just to make an album.

"But it was good," he says jokingly of the latest near disaster. "It calmed me down quite a bit; I haven't hit a wall since."

What was the band's reaction to the damaged hand?

"There wasn't a word of sympathy from one of 'em. They would say stuff like, 'There's a really good guitar player in Venice,' or 'You can still be the singer, but this means less money.' Everyday they found another guitar player 'You know, Brian Setzer is looking for a job...'"

Jokes notwithstanding, Petty is an underrated rhythm guitarist. His main instruments are six-and 12-string Rickenbackers. One is a blond, hollow-body model circa 1966, which has been in his hands since the early days and is his favourite. He plays a 6/12 doubleneck that he says has excellent recording characteristics but is too top heavy for live work ("I tried it once but soon changed my ways"). The final Rickenbacker is a '63 325V John Lennon-type solid-body with three pickups and a full-size neck, as opposed to the usual three-quarter size. Petty also shoulders a Fender Stratocaster and a custom-built Telecaster crafted by Norm of Norm's Rare Guitars in California. The latter is a copy of a vintage Fender given to Petty during the recording of Hard Promises. Electrics are strung with Ernie Ball Regular Slinky strings and are set up like acoustic guitars, for resonance and tuning maintenance. Petty uses Fender medium picks.

His acoustic playing, a crucial part of the Heartbreakers' sound, is performed on a pair of Gibsons — a Dove that Petty's owned for 15 years, and a J-200. On the new album he also strummed a Martin D-45 with a pickup when he cut live with the band.

"The band was very supportive of whatever we did... though at times they did look at me a little funny."

For Petty, instruments hold little fascination. He rarely if ever modifies his guitars and adopts a rather lackadaisical approach to it all.

"I just think there are good ones and bad ones," surmises the guitarist, who leaves the finicky business of instrument choice and sound to Mike Campbell. "And if I get one that's good, the last thing I want to do is have somebody go drilling on it and putting things into it. Because I've never seen that make it any better; it always makes it worse."

One piece nicknamed the Red Dog has been remodeled; it is a Fender Telecaster body harbouring two Gibson Humbucking pickups and a normal Telecaster unit in the bridge. There is a toggle of some sort that Petty refers to as the "destruct button," which causes the guitar to overdrive any amplifier it's plugged into. Campbell used it on Southern Accents, in addition to his favourite guitar, an old Fender Broadcaster; a 1965 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop; an Ibanez Iceman; and the red Rickenbacker 12-string Petty is shown holding on the cover to Damn the Torpedoes.

"I may hear a certain sound and say, 'Let's go for this kind of sound,' and Mike'll come back with something wild. Mike is real good with sounds." Campbell recorded every track through an Ampeg Rocket, an ancient tube amplifier with one 12" speaker. Petty used several amplifiers, including his standby Vox Super Beatle and a brown Fender Deluxe. At times he ran through an elderly white Fender Bassman and split that through a Scholz Rockman to get a stereo signal. Live, both Petty and Campbell go through two 100-watt Vox heads and two Super Beatle 4-12" cabinets. Neither likes to rely on effects, Petty eschewing them completely, and Campbell using only an Echoplex unit, an MXR Dyna Comp and a Boss chorus.

Bassist Epstein's setup is basic: Hofner and Steinberger basses recorded through the console in the studio, and Fender Precision and Jazz basses folded back through the monitors live. Both Epstein and keyboardist Tench go through racks that include a 1,000-watt JBL power amp and an Eq. Tench played Steinway grand and Kawai pianos, a Hammond C-3 organ with a 1,000-watt Leslie cabinet modified by Keyboard Products, and Yamaha DX7 and Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizers in the studio. On stage he uses the Steinway, the Hammond, the DX7, the OB-Xa and a Wurlitzer electric piano.

Manager Elliot Roberts pokes his head inside the door and asks if anyone needs anything. "Maybe a little cash," quips Petty, in what must be a reflex action from the dog days of the late 70s. Financial security has hardly been a problem since the masterstroke of Damn the Torpedoes, and, in fact, Petty's entire future seems secure — that is, if he's not zapped by a bolt of lightning.

But Petty is far from playing it safe, as the gamble of Southern Accents attests. Though it was initially his idea, he's grateful to the band for not feeling threatened by the intrusion of outside musicians such as Stewart and The Band's Robertson, who co-produces one track.

"The band was very supportive of whatever we did," claims Petty, draining the last of his Pepsi and making ready for the drive back home. "Even though we worked with people like Robbie and David, there was always something for everyone to do. At times, though," he admits with a laugh, "they did look at me a little funny..."