Del Fuegos guitarist Warren Zanes, who has written Petty: The Biography about his longtime friend, persuaded Stan Lynch to go on the record about the Runnin' Down a Dream hitmaker.

Zanes tells Rolling Stone, "Petty's story is a band story (and) that meant I didn't just need his participation, I needed that band to open up for me. And I needed Stan Lynch to be among them."

Lynch was a member of the Heartbreakers from 1976 to 1994, when he quit the band after tensions with Petty became too much of a problem for him to continue with the group.

He toured with the Eagles and is now a producer and songwriter, who has worked with The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Jeff Healey Band, Eddie Money, Toto and Ringo Starr.

He reunited with The Heartbreakers onstage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2002, when the group was added to the museum.

Asked to talk about Lynch in his 2005 book, Conversations with Tom Petty, the rocker said, "He was a powerhouse onstage. He reminded me sort of (like) Keith Moon in a way. He was so powerful I used to say he had this fifth gear that he could go into and just really make everything explode. He was really good at that, and he knew the songs really well. He and I had incredibly good communication onstage; he could read the movement of my shoulder.

"He could go anywhere I wanted to go. He never took his eyes off me. Anything I did was accented on the drums. Any movement I made. We had great eye communication where I could turn around and look at him, and he knew just exactly what I wanted to do."

Petty: The Biography is set for a November (15) release.