The Melancholy Season

It’s been a while since Benmont Tench released a new solo album, over a decade, to be precise, but on March 7th, 2025, legendary keyboardist and co-founder of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers will unveil "The Melancholy Season" on Dark Horse Records.

The album was produced by Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Margo Price, Billy Strings) and features contributions from Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek), singer songwriter Jenny O and Sebastian Steinberg (Fiona Apple, Iron & Wine, Soul Coughing).

Benmont Tench says, "The meaning of the title track is subject to every listener’s interpretation, but I will say that the ‘Orion’ in the song is the constellation Orion, whose arrival in the night sky above my old house always signaled the coming of colder weather, and the emotional change that came with it. At the house where I lived for many years, in the hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley, Orion was only visible in the fall and winter. I associated the constellation with that time. ‘Oh, there’s my friend’. But that season, when it starts getting cold in California, has always been a bit melancholy to me.

"That passing of warmth and time in his poem eventually led Tench back to a song he had written years ago but never been able to complete. "The Melancholy Season" follows in the footsteps of Tench’s only other solo record, 2014’s "You Should Be So Lucky".