Mysteriously Anonymous Surf Rock Legends Blue Stingrays Revealed to be Members of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The cat is out of the bag the identities of the mysterious surf-rock legends Blue Stingrays has been revealed. The members behind the ‘90s surf-rock band are guitarist Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers/Fleetwood Mac/The Dirty Knobs), bassist Ron Blair (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers) and drummer Randall Marsh (Mudcrutch).

The band only released one album, Surf-n-Burn, but it made big waves in the surfer community. Originally released by Epitone Records, the label will once again share the album with the fans. After 24 years, the album will be available on vinyl once again, starting September 24th. The original vinyl jacket sleeve read, “The most profound expression of the human condition ever communicated through art, the passion in man’s soul expressed through surf guitar and captured on record!”

Campbell and Blair were both part of the late Tom Petty’s backup band. Campbell and Blair joined Petty in 1976 to form the band, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. They toured, composed and recorded together for 50 years until the unexpected death of the frontman in 2017 due to an accidental opioid overdose. Randall Marsh, who wasn’t in The Heartbreakers, was also deeply connected to Petty. He was the drummer for Petty’s former band Mudcrutch and actually introduced Campbell and Petty.

The solely instrumental album featured many classic surf-rock songs like “Monsoon,” “Echo Park” and a cover of the title theme song to the classic James Bond movie, “Goldfinger.” Mixing classic rock, country, blues and Hawaiian traditional sounds together, the band created the ultimate surf-rock album.

A greatest hits album of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Best of Everything, was released posthumously in 2018. Since then the estate has released multiple alternative versions of classic Petty albums, like Finding Wildflowers and Wildflowers and All the Rest earlier this year. Just last month Petty’s family shared the remastered album Angel Dream (Songs and Music from the Motion Picture “She’s The One”) from 1996.