Mike Campbell was Tom Petty's right-hand man during Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ rich history, and his forthcoming memoir will lift the lid on his fruitful and colorful career in the band.
Simply named Heartbreaker, the book is due March 18 via Hachette Book Group, and it charts a spellbinding career that, at one point, nearly saw Campbell join Fleetwood Mac, save for Stevie Nicks' intervention.
Unsurprisingly, however, the memories of his Heartbreaker days prove most illuminating, and, catching up with Guitar Player ahead of the memoir's release, Campbell has opened up on what he brought to the Heartbreakers as Petty's guitar foil.
“I think I brought a musicality that Tom wasn’t capable of,” he reflects. “I had guitar techniques and musical influences that I could express to him in his songs, or present to him as my music, that he couldn't have done on his own.”
Petty’s songwriting abilities were the heartbeat of the band – few other musicians could have written a song as successful as Free Fallin’ with just a handful of chords – but Campbell left his mark across their catalog, too.
Together with Petty, the pair hammered the likes of Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, and Runnin’ Down a Dream into shape, with Campbell's riffs playing major roles in the process. His lead playing, meanwhile, perhaps best showcased with American Girl's guitar solo, further helped the material stand the test of time.
Indeed, their uniqueness resided in their stylistic polarity because when it didn’t, Petty was unmoved.
“There was one instance when I gave him something that sounded like a Heartbreakers song,” Campbell recalls. “And he said, ‘That sounds too much like me. Go do something that I can't do.’”
“Tom wrote it on the piano, and I went in at the end of the night, noodled around for six minutes through the whole song, just playing the blues; a mindless stream of consciousness,” he said. “And at the end of the song, I got bored, went home, and said nothing about it.
“Tom called and said, ‘You’ve got to come back to the studio. There’s something at the end of the song that you played that would be perfect for the beginning.’”
It shows just how well their partnership worked – and how impressive Petty’s ability to turn nothing into something was.
During his GP chat, Campbell goes on to recall how digging up certain memories often got the better of him, stating, “I'll tell you, I know it's a good book. That’s not just ego – I know it's good because when I read it for the audio version, there were times when I got choked up.”
Aside from his Heartbreaker contributions, Campbell would also work with his hero, Bob Dylan – and one night broke a strap in front of the legend himself – and would cut records with Warren Zevon, Joe Cocker, and Bob Seger. His entire career, though, could have looked a lot different had he not met Tom Petty.
“Lord knows what would've happened if Tom and I never met,” Campbell ponders. “As I wrote the book, I realized how many miracles have happened to me through timing, luck, divine intervention.
“I started with nothing, and these songs came to me from somewhere. There were chance encounters with my heroes, and of course, there was my relationship with Tom.
"We had our brotherly friction here and there, but there was a deep love that kept us together through all the rough times.”
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