Mike Campbell: Heartbreaker Still Runnin’ Down a Dream

Outside of SoCal, Mike Campbell is largely known as a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the lead guitarist who spent decades alongside Petty delivering crunchy guitar lines on a bevy of big hits. Campbell also co-wrote many of the band’s singles, including “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl,” “You Got Lucky,” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” and also composed and played on the Don Henley hits “The Boys of Summer” and “The Heart of the Matter.” 

Around these parts, though, Petty has a lot of loyal fans who started coming out to SOhO to see him lead his own band, the Dirty Knobs, on a regular basis, and not all that long after he formed the side project in the early 2000s. A few years after Petty’s untimely death in 2017, Campbell and the Knobs also started releasing albums, three in total now, and stepped up to play the Arlington twice in 2024. 

On December 3, the singer-songwriter-guitarist is bringing the band back to the theater in the first of a five-show semi-acoustic tour to promote his new memoir, Heartbreaker. He shared some thoughts over the phone from his L.A. home. 

Q. I remember hearing the first, self-titled Heartbreakers album on WNEW-FM in New York, when the great DJ Meg Griffin played a whole bunch of cuts and couldn’t stop raving about it. She was already predicting big things for the band. When did you realize that was true? 

A. Good question. I think it took us a while to realize what everybody else seemed to see in us early on. I guess when “Refugee” (from 1980s Damn the Torpedoes) came out and we started being more mainstream, it became obvious that, well, this is going to work. 

You started Dirty Knobs decades ago, in the middle of the Heartbreakers’ huge success. How did you find the time to do both simultaneously, and what need was that filling for you? 

There was lots of time between Heartbreakers tours, and Dirty Knobs wasn’t really an official band – just a name to throw on some guys to go out and play a bar between tours as a hobby. The Heartbreakers would have months off for writing or downtime or whatever. I liked having the Dirty Knobs to keep me busy and give me a purpose. 

Amazing that you’d come back from arena tours and just want to hit the bar scene. Most musicians generally don’t ever want to go back there. You didn’t like time off?

I don’t ever take a rest. I don’t understand vacation. I’ve always got something on my mind. 

You didn’t sing much in the early days with Petty and the Heartbreakers and not even all that much all the way through. What prompted you to step up as lead singer with the Knobs? 

It was just an organic development. I had a lot of tracks full of music and Tom could only write to so many of them. They started piling up. So I started singing them in the studio where no one else could hear me, just to sort of get an idea of what a song might sound like. Then I started finding my voice along the way. So when the Dirty Knobs got more serious, it was just like I guess I’m the singer. (Laughs). I wrote the song, and it goes like this… I do have to give a lot of credit to Steve Real, Stevie Nicks’ vocal coach. When I was on tour with Fleetwood Mac, Steve took me aside and worked with me on opening up my throat and raising my confidence. He really helped me find my own voice. 

Speaking of that, it seemed very much out of left field when you replaced Lindsey Buckingham. What made you want to join up, and how was it?

It was fresh after Tom had passed away, and I was really in grief. Mick Fleetwood asked if I’d like to step in and tour the world with them. I was surprised. I took 24 hours to think it over, mulled over in my brain the pros and cons, and then said yes. It was a challenge for me to learn other people’s songs, which I don’t usually do, but we traveled the world first class, and we had a blast. It was really fun. It took me out of my grief shadow and gave me something to focus on. 

Now you also have a much more stable lineup behind you in the band. What makes this one work well for you? 

I finally got the right combination of people. Some of these guys I’ve played with for many years, and the last couple of years we have this amazing guitarist, singer, keyboard player, Christopher Holt from Dallas (who has played with Nicks, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, The Doobie Brothers, Derek Trucks and many others). He’s got a great vibe and has elevated the band 10 times over. It finally really works. 

What to you was the general thrust of your book?

I was kind of talked into doing it. I didn’t rely on anybody else’s input and I was surprised by all the things I did remember from 50 years. But when I was writing, all those memory cells opened up as I got into the flow. I’d talk with my co-writer and reminisce, and he’d write it all down and put it into an organized form… My only goal was not writing a salacious sex rock and roll memoir but a book about the creative process, where the songs come from, where the inspiration comes from, the relationships with me and the people in the band. I wanted to be honest. Some of the relationships got a little tense at times as all bands do. But ultimately, the story between me and Tom and our partnership and the Heartbreakers was one of hope and redemption. The guiding force that kept us together. The book is about gratitude and the mystery of the creative process. 

This is a special semi-acoustic mini tour, just a few shows in California. I know I’ve had to double up on earplugs at the SOhO shows just to save my hearing. What’s the impetus for acoustic? 

It’s about the book. It’s done really well, and I’ve gotten nothing but really positive emotional responses, but I haven’t really promoted it. So this string of dates has the book as the focus. It’s relatively intimate, with quieter version of the songs so you can hear the words. I’m still putting it together, but it will be different. A lot of acoustic songs, and I’ll talk a bit about where the songs came from and the stories in the book about them. Then I’ll be digging into some acoustic versions of some Heartbreakers hits and maybe some of the deeper tracks that people don’t remember. It’s going through my whole career, spotlighting the people I’ve worked with and the songs that have come up throughout the 50 years, and ending up with some Dirty Knobs songs at the end. And there’ll be slide photos projected behind us here and there…. No smoke bombs though. 

Normally, I don’t like to do that many Heartbreakers songs because it’s a mixed blessing. I can do them well, but it makes me sad. And I don’t want to be a Heartbreakers tribute band. But since the book is 50 years of Heartbreakers, most of the songs are going to be from the band’s catalog, mostly ones that I co-wrote with Tom. It’s a walk through the past, which I’ll probably never
do again. 

Hear Mike Campbell strum through the past at the Arlington on December 3