In the Heartbreakers, lead guitarist Mike Campbell often wrote the music, and then handed it off for singer-guitarist Tom Petty to find the words.
“Almost always I would write music on my own, which I still do,” Campbell says on a phone call from Austin recently where later that day his co-headlining tour with Lucinda Williams was set to kick off. “If I thought something was good, I’d give him a tape with a few things on it.
“Then he would pick the ones that inspired him and write lyrics and words to it, and we basically cut it the way it was written,” he says. “That was our process and it worked out really good, you know, because writing is kind of a private thing for me, and him too, I think.
“You’re in your little cocoon of inspiration and the music comes to you. And sometimes it’s better to do that without somebody’s eyeballs looking at you. So that’s the way it worked, and it worked out great for us.”
Then, in October 2017, Petty died just a week after he and the Heartbreakers had wrapped up a tour with three nights at the Hollywood Bowl with Lucinda Williams opening for the band.
In the wake of that loss, Campbell eventually – after some time that included playing in Fleetwood Mac with Neil Finn – made his intermittent side project the Dirty Knobs his main thing. In the years since then, Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs have released three studio albums, over which Campbell credits his four decades collaborating with Petty for helping him grow as an all-around songwriter.
“I learned a lot from Tom, you know,” he says. “He learned some things from me, too. But I watched him for 40 years put songs together and change the words to make more sense. Not just settle for the first rhyme you come up with. And really work on them and try to make them not just a throwaway, but to make them important.
“Bob Dylan once told us, which was a good lesson too, that when you’re writing a song – like with the Heartbreakers, I think a lot of times we’d just get lazy,” Campbell says. “We’d write three verses and a chorus, we’re done. We don’t need anything else.
“And Bob said, ‘Look, when you’re writing your song, don’t just write three verses and stop. Write 20 verses and then pick the best ones,” he says. “So I picked up that from him, and a few other others, and a lot from Tom, just watching him work.”
Campbell and Williams come to the Bellwether in Los Angeles on Friday, Sept. 27 and then the Sound in Del Mar on Sunday, Sept. 29.
In an interview edited for length and clarity, he talked about the plans for those shows, writing songs for the new album, “Vagabonds, Virgins and Misfits,” the joy of sitting in on guitar with other musicians, and his distinctive collection of hats he wears on stage.
Q: So watching Tom write lyrics seeped into your consciousness over the years?
A: Tom was really good at pulling lyrics out of the air, you know. I can’t quite do that. I’m getting where I can almost do that a little bit. But he could just pull out rhymes and thoughts on the spot as the band was playing. I was always amazed by that. I learned quite a bit. You know, I had a good instructor.
Q: A good instructor plus a fine guest speaker in Bob Dylan.
A: Yeah, well, you can learn from everybody. I mean, music’s about learning. You’re always learning if people can teach you something. Especially people of that caliber. You just watch and go, ‘Wow, yeah, OK, maybe I’ll soak up a little bit of that if I’m lucky.’
Q: So how have you and Lucinda structured this tour you’re doing together?
A: We’re doing a co-bill, but she wants to play first so she’s playing an hour with her band. Then we’ll come on and play an hour with me and the Dirty Knobs. And then we’ll have her come up and do an extra little 45 minutes or whatever. Doing songs from her catalog and some Heartbreakers songs that we like. So it’ll be a hodgepodge of all kinds of things.
Q: Do you remember when you first met her?
A: I met her on tour, the Heartbreakers tour. She was opening across America for about a month or so, so I got to know her a little bit there. I’ve always loved her voice, she’s got one of those great voices. Good songs. I like her writing. And a great band. It’s gonna be a good combination. And she’s just such a sweetheart, you know.
Q: Let me ask you about the new record, ‘Vagabonds, Virgins and Misfits.’ How did this one begin?
A: Well, they all begin with the songs. I’ve got a lot of songs, some of them from 20 years ago that I didn’t use with the Heartbreakers for whatever reason. And I pulled a few of those out and they sounded great, so I’ve included them with some of the new songs I’ve been writing.
We approach it song by song, all three albums. We come in, I show them the song that we’re going to do. They learn the changes. I work out of my home studio, so we play it once or twice, and that’s the take, usually.
Q: Has your songwriting changed over the course of these three albums with the Dirty Knobs?
A: Musically, my songwriting process is the same. I’ve always written music. It’s just the addiction I have. But with the Dirty Knobs, I think I’m really digging deep into the songs, the lyrics, and the singing. Finding my voice and finding ways to get my personality in the song across. And I think I’m kind of more fascinated these days with the storytelling.
Tom always did that for me in the Heartbreakers, but I found that I really like the lyrical side of things. So that’s the only difference, I would think. Musically it’s the band just playing live, which I like. We just have a lot of fun.
Q: ‘Hell or High Water,’ the duet with Lucinda, is a great storytelling song.
A: ‘Hell or High Water’ is like a dream. I think it just started out with I liked the title, and then I started stream of consciousness: OK, who is this character? Where is he going? What’s he doing? Who did he meet? I try to see these type of songs as movies, little movies. I see in my head, ‘OK, they went to the bar. They went out to the shack to get some wine. Then she came into the picture and they’re dancing in the moonlight.
It’s kind of just a road song, really. I identify with the character. He’s out on the road. He’s lonely. He encounters someone and they go through anything. A lifetime of pain for one night of bliss. [He laughs] But hell or high water, we’ll get out of this. I guess they get up to some shenanigans. I like songs that have a hope and resolution at the end. That one goes on a journey.
Q: ‘Innocent Man’ is another story song in which you can see the characters in it as you listen to it.
A: That’s a semi-autobiographical one. There was an incident with the Heartbreakers in the early ’80s. We went across the border into Canada. We got stopped and the dogs came on the bus and were searching around for drugs. That stuck in my head, so as I was writing this song, I kind of thought that would be the start of a thing. Songs are magical, you know. They just of come out of the air.
Q: One last one – ‘Dare To Dream’ – which I read is one of your older unused songs?
A: That was something I had forgotten about. I have shelves full of two-inch tapes from 20, 25 years ago. And my wife kept telling, you should go through those tapes. My studio tech found it, and it took a minute to remember what it was.
It’s unashamedly optimistic, which is a bit brave nowadays, but I figured what’s wrong with that? We could use a little positive thinking, because this world’s a little crazy now. Then Graham Nash was over doing my interview show, and I asked him if he would sing on it. He put the harmonies on it and it just came alive with his voice on there.
Q: I’ve seen you sit in with musicians from Margo Price to Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of the Byrds. What do you enjoy about that?
A: Well, first of all, you’re honored that they want you to play with them. Recently I was in New York, and Chris Stapleton and George Strait were playing at Giants Stadium (officially MetLife Stadium).
Chris asked me to come up and do ‘I Should Have Known It,’ one of the Heartbreakers songs he does. Turns out George Strait does ‘You Wreck Me’ in his show. So Chris spoke to him. He said, ‘Yeah, have Mike come up and play with me, too.’ It’s a blast. It’s kind of like you’re out of your element and you just go for the ride.
Q: In the Heartbreakers, you probably sang harmonies, but people didn’t think of you as a singer. Your vocals on the album are really great.
A: Thank you for the compliment. I actually never sang harmonies. I sang maybe one song on one Heartbreakers record. I never opened my mouth because Tom was really intimidating. Once I started doing it on my own it was the hardest struggle, and it’s still what I’m working to get better at.
One thing that helped me, when I was on tour with Fleetwood Mac, Stevie’s vocal coach Steve Real showed me some warm-up things to do, to open up your throat. I’m not Roy Orbison but I can get a personality across and I can get the character across, within my range.
The main thing I’ve learned is confidence. I used to be so insecure about my voice. If you have confidence, that’s 90% of the game. But if you have to go, ‘Oh, I hope I can do it,’ you’re not gonna sound good.
Q: Your signature sorta floppy hats – how’d that start?
[Laughs] It’s bordering on a fetish, I think. But it’s a funny story. I used to wear a hat sometimes, just because they’re cool and if you’re having a bad hair day, you slap the hat on and everything’s cool. But I was in a hat store, this guy Neil Fouquet, a custom hatmaker out in L.A. I saw this guy that looked like a musician. He was trying on this hat, kind of like a hobo.
‘Oh, man, that’s a cool hat. Are you gonna get that?’ I guess he knew who I was. He goes, ‘Oh, no, it’d look better on you,’ and he gave it to me. A hat’s like putting on a coat. It gives you a personality, gives you a vibe and a little confidence. It’s like strapping on a guitar, put on your hat, your sunglasses, and you’re ready to go, you know?
A lot of times I’ll go to do something. I think, ‘I don’t think I’ll wear the hat,’ and my wife will go, ‘Put on the hat.’ It’s expected now. [Laughs]
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