“Why are you doing this?”: Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell recalls his conversation with Tom Petty after he’d sent him the songs he’d written for his side project

Embarking on your own project ‘outside the band’ can be difficult, particularly if you’ve been working in support of someone else for a considerable period of time. And, when Heartbreakers lead guitarist Mike Campbell plucked up the courage to send some of his songs to Tom Petty, the resulting conversation doesn’t sound like the easiest.

Campbell joined The Heartbreakers in 1976, and speaking to Mix Online, he suggests that he struggled to feel confident in his voice, which some had compared to that of his band’s leader.

Eventually, though, he sent Petty his songs, and after receiving them, the frontman gave Campbell a call.

“What’s this?” Petty said to Campbell, who replied that “It’s just some songs I’m working on.” Petty responded by telling Campbell, “It sounds like me,” to which Campbell replied, “I don’t mean to, but I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Getting straight to his next question, Petty then asked: “Why are you doing this?” Campbell then went on to explain that, “I don’t know. I just thought in between tours I should be doing something with these songs. You can’t be doing all of them. I figured I should do something with them rather than put them on the shelf.”

After discussing what Campbell’s plans for the songs might be - “Maybe in between our stuff, go out and play a few theatres. I’d have this little band and we’d go out and play bars” - Petty then asked his guitarist if he thought the songs were any good.

“I think they’re pretty good,” said Campbell, leading Petty to say, “Well, if they’re really good, why don’t we do them?”

Although all of this seems quite awkward written down on the page, Campbell was apparently laughing as he told the story, and his relationship with Petty remained strong.

He did form that band, though: the Dirty Knobs started out in 2000 as a live outfit, finally releasing their debut album in 2020, three years after Petty’s death.

Could he have struck out on his own sooner, though? Noting that he sees himself very much as a “band person”, Campbell says that he “put aside” his own ambitions in support of Petty.

“In a way, that may have stunted me a little bit,” says Campbell, “but I’m glad I made that choice and I was happy to play that role with Tom because we had such a deep brotherhood. Sometimes I feel a little guilty, that I’m too excited about what I’m doing now. I don’t look at it like I was being held back; I look at it as if it wasn’t my time yet.”

Mike Campbell’s third album with the Dirty Knobs, Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits, is out now.

Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs - Dare To Dream (feat. Graham Nash) [Official Music Video] - YouTube

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