“I think I brought a musicality that Tom wasn’t capable of”: Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell opens up on his productive but sometimes fractious relationship with bandmate Tom Petty

History is littered with stories of bandmates who, despite appearing to work together hand in glove, didn’t always get along, and guitarist and Heartbreaker Mike Campbell has confirmed that this was most certainly the case when it came to his relationship with de facto band leader Tom Petty.

Campbell and Petty’s songwriting partnership was certainly fruitful, yielding hits such as Runnin’ Down a Dream and Refugee, but behind the scenes, things weren’t always so harmonious.

“Sometimes he made me so angry I couldn’t look at him,” Campbell says of Petty in his forthcoming memoir, Heartbreaker, which he’s been discussing with Guitar Player. "We had our brotherly friction here and there,” he confirms, “but there was a deep love that kept us together through all the rough times.”

The two men also had different skill sets: “I think I brought a musicality that Tom wasn’t capable of,” says Campbell. “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, on the other hand, “was undeniably dynamic,” says Campbell. “He was driven, and he could convince you to go on the road with him. ‘I'm going down this path. Come with me.’ He had that great leadership quality, and I was sitting duck for that kind of thing.”

Not that Campbell didn’t know his own mind, but it sounds like he learned that, sometimes, it was better to bite his tongue.

“That's a perfect example of our relationship, me going, ‘Don't you think dah, dah, dah?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, but I'm Tom Petty,’” he recalls. “I couldn't really argue with that. I could say, ‘Well, yeah, but I'm Mike Campbell,’ and he would go, ‘Nobody knows who that is.’ So it was checkmate, and even though it stung a little bit, I had to give him credit. Tom would always give it to you straight, and I couldn't argue with that.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Campbell once again tells the story of how Petty advised him that Boys of Summer, which he co-wrote and would end up being released by Don Henley, was “too jazzy”.

“In the version I showed him, when it went to the chorus, instead of going to that glorious major chord, I went to some kind of minor thing,” he says. “I don't know what I was thinking. It wasn't really jazzy per se, but I knew what he meant. It didn't lift up like a chorus should. I took that advice, and after he left, I thought, ‘I’ll change that chord. I can make a better chorus there’” The version that Don Henley heard had the new chord. Later, when Tom heard it, he said, ‘Ohhh. You changed it.’”