Interview: Mike Campbell (The Dirty Knobs; The Heartbreakers)

Few musicians have quite the Midas touch as Mike Campbell. 

As the guitarist for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, he and the late, great frontman co-wrote  “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl,” “You Got Lucky,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” and many more hits. And if that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career wasn’t impressive enough, he toured as Fleetwood Mac’s guitarist 2018-19.

For much of that time, Campbell has also been fronting his own band, The Dirty Knobs, who’ve released a prolific three albums over the past five years. Prior to their Sunday, Aug. 10, co-headlinging show with Blackberry Smoke at Asheville Yards, Campbell spoke with Asheville Stages about songwriting, being talked into writing his memoirs, and generally living a storied life.

Edwin Arnaudin: How's it been touring with Blackberry Smoke?

Mike Campbell: It's been surprisingly fun. We’re both from the South, the music is compatible, and we get to play together at the end of the night and do some Heartbreaker songs. It's like a party.

EA: Nice! I was hoping that there would be something like that once y'all came to Asheville, so that has me even more excited for the show. Do you have any history with Asheville? 

MC: I do not. I'm sure we must have been there over the decades with the Heartbreakers — but that's a lot of gigs to remember. [laughs] No, I don't remember Asheville. Except that it sounds like Nashville, right? I love North Carolina though. It's a nice part of the country. 

EA: Excellent. Well, glad to hear that. I've lived here my whole life — on the coast, mountains, and piedmont, so I always like to hear good things said about my home state.

MC: It's beautiful. 

EA: How did The Dirty Knobs form?

MC: It stirred up about, I don't know — god, 30 years ago now. Between 20 and 30 years ago, in between Heartbreakers tours and recording, I had a lot of downtime and so I got my home studio built and I started having friends over. And I looked up one day and I said, “You know, let's go play a bar. It feels like we got a good little group here.” So, it's been going quite a while. A few people have changed, but we’ve got a great lineup now.

EA: What are some qualities that your current bandmates have that you also saw in the Heartbreakers and also in Fleetwood Mac?

MC: Well, it's a band. I've always been in a band and I like having a gang around me. And The Dirty Knobs are very spontaneous, very kinetic. It's a great band, if I do say so myself. It's a rocking unit. We have three albums out. We pick songs from those and we do some old Heartbreaker songs and some covers. It's fun.

EA: Obviously, when you were writing with Tom Petty, it was a very fruitful collaboration. How do you feel like your approach to songwriting changed once you started fronting your own band?

MC: Well, the songwriting process is pretty much the same because I've always kind of worked on my own. With Tom, I would work on my music and then give it to him. And if he liked it, he would write words. So now, basically I just do the same thing: I work on my own, mostly, and rather than hand it over to someone, I work on my own lyrics and I found that to be very rewarding and fun.

EA: Were there any Heartbreakers songs that, right after you wrote and recorded them, you had a feeling that they were gonna live on for decades and decades?

MC: Well, not decades. Maybe weeks. [laughs] 

EA: [laughs] 

MC: Well, that's a good question because a friend once said, “Is this song good or am I suffering from new song euphoria?”

When you're writing, it's a very spiritual experience, you know? And when you finish the song, it comes to you from, like, magic. And you look at it and you go, “Wow, that's really great.” And then the next day, you listen to it and you go, “Eh, that’s not as good as I thought,” or “It sounds too much like ‘You Really Got Me’ by The Kinks” or something.

You never really know which songs are gonna catch on to the mainstream and last decades. I mean, it’s a miracle if it happens. But I know that they're good when we finish them. I know this song could be a lasting song, but sometimes — most of the time I’m wrong and I'm surprised when other ones are.

EA: Have you had that feeling about any of your Dirty Knob songs, where you think one is gonna have a similar song lifecycle? 

MC: Yeah. Well, when you finish a record, you look at it and — the industry today is different. It's not like singles, per se, but there's key tracks you think that are gonna catch the ear quicker and pull people in that are catchy or whatever. So you gravitate toward those as possible key tracks. But, I dunno, all the tracks are key tracks to me. 

Photo by Chris Phelps

EA: And speaking of key tracks, you pulled in some pretty heavy hitter vocalists on the last album [2024’s Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits] with Lucinda Williams, Graham Nash, and Chris Stapleton. What was it about each of those songs that prompted you to go out and recruit those specific people?

MC: Well, that was kind of an organic happening. I didn't really recruit, per se. In my life, things seemed to just drop in my lap, you know? And with Graham Nash, he had done an interview with me for my radio show, and we got into a good conversation and I got up the courage. I said, “Well, I've got this song called ‘Dare to Dream.’ Would you be interested in singing harmonies on it?” I thought he'd say he was too busy or whatever, but he said, “Yeah, I'll make your song better.” [laughs] 

EA: [laughs]

MC: And he was right, God bless him. He's such a great guy. So he put those harmonies on it and came up with a background part and kind of blew my mind.

So, that just kind of happened. Same thing with Lucinda. I was doing the interview with her and she was at my studio and we stepped into the next room. I said, “Well, would you like to sing on this song?” And we worked on “Hell or High Water" and she did an incredible version of it. And it didn't occur to me — well, I think in the back of my mind, I might have thought that “Hell or High Water” would be a good duet from two points of view. And she's got such an amazing voice. I thought when she was there, if I'm gonna do it, she's the girl to do it. And she did a great job. 

And then Chris Stapleton, once again, was in town and I was working on a record and he walked into the studio. I said, “Here's a microphone: sing.”[laughs] It wasn't planned, but that's the kind of guy he is. We hit off really well. In fact, I have plans to get together and do some more writing with him.

And Benmont [Tench, keyboardist for The Heartbreakers] was on that track, too. It happened to be an old track and Benmont was playing piano on an old recording I had that I was gonna use. So yeah, people just kind of popped up and there they were. I'm lucky that way.

EA: I know that album just came out a little over a year ago, but you’ve got this new single “Heart of the Heartland” out. Is that a taste of an upcoming project or do you see that more as a standalone song?

MC: That's a standalone one-off, in between albums. I guess I could have held it back for the album, but I've got so many songs. So, my manager thought, “Well, let's put this out while you're on tour and let it just be a standalone nice little ditty.”

And I like the song quite a bit. It's kind of a travelogue. I had fun playing with the lyrics, and so it's just out there for fun. But we do have a fourth album. It's pretty much in the can already, with a few changes here and there. But it's almost done. It'll be out next year some time.

EA: Awesome. Do you guys have long-term goals for the band? Is that something you and The Dirty Knobs talk about?

MC: Well, I don't have delusions of grandeur, let me put it that way. [laughs]

EA: [laughs]

MC: I mean, I'm realistic. Plus, the industry has changed so much that, fortunately for me, I've had a pretty charmed life. I've kind of been around the circle on the high ride for several decades.

But the truth is, I just love to play and I love to play in a band and I love the energy with the audience and I love making records. We kind of already achieved. In my mind, I thought, well, if we can just get out of the little biker bars — which are fun, but they're not very profitable — if I could get the band up to the stage where we're playing little theaters, then it would make it…we're not gonna get rich, but we'll be okay. And we'll have a shitload of fun.

If we ever played Madison Square Garden, it would be unbelievably off the charts. But right now, we've already kind of achieved my goal, which is to play theaters and the occasional opening show here and there. We opened for The Who at the Hollywood Bowl and opened for Chris Stapleton and George Strait. But I prefer doing Dirty Knob shows in theaters, 2,000-4,000 size theaters. There's so many great old theaters across America that have the gothic architecture and the big, big high ceilings and the great sound.

So, that's where we're at now. It kind of feels like we've already achieved what I set out to do. And anything beyond this is just gravy. 

EA: Nice. You mentioned you've had a very storied life and you've been able to put that down in a memoir [Heartbreaker]. How did you know it was time to make your autobiography?

MC: I didn’t — they talked me into it. [laughs]

EA: [laughs]

MC: I joke, but no, I wasn't thinking about writing a book. I thought the last thing the world needs is another guitar player writing a book. But I met this author guy [Ari Surdoval] and I liked him.  And he and a friend of mine said, “You should do this.” I thought about it for a second and, well, I'm not getting any younger, you know? It'd be nice to get all these memories down while they're still fresh in my head to live on for my grandkids or whatever. So, I kind of waded into it at their request and then I ended up getting deep into it and enjoyed it quite a bit. And it's done really well. 

EA: What was the general process of working with Ari Surdoval? 

MC: Ari is a great writer. He's got a great cadence and he's good with words, and our process was very simple. I didn't write anything. I just talked. He would call on the phone because he lives outside Nashville. We met a couple of times in person. He’d ask me a question, I'd start reminiscing, and he would write it all down and record it. And then later on he would edit it into and send it to me.

And most of the time I'd go, “That's great. Let's keep going with that. You’ve got the right vibe.” And so he had a lot to do with the cadence and the actual writing. I did the talking, but I also had to do the audiobook. That was really a lot of work, but I got that done. That was the hardest part for me. The other part was just like talking on the phone. It was kind of fun and pretty easy going. 

EA: I look forward to reading it. I got sent a PDF but I'm gonna get a copy from the library and definitely read it.

Well Mike, that's all the questions I had. I just wanted to add a big “thank you” for making so much great music and enriching my life. I feel like The Heartbreakers were one of the bands that really turned me into a music lover as a kid, and kind of pushed me towards music journalism, too.

One of the questions I often see online is, “Who's the best American band?” And I always say The Heartbreakers. S,o thanks so much and I'm glad to see that you're full of inspiration today. 

MC: Well, you know what, that's very well put and I'll share something Tom said to me once. He said, "Our job as a musician, your greatest goal is to inspire somebody on some level.” It sounds like you are inspired, so I've done my job. [laughs]

IF YOU GO

Who: Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs + Blackberry Smoke with Shannon McNally
When: Sunday, Aug. 10, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Asheville Yards, 75 Coxe Ave., ashevilleyards.com
Tickets: $64-$83

(Photo by Chris Phelps)