Mike Campbell > Quotes

“I thought, that’s the way to live your life. Give gifts. Be generous to people. Be present in the moment. George taught me that.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“I could give him a tape of three chords that I recorded to play over while I practiced, and he would come back with lyrics thousands of people would sing with tears in their eyes. He wrote songs that gave people great courage and comfort.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“little suitcase and the Guyatone case at my feet.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Gibson stopped making the Les Paul for several years in the sixties, replacing it with the SG until 1968,”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Can we do “Shelter from the Storm”? Sure. Can we do “Forever Young”? If you want.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“It was our best song by far at the time, and maybe the best that we ever did. It is the sound of us becoming the band we were, of us transforming into Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, all at once and all together.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Casa Dega.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“That night, alone with Bob, Benmont gracefully ended “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” with”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“He checked his notes. “Damn the Torpedoes shot them full steam ahead last year. The new album is called Hard Promises, and it has been in the top ten since its release. The song is called ‘King’s Road.’ Would you please welcome… Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.” The audience cheered. Stan counted us in. We sounded like a jet engine taking off. I was playing the Broadcaster; Tom was playing an old blond Tele. We had our Vox amps cranked. Across the studio from me, Snyder looked”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Runnin’ Down a Dream.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“By the time I got to the corner of Winnetka, I just wanted to”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Pierce College, stretching while I waited at crosswalks. I was heading to a running trail I liked that ran a mile loop starting on Canoga.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“As Tom sang the last down of the chorus, I rolled the volume up on the Gretsch and played the solo that’s on the record in one pass.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“It was a long, narrative song called “Danville Girl” that Bob had written with Sam Shepard. As I played”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Jones’s guitar part on the Stones’ “The Last Time.” I taught myself that main riff and admired how uniquely Jones played it, with hammer-ons, midway up the neck, on the lower strings. You could tell Jones knew how to play other stringed instruments, because that’s not the typical guitar way to play that riff. As I played it, most of the notes stayed the same, but I changed the rhythm and phrasing and wrote a riff to answer it. Suddenly, a whole new song had emerged. I recorded it. I gave it to Tom. He worked on it over a series of late nights. It became “Nightwatchman.” He”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“and we all played “Chimes of Freedom” and “In the Garden” together.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“So we kept “Insider” and Stevie got “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” with Tom singing it with her for her debut album, Bella Donna.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“It was a crumbling wood-frame farmhouse with a bowing tin roof and walls that leaned like four winos trying to hold one another up.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“don’t know how to thank you, Miss Collier.” “You just go to Gainesville. Follow your dreams from there.” My eyes burned and my throat got tight. “Yes, ma’am.” “Promise?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Have an incredible life, Michael,” she said. “Do wonderful, amazing things with your gifts. See the world. Make your mark. Thank me that way.” “Yes, ma’am.” I left by the side door and walked home alone, floating like I was in a dream. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, and the Florida sun dried my tears of relief almost as fast as they rolled down my cheeks.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“We found another apartment in West Hollywood, on the corner of Melrose and Gardner.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“I handed Tom my J-45. He strummed a simple, repeating riff and stayed on it as he sang the lyrics. He said it was called “Free Fallin’.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“A few days later, I put the Broadcaster and the LinnDrum in my trunk and drove back over to Cherokee for another session. We worked on a new song of Bob’s called “Trust Yourself.” Keltner played a low rumble that swayed in time with Bob at the mic. Bob had his back to me, and”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“we scraped up enough to pay the rent on a small, sunny apartment in a building right off Kirkwood and Laurel Canyon.”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“It’s called ‘The Date I Had with That Ugly Old Homecoming Queen.’” I laughed out loud. Tom was more relaxed in front of the Fillmore audience. The room sounded great, and the consistency of the venue night after night helped him loosen up. He started inviting me up to his dressing room to write the set list, just like we used to. Benmont joined us. We came up with covers, deep tracks. The sets were raucous and fun. All sorts of pals started stopping by. Roger McGuinn joined us one night for “Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man,” the Byrds classic he wrote with Gram Parsons, and “Eight Miles High.” A few nights later, Tom welcomed the great John Lee Hooker onstage to sing “Serves You Right to Suffer” and “Boogie Chillen.” It felt like a new era—with a fresh lineup and sense of camaraderie. I felt like Wildflowers had proclaimed Tom’s intent to reach a greater level of musical depth and seriousness as an artist. But the raucous theater residencies allowed us to explore the looseness and spontaneity that we had experienced playing with Bob. I thought we were in a new place as a band, even as friends, and I was excited to see where it would all lead. Sadly, in the years following Wildflowers, Howie’s addiction to heroin intensified. Each time I saw him, it was shocking. It stripped”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“a beautiful duet of John Sebastian’s “Stories We Could Tell.” And later in the tour, we started”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Howie Epstein was a happy-go-lucky Jewish kid from Milwaukee, with”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“I had a glass slide in my coat pocket. I handed it to him. George looked down at it and grinned. He shrugged and said, oh, okay, I’ll try. He sat down with my Strat, slipped the slide on his finger, and played the solo on “Handle with Care,” off the top of his”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“The Satellites were funny and fun to be around,”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“Nashville-tuned Martin”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir

“It is another reason why Full Moon Fever sounded so different from anything else Tom ever did. Benmont didn’t play on it. Benmont contributed much of the musical beauty on Wildflowers. I think Tom realized”
― Mike Campbell, Heartbreaker: A Memoir