Top 25 Mike Campbell Quotes

You never know if its gonna be a big hit, you hope for the best.

I grew up in the 60s, and before the 60s, my father was into Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, so I heard those records all the time and soaked that up.

If I had to pick one guitar to take to a desert island, I’d pick my ’67 Rickenbacker 12-string, which I bought a couple of tours ago in New Jersey. The ’67 is George-style from A Hard Day’s Night, with the double binding. It’s just like heaven. It sounds incredible.

Almost every time, if the vocal is really good, the band is almost always good too.

Youre right, I do write a lot. In some ways, staying home and not being able to tour was kind of normal for me. Because when Im home, Im very active with writing and I have a studio here.

My amp setup is the same that Ive had for years. Its a Fender Princeton side-by-side with a Fender Tweed Deluxe. Thats my main sound. And then behind that I have a Leslie that is set on slow. Its kind of on all the time, just for some depth.

Top Of The Pops’ was the show to be on. Youd go in in the afternoon, re-record the track for them, and then youd mime to the track that you cut that afternoon.

Keeping a band together is more work than anybody will ever tell you.

Sometimes when you start writing a song, you dont know where theyre going to lead you. You just kind of follow the ideas that come in. Its all kind of stream of consciousness. Thats whats so fascinating about songwriting. Its kind of magical.

I think that the future of the world isn’t something you can ignore.

There are songs that do get lost along the way, but as soon as you pull them out it all comes back to you.

Because we recorded in the studio, basically live, when we went to rehearse, we kind of already knew how to play the songs. But I also will take liberties with the Dirty Knobs. If I want a solo to go on longer or if I want to throw in a song thats not in the setlist, we can do it.

Madison Square Garden is a big deal.

I like songs that can be dark or threatening or dangerous, but its a better song if you can keep that and somehow stick a little bit of that things are going to be okay at the end, were going to work through this, and theres a brighter light on the other side of the road.

The first time I saw Tom Petty, he was playing in a band called Mudcrutch with Tom Leadon. They were in a park doing country-rock type stuff.

I never wanted to be a solo artist. I always wanted to be in a band.

I never really composed guitar solos. Id usually ask to run the tapes and Id go off the top of my head to make something work.

I have a band called the Dirty Knobs that Ive had for probably 15 years now, and Ive worked with them between Heartbreakers tours, mostly just playing clubs and little theaters around L.A.

I tell people to listen really closely to the song when they’re working out their guitar parts.

The Heartbreakers got kind of stuck with these hits and we had to play them like the records, which is a great balance too and we were really good at that.

I have about 10 or 12 guitars, some of which are in non-standard tunings. Mostly I play a clone of my 59 Les Paul. Gibson made that for me when I first got mine, and I take that on the road. Its really great.

My very first guitar was pretty much unplayable. I was 14 or something. My mom went to a pawn shop and got me a Harmony acoustic. I didn’t know any better!

Songwriting is such a mysterious thing. Its a magical channel thats a gift to you and you cant really conjure it up when you want it to. It could pop up when youre driving or out having dinner.

I try to get into a headspace where I pretend like this is the first time Im ever hearing this song, and I get into that and I just try to discover it. I found that if I really put my head in that space then I can get into it. I can discover it all over again.

The Knobs started out as a project to do between Heartbreakers tours. I met the guys very organically, and I didnt really intend to audition a band, per se. But I had some songs and we just hit it off.