That happened a lot with Tom’s writing, too. I wasn’t thinking about it or trying to do anything - just following my stream of consciousness - and that little piece came out. It’s a great story because, as a musician and writer, it speaks to the magic that happens when you don’t know what you’re doing. So I went back to the studio and realized what he wanted me to do. You gotta come back to the studio because that guitar lick you played at the end of the song should go at the beginning!” I had no idea what he was talking about. Two hours later Tom calls me up and excitedly goes, “Mike, I’m down at the studio listening to the track.
I didn’t think twice about it and went home. Near the last minute or so with the guitar, because my mind got bored and shut off, I went, da da da da / da da da da. I told Tom, “Put on the track and I’ll noodle along and try to come up with some ideas. He had written it on piano and our first cut was about six-minutes long, which we knew needed to be cut down. We were working on our first record and Tom brought the song in. It’s a pretty simple lick, but it’s my sound and my feel. “Breakdown.” People always tell me that they instantly know who it is when they hear that. “The lowest point in the Heartbreakers career is when we lost Tom,” Campbell makes clear. In honor of getting back, somewhat, to business, Campbell spoke with Vulture about the the best and worst of the Heartbreakers - beyond Petty’s tragic 2017 death for the latter, of course.
He’s still optimistic that the band will be able to keep their summer and fall 2021 tour dates and is happy that Petty’s posthumous album, Wildflowers & All the Rest, was at least able to be released. Next week, Campbell, the Heartbreakers’ lead guitarist, will release a new album, Wreckless Abandon, with his band the Dirty Knobs, following months of Campbell making cute quarantine music videos at home. They also rocked out, and they rocked out hard, so please listen to “Refugee” and “Breakdown” before the prosecution rests. But don’t let their jaunty tenderness fool you. They crooned about life’s eternal battle to overcome adversity (“Learning to Fly”), women wanting more (“American Girl”), relationship woes (“Don’t Do Me Like That”), and small-town angst (“Mary Jane’s Last Dance”), always bringing a moment of herby zen when needed most. The Heartbreakers transcended to become America’s band. Three of those are Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, and Benmont Tench, the core Heartbreakers members who formed the band out of Gainesville in 1976. I can count on one hand the number of good things that have come out of Florida over the past century. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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