It should really come as no surprise that Mike Campbell’s memoir Heartbreaker (448 pp. $32. Grand Central Publishing) is really as much about his bandmate Tom Petty as it is about him. It’s no wonder. For over 40 years, Campbell served as the lead guitarist in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, collaborating with Petty on most of the band’s songs. While Petty occupied the spotlight and led the band, Campbell kept things running smoothly in the engine room.
Reflecting on his relationship with Petty, Campbell writes, “Early on, even before we knew it, we made some unspoken deal that we were going down the line together, no matter what. Me and him. Full speed ahead, from the very beginning to the very end.”
Heartbreaker will probably never be considered one of the great rock and roll memoirs, not in the league with Keith Richards’ Life or Bob Dylan’s Chronicles or Patti Smith’s Just Kids. However, it is a fine read and a compelling tale, even if we know how things are going to end.
What Campbell does well (with the assistance of Ari Surdoval) is to capture the thrill felt by a young musician whose wildest musical dreams are realized and even exceeded. Campbell had genuine talent, and he worked hard over the years, perfecting his craft while growing up poor in northern Florida during the ‘60s, when many of the state’s residents didn’t have much use for hippies and long-hair types. Campbell writes of being nervous during a trip to an out-of-town gig in Alabama after seeing the film Easy Rider and its depiction of rednecks bent on violence.
Though Campbell was a shy and (initially) unambitious young man, he began to think that just maybe he could actually make a living playing guitar. That prospect became real for him when he was paid $100 for a week’s worth of early gigs. Campbell recalls that “it was more money than I had ever seen in my life.”
Fans of the Heartbreakers are aware that, from the beginning, Petty and Campbell had something of a big brother / little brother relationship. Where Campbell was soft-spoken and unassuming, Petty was confident and self-assured. However, the two young musicians found that they complemented each other perfectly when it came to writing songs and developing a distinctive sound that would ultimately lead them to the highest echelons of rock and roll.
Nevertheless, Petty frequently asserted his dominion over the rest of the band, most significantly when a series of events led him to declare that, from that point on, his name would be the top one on the marquee and that he would make the decisions. While working on the 1981 album Hard Promises, Campbell points out that, since he is making significant songwriting contributions, playing all the guitar parts, playing some of the bass parts and working on mixing, he deserves to make more money.
Petty’s answer: “’Yeah, but I’m Tom Petty.’ ‘What?'” Campbell asks. “’I’m Tom Petty,’” he repeats. Campbell is dumbfounded. “I stared back at him,” Campbell writes. “He stared back like he was wondering what I didn’t understand. It was so simple. I realized he was serious. That was really his answer.”
Many of the book’s passages will resonate with any musician who has played professionally at any level. Campbell writes of the discouragement he feels while playing to a couple of bartenders in an otherwise empty club. He and his bandmates quickly learn the fundamental lesson that, when playing in a bar, it is their job to sell beer, not to produce groundbreaking music. Early in their partnership, Petty and Campbell secure a gig as members of the house band at a club featuring topless dancers and wet T-shirt contests. The proprietor’s goal, Campbell recalls, was to “pack the place with every music and nudity enthusiast from three states.”
One of the book’s more amusing passages deals with Campbell visiting a guitar store in Los Angeles shortly after he and the rest of the band had traveled to the West Coast with the intention of making it big. Campbell has the good and bad fortune to spy a 1950 Fender Broadcaster hanging on the wall. This guitar was the predecessor to the more well-known Telecaster and highly coveted by collectors for both its distinctive tone and its relative scarcity.
“Neither one of us understood how the other one did it. But we had fallen into a way of writing together that was working.”
When a salesman asks, “Want to plug it in?” Campbell knows that he is a goner after strumming the first chord. Not being able to afford the guitar, Campbell hauls in the band’s PA system to secure the instrument, mistakenly believing that the music store operates like a pawn shop, and that he will later be able to reclaim the gear. Petty is furious when he finds out, but he calms down once Campbell begins to play his new acquisition. The next week, coincidently or not, Petty manages to accidentally sit on Campbell’s Firebird guitar, snapping its neck.
While Campbell and Petty collaborated on songs, they often worked together separately. Campbell would create fully arranged instrumental demos, for which Petty would compose lyrics, while Petty would present the bands with rough ideas – maybe a chord progression with a vocal hook – to work up collectively. Though their methods were completely different, Campbell says, “Neither one of us understood how the other one did it. But we had fallen into a way of writing together that was working.”
Heartbreaker, while often conjuring up feelings of sadness and regret, is not a downer by any means. There are plenty of humorous stories placed within the text, including one in which Campbell and Petty are invited to a Rolling Stones rehearsal. According to Campbell, Mick Jagger was gracious and funny, while Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood were flying on another airline. Bill Wyman was not at this particular gathering, but his bass rig was set up and ready to go. Campbell saw his opportunity to make an end run around the boss.
He recalls that Wood said, “‘Oi, do either of you play ba—’ ‘I do!’ I shouted, before Tom could say anything. I practically ran to the stage. I strapped on the old Fender P-Bass and flipped the Ampeg [amp] on. Without calling the song, Keith played the slinky open-G intro to ‘Tumbling Dice,’ and we all fell in behind him. When we got to the chorus, and I played Mick Taylor’s bass line correctly, Keith looked over with a hint of surprise. He seemed to notice me for the first time. His eyes narrowed. I tried to be cool, but I couldn’t help but smile. Ever so subtly – I’m sure, I’m positive, I promise, I swear – I think Keith nodded at me.”
Campbell tells his story in a direct, linear fashion, and the reader knows where it is headed, toward Petty’s death from a drug overdose in 2017. Campbell reports noticing that, on the Heartbreakers’ 40th anniversary tour, Petty would sometimes wince in pain when picking up a guitar, the result of a hip ailment which was later revealed to actually be a broken hip.
Campbell says that Petty refused to cancel the tour or even cut it short, since he knew that members of the band and the crew were depending on that income for their livelihoods. Consequently, he was self-medicating with opioids in order to keep performing. While he sang and played well, it was obvious that something was wrong. After concluding the tour with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl, Petty died a week later from an accidental overdose.
Heartbreaker is billed as a memoir – as opposed to an autobiography – and that is significant. Campbell doesn’t try to recount every recording session or tour, nor does he drag the reader through a pedantic recounting of everything remotely interesting that has occurred in his career. Rather, he focuses on specific moments, how they made him feel at the time, and how he views them now. Primarily, he is thankful.
Writing about the moments following the final Heartbreakers performance, Campbell says, “Backstage, I sat down and caught my breath, but I wanted to catch [Tom] before he left. I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him and how proud I am of what we created together, and how grateful I am for all that we went through, even the hard times. But I missed him somehow. I turned around and he was gone.
“I’ll tell you instead.”
