Mike Campbell, who plays Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida on Aug. 13, 2025. Credit: Photo by Chris Phelps via Sacks & Co.

The last time Tampa Bay hosted Mike Campbell—Tom Petty’s right-hand man in the Heartbreakers for just over 40 years, and then some—he closed his set at the since-shuttered Ybor City location of Orpheum with a rendition of John Sebastian’s “The Stories We Could Tell,” which his old boss would often dust off. And after years of more or less hiding in the shadows, original Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch came out from behind the kit and harmonized centerstage, right next to his old friend.

Whether or not that finale was meant to be symbolic—considering the spontaneity of Lynch’s one-summer only position in Campbell’s solo band, The Dirty Knobs—that summer of what one could call the first Heartbreakers reunion tour does serve as another story to be told.

Needless to say, the last decade has been nothing short of a whirlwind for the 75-year-old, Jacksonville-born Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Tom Petty’s shocking death in 2017 following a triumphant 40th anniversary tour with his boys marked the end of an era, but also the beginning of a new one that was tricky to break into.

“I used to be really shy, intimidated and insecure, especially about singing,” Campbell told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay during a recent phone call. When he covered for Lindsey Buckingham on what seems to be Fleetwood Mac’s last tour in the late-2010s, he spent time hanging out with Stevie Nicks’ vocal coach Steve Real, who would give him some pointers that helped to boost his self-confidence. And if you know anything about the Mac, it doesn’t get much more confident than the White Witch herself.

“I realized that if you step up to the microphone and you’re not sure of yourself, you’re gonna suck, you know?” Campbell continued. “But if you step up, and you’re like ‘I know I can do this. I know I got this. I’m under control,’ and you’ve got the confidence, it’s usually pretty good.”

Though it’s understandable how confidence was an issue for him for so many years.

The best friendships are the ones where honesty is a two-way street, even when a plethora of constructive criticism all at once can become a bitch of a pill to swallow. In Campbell’s autobiography “Heartbreaker” (which released earlier this year), he recalls how the “great truth-teller” Tom Petty gave him some unyielding advice upon first hearing some Dirty Knobs demos back in the day: The songs sounded like an imitation of him, and anyone who told Campbell that he sounded good was lying to him. The songs were shelved (he told CL that he doesn’t remember which specific six or seven songs Petty heard), and while his partner’s truth stung, he still saw it as an opportunity to work on his craft as a songwriter.

These days, Campbell cites movie conversations and chord changes in old songs as examples of how his material has evolved in the songwriting process. “It’s really starting from just a germ of inspiration, which comes from Lord knows where, some magical sphere somewhere. It comes through you, and then you just grab it and try to hone it into something that makes sense,” he added.

And like any creator, Campbell’s primary honing technique is as simple as constant revision and redos of arrangements, lyrics, and recordings.

“Once I feel like ‘well, this is not embarrassing,’ I might play it for somebody, see if they like it or not,” he mentioned. “It’s kind of an intimidating job, but I love it.”

Songwriting styles evolve over time, as well as the process of immortalizing those works on tape. While most of the Heartbreakers’ albums required polishing, as time went by, overdubbing and excessive production became less and less necessary. “There was a lot of that shit going on back in the day, which I don’t do anymore. I don’t have patience for it—I just want to play,” Campbell declared.

But by 2010’s Mojo (the ‘Breakers’ penultimate record), the band was recording with little to no overdubbing, and this was a practice that Campbell imported over to his band when its own debut album Wreckless Abandon emerged in 2020. “It’s a continuation of playing live in the studio to get the takes down with some kinetic energy between the players, as opposed to building a song up track by track,” he recounted.

It was the same deal on the Knobs’ latest album, last summer’s Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits, too. The record—which is either very Heartbreakers-coded, or proves just how Mike Campbell-centralized each Heartbreakers record was—featured guest spots from Graham Nash, Campbell’s fellow former Heartbreaker Benmont Tench, and in tow, a new second guitarist.

Founding Knob Jason Sinay (with an alter ego of Ape) left the fold in mid-2022, just before the band opened a few shows for The Who. And as difficult of a loss that was, Campbell swears that current guitarist Chris Holt (who had performed on some Don Henley solo material with Knobs bassist Lance Morrison) is a “godsend” due to his eclecticism, variety of instrumental knowledge, and his matching personality.

“He came in and just elevated everything like, 10 times,” Campbell recalled. “He sings great harmony, plays amazing guitars, and he also plays keyboards, which allows us to have a wider set list.”

While Campbell is unsure about any future Petty vault projects (which you’d have to ask his estate about), he brought up how the Dirty Knobs are starting to build up an impressive vault of their own, due to how constantly he’s writing material. In short, if you were worried, Campbell is making it pretty clear that his Clearwater debut next week—which is the second-to-last show of his summer tour—won’t be the last we hear of the Dirty Knobs.

And the show will continue the post-Heartbreakers brotherhood motifs that Pettyheads have been so lucky to witness, because joining the band on drums will be Steve Ferrone (founding member Matt Laug is out drumming for some band called AC/DC), who banged the cans for the Heartbreakers in the last 25-or-so years of their existence.

“We just had that bond of ‘all for one and one for all,’ and once we found our sound, we weren’t gonna let anybody fuck with it, you know?” Campbell explained. “We knew we had something special, and we were grateful for it.”

Even with the sandy-haired Gainesville boy almost eight years gone, the brotherhood of his Heartbreakers remains nearly unmatched. The stories it could tell, man.

Tickets to see Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs play Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall on Wednesday, Aug. 13 are still available and start at $55.25.
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