For Mike Campbell, opening a new chapter with the Dirty Knobs on upcoming album Mission of Mercy, doesn’t mean he’s forgetting his roots with late bandmate Tom Petty.
Rather, he’s embracing the future while nodding to his illustrious career through the gear he’s using – namely, an old amp from the early days of the Heartbreakers.
“I stick with what I’m comfortable with,” he admits in an upcoming interview with Guitar World.
“I’ll try a new guitar or amp, but if I’m recording and working on a record, I don’t want to be bothered with too many choices. I want to focus on the song and the performance.”
Indeed, for this record – and for the last couple of albums – Campbell reconnected with a loyal companion: the Ampeg Rocket from when the Heartbreakers were first starting out.
So, how did he manage to unearth this long-forgotten gem? “It was just in my closet,” he replies, “and one day I pulled it out, turned it on, and thought, ‘Wow… this is a sound that I’ve been missing.’
“It sounded really good, and I sort of stumbled back into the room, and there it was,” Campbell adds with a laugh. Turns out, it was exactly the tone he was looking for after all these years – and it had been there all along.
Guitar World’s interview with Mike Campbell will be published in the coming weeks.
In more recent news, Campbell looked back on writing The Boys of Summer with Don Henley – after Tom Petty passed on the song.
