My dad was stationed in Okinawa, he was in the Air Force, and he picked up a $60 Goya electric and gave it to me. You cant just walk away from a dot-neck 335 that nice.. H eartbreakers' guitarist Mike Campbell vividly remembers the first time his star bandmate Tom Petty heard a recording of him singing. But I also wont sacrifice [tonal] colour for convenience.. They know what works to achieve a particular sound, and there's a little bit of room to see what else might be interesting. The following photos are from the companion book to one of the best music documentaries that I have ever seen named "Runnin' Down a Dream." In the Wilburys, you were with Harrison and Dylan. That question has been put to me a lot lately. 9 #5, published March 2008, Mike Campbell states the following: We love them because we love the Beatles and we assumed that they were using AC30s. Top 10 Mike Campbell Songs - Ultimate Classic Rock Heres how it works. This is where the tornado sequence for The. Youre joining this band. And thats where everything changed. The truth is that to have a harmonious group is not easy to do, and we do, Campbell says, evidently feeling lucky at the longstanding and successful relationship he has with Petty and the other Heartbreakers. There was a whole different viewpoint for me. We were floundering. Just doing a Heartbreakers album can put you in a home (laughs)! From the left side we have "Little Ricky," which is a Rickenbacker-style mandolin with a whammy bar. No matter what you hit, it sounds beautiful.. Key Features Fender Custom Shop Mike Campbell Limited Edition "Heartbreaker" Nocaster Body Ash Finish Nitrocellulose Lacquer Neck Rift Sawn Flame Maple With a Custom Back Shape and 7.25 Radius Frets Vintage Hardware Nickel Thank you for reading 5 articles this month*, US pricing $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year, UK pricing 2.99 per month or 29.00 per year, Europe pricing 3.49 per month or 34.00 per year, *Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription. Campbell has been of significant play in the Heartbreakers and has been co-writers with petty for many of the band's hit songs. There were some long friendships made there. Tom Petty and Mike Campbell change guitars like some people change radio stationsafter damned near every song, but they do have certain favorites that they keep returning to: Les Paul Gold Top, Fender Strat, California "This is the input right here. Monkees Instruments & Gear - The Monkees Live Almanac Or are you more likely to buy something because you need a certain sound for a certain song. Ill take it. And so we formed Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers around that group of people. Mike Campbell is having an epic vintage gear sale on Reverb.com And again, we have a lot of songs to record. And speaking of the Heartbreakers as a band, in the 80s you guys backed Bob Dylan. Mike Campbell | Vintage Guitar magazine It reminded me of Jerry Garcia. By the end, I think he was overrun! Theyre not in cases, theyre actually in a hallway where theyre visible and easily accessible. Why is he selling them? So if someone said you had to pick three or four electric guitars to record with for the rest of your days, which would they be? I tell you one guitar I want to find; Mike has a couple of different Vox guitars that have the built-in repeaters and fuzztones, and a palm wah. The cool thing about the guitars on that record, the electric guitars anyway, was that some were recorded direct. Just paring it down to a song and a story. $3.39 to $5.99. Last year, we were talking one day about how we saw some old film somewhere with that guitar, and we thought, Hows that guitar doing? We got it out, and its doing great. Our drummer at the time, Stan Lynch, and Ron Blair, our bass player, who had both played in other bands in Florida, were in L.A. Blair has a different kind of tone very clear. You guys are doing Handle With Care on this tour. Your parents bought your first guitar, a Stella acoustic. The best places to look for gear usage are typically on the artist's social media, YouTube, To receive email updates when Mike Campbell is seen with new gear. And I said, You gotta get this! Also of note is Campbell's '62 Les Paul SG Junior, which he bought at a video store, of all places for just $120. This is called Little Ricky. Explore Mike Campbell's incredible vintage guitar 'carousel' in new I bought and used it on the early records and I still use it on some records. My dad was on tour in Okinawa and sent me a $60 Goya electric six-string, he tells us. Id like to give it to you.. And amongst fans, hes a hero who, while keeping them entertained through parts of four decades, has battled to hold down the retail prices of his albums and concert tickets. Or why not treat yourself? Ill do it. And I loved it. The first nice guitar I got was a Gibson Firebird at a pawn shop when we were on tour in Alabama, says Campbell of his earliest days as a professional musician. They still make them, and theyre really good, actually. Product Description To commemorate over 30 years of Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Duesenberg have along with Mike Campbell created a beautiful signature guitar brings you classic Doozy tones in a hot rodded semi hollow design. Theres a special story behind that guitar, Campbell says of the black Rickenbacker he plays on American Girl, closing just about every show. Pettys third solo album, Highway Companion, was released last month, debuting at #4 on Billboards Top 200 album chart, and he and the Heartbreakers spent the summer on the road in support of it. Petersen Concert guitar model A 6. No, were not good trackers (laughs)! Thats a beautiful-sounding guitar, too, but its so valuable now that I leave it at home.. As a subscriber enjoy big savings off the shop price! Meet Mike Campbell, the underrated guitar genius behind all those Tom They laughed at me when I walked in and played it, but once I played Johnny B Goode, they quit laughing.. Heres how it works. I just try to write a good song, which requires enough effort. Aug-16-2009, 3:58pm #4. The Official Mike Campbell Reverb Shop Chicago, IL, United States Send Message Preferred Seller Listings 89 Feedback 58 Info & Policies Oops, Something went wrong. Usually, but not on Highway Companion; Jeff Lynne played bass on this one. Its also a very quick way of working Highway Companion was three months. MR. BIG Addicted to that Rush Vintage 1989 Promotional Guitar Pick Paul Gilbert. I just dont want to have someone damage it or drop it.. It had a weird kind of Formica finish when I got it, but I put a pale blue finish on it.. . Campbell and Petty connected, and he became a member of Mudcrutch, Pettys band at the time who were part of the burgeoning Southern rock scene (and who reunited for an album in 2008). Those days are kind of gone now, but still, collecting guitars is about loving the sound and liking instruments, you know? Are you on the lookout for anything in particular? We think whoever had it filed the horn down to make it look like Johns and painted it black. Yes, they thanked me prolifically and I mean a lot. Talk about your red Rick 660/12, the guitar thats very closely associated with you and is pictured on Damn the Torpedoes. Get the latest and greatest Guitar news with one of our guitar magazine subscriptions. The guy who ran the shop said they had a really ugly one in the back, and then brought out this red, three-pickup Firebird. But I think were still powered by the same engine basically, you know? $14.24. Still, I think wed get sick if we didnt tour. Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, It sounds better than any of your other guitars! I told him I leave it at home but I use it in the studio. But this is a great-sounding guitar, and a real workhorse. Mike Campbell: Well, my first exposure would have been the records my dad played around the house, which were mostly Elvis and Johnny Cash, stuff like that. Rickenbacker makes mandolins, but they look like this: Attached Thumbnails. Jan 19, 2019 - Explore Janet's board "Mike Campbell" on Pinterest. Together, the two have been the key to an unmistakable rock and roll sound created by one of pop music's longest-lasting entities. Campbells solution was to mount his favourite acoustic and electric guitars above his head on some rigging, using remote control to bring them down within reach. "I could hardly push the strings down, and I figured, Man, these guys Im watching play the guitar must be strong! Then I went to my friends house and he had an SG. After Torpedoes, we started to make a little profit, and started buying guitars basically as we saw them. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, when it formed, was essentially the conglomeration of prior groups Mudcrutch (Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench) and Road Turkey (Stan Lynch and Ron Blair). Well, typically, a Heartbreakers record will be the whole band setting up and tracking at the same time. And all of those Beatles records always have beautiful solos, with good tone and not much noodling; every note serves a purpose to the song, not to the players. Yeah, I do it all the time. So we met up with them and Benmont (Tench, keyboardist for the Heartbreakers) to put a demo session together. The acoustics were all Martins the Tom Petty signature models which we had just got. Free shipping. It was funny how the song went around the corner and came back to where it shouldve been. Well, like the best of us, Campbell is a long-term sufferer of Gear Acquisition Syndrome, and they're running out of storage at the Heartbreaker Clubhouse. Another favourite we have to ask about is his mysterious pale blue Gretsch. Maybe a cranked Princeton or Deluxe? So finally, I just kinda George was sitting there and they were being supportive and all and I said to him, Listen, you should play guitar on this, because it would just feel better if it had your style on it. So he said, Okay, Ill try something. So he plugged into my amp and played that solo. Heres how it works. We go inside Mike Campbell's drool-inducing lineup of vintage guitars and amps he brings on the road. Speaking of, thats the track you played on your recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and you guys were amazingly tight. This article originally appeared in VGs November 2006 issue. If youre playing with the same five or six people throughout an album, you make a different noise than if, say, its just yourself on several overdubs. "[Out of] all these guitars, [the 'Burst] is the only one I put back in the case when I'm done with it.". Pick up an astonishing new guitar with this Duesenberg Signature Series Starplayer TV Mike Campbell Guitar at Andertons! Its such a good-sounding guitar. The faceplate has a good amount of scratches on i " '67, 375. But I do still play from time to time. It used to have this great built-in fuzz and the destruct button built into it. This guitar looks like the tail of a 1959 Cadillac. Glen Campbell: the guitar prodigy represented the best of pop and He sat on it, yeah, and broke the neck off in the studio.. So we pooled our money and drove to Tulsa on our way to L.A., where we met up with Denny and signed to Shelter. In the Heartbreakers catalog, are there some favorites albums for you? The guitar carousel in action, he laughs. And on a lot of his solo work its more piecemeal, like bringing a song in and building it. The 64 Strat. I like everything they do. Pay me back later. So I was lucky to get that guitar I didnt pay her back for like five years. And the songs, like American Girl and Breakdown, still hold up. Well, its mostly about the groove, isnt it? And I think its really a great group of songs. BA1 1UA. 8,062. Im always in awe of him, of his talent. On your solo records, do you do most of the bass playing? And those are the things I end up going back and listening to again, more than the newer stuff. Howie was a great bass player. Rickenbacker Tom Petty Limited Edition Model 660/12TP Elect Fender American Vintage '59 Stratocaster Electric Guitar, Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Guitar Strings 10-46, Find relevant music gear like guitar rig, amplifier setup, effects pedalboard, and other instruments and. Yeah, with a 12-string I need a little more room at the end. They wanted me to do a Tom Petty model of that guitar, and I did, though I changed it a bit; I made the neck wider because I always thought the neck was a little cramped at the end. But I also like Michael Bloomfield, Jimi Hendrix, theres those guys who just play the s*** out of the guitar, but with a different kind of approach. King and was recommended to Campbell by the Cars, plus a variety of Fender combos. Ive done several things with Rick, including the last Johnny Cash albums that are all acoustic-based. But I really concentrated on being I guess, because Id been a bass player, I wanted to play rhythm in a real solid way. As the setlist starts to take shape, though, I try to minimise the number of guitar changes as much as I can. Those are our main ones. Mike Campbell launched The Dirty Knobs after coming to terms with his increasingly prolific creative output. Thats one of my favourites as well, but the Broadcaster is the one. Tom had just gotten some new signature-model Martins, and we used those on quite a few things. duplicated, some of them were edited or compiled together. Then out of the Whammy and into the tuner," says Mike Campbell's guitar tech when the Digitech Whammy II Guitar Effects Pedal is shown in the rig rundown. Early on, the Heartbreakers were on MTV a lot. Which we didnt discover, but George Harrison discovered because he had the second one. BA1 1UA. But the 59, theres just something about it, and I think there is a reason why all those guitar players gravitated towards it. Guitar Center 1.03M subscribers Mike Campbell's guitar playing and songwriting come from a place of joy from his long career with Tom Petty & The Heartbreaks, to joining Fleetwood Mac in. In the Refugee video, you play a red Tele with a humbucker? I was watching a Rig Rundown and I saw the settings listed below. We found three of them. Well, I finished the semester, but then we started getting gigs and I never went back to school. Other guitars include a 1980s Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty '55 Reissue, bought as a road dog to spare his '56 original, a 1950s Kay Barney Kessel Artist and an Italia Monza with a built-in amplifier. Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, This, folks, is living the dream. Blair resumed the role soon afterward.). Thats where the 62 Gibson SG Junior and Runnin Down A Dream comes in It also just goes to show that sometimes you can pickup the best guitars in the weirdest places. Sporting just one pickup and a pair of control knobs, it's the guitar Campbell used for his solo on Petty's classic 1989 tune, Runnin Down a Dream. And I dont know if I ever really learned much on it I couldnt figure out how to tune it. Used on a slew of recordings, Campbell himself mentions the guitar in this September 1999 "Spotlight on a Heartbreaker" interview from the official Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers website. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. That was my main guitar for the first three years I wish I still had it. Mike Campbell is selling a trove of vintage gear on Reverb, including a number of electric guitars and amps he has used through the years with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Don Henley and Fleetwood Mac.