Pushkin. When Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin first talked about making Broken Record, one of the artists they really wanted to speak with was Tom Petty. But then right as we started production on the show, Tom Petty sadly passed away. Everyone was processing what happened, including Malcolm and Rick. So one afternoon they got together at Shango Law, turned the mics on and talked about Petty and his music, about how Rick first fell in love with the band, driving around La listening to Running Down a Dream, and the plans Petty had to put out a trove of unreleased material from Wildflowers, an album Rick produced. That album was one of many high water marks of Petty's career. Ricks long thought, and he told Malcolm that day he believes albums so good because Petty was trying to impress him. Petty's lead guitarist and occasional co writer, Mike Campbell talked to Rick last spring, confirming Rick's notion. They talk in depth about the making of Wildflowers and about Mike's new album with a band called the Dirty Knobs. It's the first band Mike's ever been a part of without Petty. We started playing with in the early seventies, and it's the first time Rick's been able to catch up with Mike since Tom's death. They talk about their work together over the years and how the Heartbreakers always managed to find new life. Plus, Mike tells a great story about how he wrote the riff for Running Down a Dream. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmonds. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes. For licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right, enjoy the episode. Here's Mike Campbell in conversation with Rick Rubin. Let's let's start talking about Gainesville. If that's cool can Gainesville was some of the happiest times of my life. That's where I I got out of high school in Jacksonville. I went to college in Gainesville, University of Florida on an Air Force loan society. My dad was in the Air Force. Because we didn't have much money. But anyway, I went to college there and there was a real healthy music scene going on. Must bands and a couple of parks on the university where you could play for free. And I started making friends with different musicians about what year about what year was this seventy two? Well, like I got of high school, there was seventy Who how did Mudcrutch become a band? Mudcrutch was a band with Tom Petty, Tom Laden and some other guys. And they were one of the bands that was they would do country rock, but they would throw in some original songs now and then. And I would see them at the park and p the free gigs out in the lawn, and I thought, well, these guys are you know they there's something going on here, you know. And then I had a band with Randall Marsh was a trio like a blues jam acid trio. And and turns out Random and I were sharing I don't want to get too long with it, were sharing a farm at the edge of town. And I saw a thing on the university student union, Mudcrutch looking for a new drummer, so oh, and Randall and I were kind of fed up with what we were doing, so I should give this to Randall. He might, you know, get a gig here. And I thought, these are guys were pretty good. They had harmonies, and you know, they weren't a jam band like we were. They actually had songs. And so I told them about it, and they came out to our farm to audition Randall and I was in the back room, and it turns out they just lost their guitar player too that day, and so they're going, Randall, do you know anybody brother's this guy in the back? You know? And I was a geek. I had came in and cut off some short hair I did. I was not a hippie yet, you know, I was not hip. I will do it this time nineteen twenty two, twenty one something like that. And uh, I came walking in with my little Japanese guitar and they just went, oh god, no. And then I said, look it was Tom two. Tom's Tom Leading, Tom Petty and Jim Lanahan who became our lighting director. He was the lead singer. That's another story, and Randall and so they said, well, they were looking at me like, oh, how did we get out of this? So what songs do you know? How about Johnny be Good? Everybody knows that, right, And they all like looked at me and Tom tell us a story on the tour, he says, at the end of the song, he said like, I don't know who you are, but you're in my band forever. It's a true story. And you know, he was telling them on the last tour I s was a little bit, so they forgot how I looked. I fixed that in time, but I got a better guitar. But we just hit it off right away, and I realized Tom was writing songs and I was starting to write a little bit too, not as good as him, but I had the inkling to write, and so we hit it off, and he showed me some songs I should have said. He goes, oh, that sounds kind of like Roger mcgwinn, that you should keep working on that. And so we just became fast friends from then on, and we just connected. And it's like it seemed like anytime he would have an idea, I knew what to put with it, or if I had an idea, he knew what to put with it instinctively. It was just one of the magical things we cross passed. Beautiful. I do miss him. Let's go back. Let's go back, miss him too, Let's go back even further. First memories of music. It was the first thing that got you excited about music. Well, that's easy. It was my dad. My dad was in the Air Force and he would come home, put on a record and lay on the couch and just zone out for an hour. And it was either Elvis or Johnny Cash, and I would look at him going like, whatever he's hearing, it's got him completely hypnotized. He's really deep into this, and so I would listen to it and I immediately picked up on the guitars Scotty Moore and Luther Perkins who played with Johnny, and I just was enamored with the sound. And then I asked him one day, Dad, why do you listen to Johnny Cash so much? And he goes because he speaks the truth, okay, words or wisdom, you know, And that was my first And then of course the Beatles in that generation, they came on TV and everything changed and I had to have a guitar, which I couldn't afford. But that was when I saw them, and they just blew my mind because up until then you'd watched the Ed Sullivan Show, which is the only place to see new music, and be like some guy up there singing and a band somewhere out You didn't even see them. It's just a singer. And the Beatles came on. First of all, they were almost my age, and there was no band behind the curtain. The guys playing the bass and singing the drums are right there. They're all the four little combo and they're all doing it with no help from anybody, and they're really fucking good. And the girls are going nuts. That's what I want to do. So you got a guitar after seeing the Beatles? Yeah, I got. I got a paunch up guitar. My mom got me a fifteen dollar guitar that I couldn't It was unplayable, but I didn't know. I thought that, boy, these guys are good. This is so hard. How do they do it? Because the strings or high I would bleed, you know, I loved it so much. I would just play until I bleeded. And so I just got the bug. And it's like once I found the guitar, nothing else mattered. I'm going to play this guitar as much as I can. I gotta go to school, but when I get back, I'm on the guitar and I just loved it. I still do so then you're in mud Crutch and what kind of gigs did you do? What was it like being in that band? Well, it was it was a lot of fun and we barely made enough money to make a living, which was really cool because I was living in this my friend's garage for fifteen bucks a month. He let me live there, and with Mudcrutch we would play women's club dances. Sometimes the university would give us a couple of hundred bucks to play fraternitys occasionally, not too much because we didn't play covers. Our biggest gig where we really got good was a dub steer room on the edge of town, a topless bar. That was my first gig. I'm glad you're minding this is the best story of all. And it was great because it was four sets a night, all week long. Okay, so we had to throw in a few covers because we only had, you know, so many originals. But and we would say, oh, here's one by Santana and then we'd do our own, you know, and they were so drunk they didn't care. But the funny thing is the topless bar and then like the third song, they had two dance stands on either side of the stage, and these two girls would jump up and they'd have their you know, and almost half thirst of the song, they pulled their tops off, and the first time they did it, the band quick playing like we've ever seen that before. Oh okay, and you know, we learned real fast. But and then on Thursdays they'd have wet T shirt contest and wet T shirt contests. This is Gainesville, okay, it's a lot of deep redneck culture and so Doves Steakhouse topless bar. You're going to get some of the seedious residents are going to come to that bar. And you know, they were great. They were so drunk. They were great audiences usually, but on wet T shirt contests night, they'd have the girls get up and they'd drench them in they'd have the T shirt son, they drench them in water so you could see everything, and they'd get up and dance, and all the guys would come down front, like all the drooling drunks. But we got good because we played like two months every night and I got like one hundred bucks a week, well, you know, for playing you know, every many hours. But that was a lot of money. And we had a house just up the street that we shared and we could pay our rent and buy some wine or you know, burghers, and we could live, you know, as musicians. So the first time I was a working musician and I really liked it, you know, making my money with my instrument. So you played a lot of hours every day in front of people. Yeah, so we got tight. We learned how to how to work the room. And you know, it's like, we're not the Beatles, but I read about the Beatles going to Hamburg and when you play four hours every night after a month, get good one, two, three, four. We got this, you know what I mean. It just you get good confidence, yeah, and the communication between the members and just muscle memory. Everything. You just get good and where you work it. And so we got really good, and then we started getting some better gigs at the university here and there. But eventually you reached the point where this is as far as we can go in this town. You know, we're at the top of the game here. But that's it. I'm gonna have to make a record, I guess. You know, if you want to move up, we get to move on up to a bigger city, you know, and get more serious about it, and that's what we did. So what was the next step, Well, we pulled all our money. We made a demo at ben Mont's house when his parents were home. Ben Mountain was the rich kid he had his parents had a nice house. So we pulled in a truck and recorded a demo live to when did ben Mont get in? Because we're still we're still in mud Crutch, mud crug right, it was. Tom Ladden left the band after about three years. We had a disagreement over at dubs. He told dubs that we wanted more money, which we didn't, and he fired us and so we fired him. We all made up after that. But then we had seen ben Mont around. He was just a great musician, and so let's get a piano in the band. So he joined the band about two years into it, and you were still called Mudcrutch. Yeah, we were still it was. The name stayed the same. But we cut a live demo of three songs on live onto tape, and we pulled all our money and three of the guys went out to La to shop the tape. We got a couple of feelers, one with Shelter Records, who had a studio in Tulsa, and they said, well, why don't you if you're coming out to La, which we were planning just going to go out there and take our chances, stopping Tulsa on the way out and see if we can. We'll make a demo there, and we did, and we liked Anny Cordell a lot. He's kind of like you. He was just kind of like he seemed to have an overview of you know, can you guys do that? That's not so cool, but when you keep doing that, that's that's the ship, you know, that kind of thing. And I really love that guy. And so he kind of got it, you know, and he got town, he got the songwriting, and he got the band, and he signed us. I remember him coming to visit us when we were making Wildflowers. He came to the mixed session. Yeah, and I remember Tom was really excited that he was coming. He had a vibe. He was very wise man, and I remember that. And I remember we played him, we were playing him and we got and he always liked me too. He always thought that, you know, you know, you're really insecure, but you're important to this. He always gave me confidence. And we were listening to that those tracks and erect Me came on. He looked at me and he goes, that's the one I've been waiting for. God bless him. Amazing. Wow, you're getting misty thinking about all these memories. Okay, it's good. So you get signed to Shelter. Yeah, and then what happens. You know, it's funny you had mentioned that, because I just found a journal from those days that I was keeping of our first days at Shelter Records, and I would write, like, went in the studio today, cut this song, whatever we take. It's the next single or the first thing. Next page, it's not the first single. It's really not that good. Next page. Went in the studio for four hours, didn't get a track. We suck next day, drinking too much. It was like Greenhorns trying to figure out how to make a record. We didn't know anything about playing in the studio, and we struggled a lot at the beginning, but Cordell stuck with us because he liked the songs. And then at one point in the journal it goes, we went to the studio with the heart with the band, you know, stand and Ron and Ben and Mike and Tom, and then the next day or next week, Tom brought in four songs American Girl Breakdown. It's like it's like night and day. All of a sudden, it just happened. The bloodgates opened. As soon as the songs came in. We were there. Wow, you know, and on Tom of a sudden it started to sound good, amazing, And that kind of blew my mind when I read that, like it was just a moment in time where that switch turned. I guess he in his mind he thought this, I gotta step up now, and like, you know, all the songs good songs. Remember, there was anything else going on in his life that would have sparked that. I don't know. I think it was just a good question. Who knows. No, there's nothing players that, anything, any life changing event at that moment other than that the band that what became the Heartbreakers was in one room and maybe that was just that energy was enough to turn his switch on. Yeah, it is interesting how that happens, how you see. And I wouldn't even remember that if I hadn't seen the journal. But it was almost like night and day, struggling, struggling, struggling, boom, here's the songs, here's the band ready to go. And how how did it work out that you guys got popular in the UK? First, well, we put the record out and break Down an American Girl, got a little bit of play in Boston and San Francisco, but it was happening really And then we got offered a tour opening for Nils Lofgren who had just had a hit over there, and we went over to England, which was so what a dream. We're going to England to play we have a record out. You know, we didn't realize that record is not really happening right now. We're got we got gigs were happening, you know, in our little mind, we were already there, you know, but we had no idea what was about to happen. And we got over there and we started touring around England with Nils and we were really good live. And I remember the first gig we played in England was in Wales and we were opening for Nils and we had no respect for the opening act, you know, like we're gonna we're taking no prisoners, you know, we're gonna take this moment what hell or high water? Kind of assholes about it, really, but that's the way it was Tom and I went out there and the first gig in England were like and Tom's running around, I'm running around and we're doing our thing and the crowd's going crazy and we got wrapped up in our chords. It was a total spinal tap because we lost and we're standing there like literally wrapped tied tight. The roadies had to come out. But it was great, you know, that's just how exciting it was. And then from that we started getting good press. They would come to see Nels laffer and go, oh fuck, what was this ship that happened right before that? You know, the kind of kicked his ass, got what We almost felt bad for him because we were really going for it and it was our time and it wasn't his time. So we kept getting really good press, so ended that tour. They booked our own little tour while we were there, got great press, and the record started to pick up, and somehow that's we came back to the States and it spilled over. So it seems like it the the live drove the record instead of the other way around. Yeah, at that time it did until the record caught on, Yeah, and then it just and then what was the first song that really caught on it was either Breakdown or an American Girl. I think it was Breakdown. His Breakdown got the most airplay, but then American Girl came on. So if we were to go through and tell me if you need to see the covers to be able to remember, but how would you say if we talk about each album in order, your memories of what made each of those what it was? Do you know what I'm saying in the making of it? M would you remember it? So? For from the first record and it's the first So yeah, the first record was us finding what we were. Yeah, And I think American Girl was the song I remember when we didn't we cut that song, the arrangement on the harmonics on the guitar, the groove, the character, the singing, the sound of the record. I remember when we did that, even at my young ages, that nobody else can do that quite like we do this. This is our thing, chiming guitar thing that we still do. And so that record was just a group of songs that I love still probably might be my favorite record of all. And it was us just like getting getting it, figuring it out and kind of like, wow, you got that this is good. You know. Second record was following that up some good songs, maybe not quite as as deep in the songs, but getting a little more involved in the studio, you know, production and layering and stuff. Then we kind of reached a level where we were kind of in a cult, I guess, and looking back on it, we weren't huge mainstream yet, but we had we could get gigs and we could maintain. And the third album, Jimmy Iveen shows up and you know, it's like, okay, we're on a mission. Listen, we want to we want to really like grab it now, see if we can really get you know, hit a home run instead of doubles, you know. And so the third record, we worked really hard on the sounds, like to where it wasn't fun a lot of it. At times it was, but it was really like a lot of pressure on ourselves and nitpicky about you know, four days on a snare sound and stuff like that. And yeah, there was the only record I actually walked out on one session. We were doing Refugee for the seventh day it's time, and and I just couldn't figure out why I didn't why it wasn't working, and I just and we've been trying. Okay, let's let do this. Let move the guitar amp over there, let's try a different snare, let's try dadda da da da. Okay, it doesn't sound right, and I just fuck this. I'm out of here. I can't take this anymore. And I when we left town, we went up to Santa Barbara and I got a little house on the little shack on the beach and just sat there for like, what the fuck is happening? Why can't we make this song? And of course it became one of our biggest songs that came back with My Hair Clears, the only time that the pressure got to me where I just gotatgue out of this room because it got intense and we were really hard on ourselves, and Ilevine was pushing for greatness too, and we were fighting that thing as you know in the studio where you know how the song goes and you know how it sounds when you're standing there playing together, and then you go into the control room and it's a completely different sound, just doesn't sound like anything like it did out there. How did we get that in here? And it's not easy, No, it's not easy, and that was driving us nuts, but we did get it. It's a great sounding record, that's a unique sounding record looking back on it, anyone, I don't have that answers your question. Yeah, so we're up to but now we're up to the third album and that was one that we got. That's the first time where it got unpleasant to be in the studio and it was our biggest hit. Yeah, there you go, figure And it took the longest to make at that point and cost the most and cost the most. And then what was after that, long after dark, was to follow up to that, and we did a record plant again with Ivene and by that point we were feeling a little full of ourselves because we'd had a big hit. You know, I think Torpedoes got to number two because we hit the wall, the Pink Floyd Wall. We couldn't craft rold one, but it did really well and a couple of videos, and so we felt, you know, we're we've now how do we stay here? And it just continue on? I mean, make another record as good as that one, And you know, that's a that's an interesting thing with a musical career. If you make a great record and every record after that is going to be measured to that one. Yeah, and we were figuring that out, you know, like and you know when you when you have a little success, you buy some time to experiment, like I said, try an orchestra, or try different players or different production ideas. So we were doing some of that on the way after dark and it had some hits on it. I think you got Lucky and Woman in Love or No, Woman's missed one Hard Promises. You're right, I should have the album covers. Well, my heart promisesn't long after dark. We're following, you know, continuation of torpedoes with Ivan, just trying to you know, write great songs and make them sound good and hope. Did it feel like it was getting easier or harder? Would you say easier? Easier to record? Easier to record because we learned yea, we learned for my trial and Errorble, don't do that again. Don't set the drums up where were there because I ain't gonna sound good, you know, don't use that bass that didn't sound good. Use this, We don't use that. Aunt. We could save a lot of time, get straight to the stuff we know that works, and spend more time in the music and less on the sounds and that. So in that sense it got easier. But you know, writing great songs is always hard. I mean and yes and no. You know, it's easy to write a song, but then you got to measure it up against well, this is pretty good, but is it damned the torpedo? Is it refugee? Or here comes to my girl? Almost? Yeah, we'll get back to work. It's hard to know. It's like, well, you don't too close, You don't know, nobody knows. You don't know until somebody says no, yeah, I don't think so it doesn't sound good to me, But you don't know because you're so close to it. And then you get to a point where you realize you can't really worry about it. Just do what, do the work, and don't try to measure it up. Absolutely, it seems like can you free yourself from it? You hear yourself, they can come, The great songs can come much easier. That's the trap, yeah, or the or the release if as soon as you stopped thinking about what's wrong, there's nothing wrong. Yeah, but um, but songs are mysterious, you know, as a whole other conversation where they come from and why they come when they come. But we just kept slugging along, you know. After after Torpedoes, we bought some success and had had more. Our lifestyles went up and we played bigger gigs. We started playing arenas and it just felt like living a dream. Or it sounds so corny, but we were living the dream and we never thought we really would or not. And then we're just looking at Wow, just working out for us. How blessed are we? How did this happen? Yeah? I could be back in games. We're playing at the Woman's Club and here I am. It mattered square garden. How did I get here? That's the thing you're look at. How did I get here? That pops up a lot. Yeah, anyway, you know, yeah, it doesn't seem possible. Well, there's hope. There's hope and dreams. We'll be back with more from Mike and Rick. After the break. We're back with more of Rick's conversation with Mike Campbell. So then after the so you did three with Ivan, They got more comfortable as they went because you learned from the first experience, which was the hardest, but it also got stale. The relationship got stale. Because we were tupamanger and then what was next jeff Lynn? Jeff Lynn shows up and there's a whole new wave of amazing creativity just happened. Saw all these songs came in, and I think it makes I'm talking about it sounds like when all the elements sort of fall into place, the creative light comes on, you know what I mean it did for us anyway, Like we got maybe a little stale after those three albums, and then we had Full Moone Fever, which was just like a burst of great songs, absolutely new production, excitement, interest, discovery. It was a whole new thing. It all just came together. But without the songs, it wouldn't happen. But the songs I think were triggered by all the energy, new fresh energy, you know. And then when we worked with View too, it was fresh energy, you a new perspective, new challenges. Let's talk about running Down a Dream because that just from I don't think I ever told you this, but that's the song that really got me into the band. I wrote that one, yeah, I know, and that's the one that really got me and like that's the one that made me a fan. So how did it come about what was? If you want the true story? Yes, why not? Um, it's interesting. You would never think this. But I mean, I'm write, I'm writing all I'm writing right now, I'm always writing. Okay. But I heard about this band, Jane's Addiction, and they were playing at Devonshire, some community center or something. I said, let's go see this band. And I didn't like him that much, but there was something about the rhythm or something that's interesting. So I went back home and uh, I think that night and I picked the guitar and running down a Dream was originally I was thinking at halftime, which is a groove that I heard them playing. Wow, it would have been great halftime. Also, hear you sing it well. So I did a demo that version, not thinking much about it, gave it to Tom. He played it for Jeff, but they just hooked up and Wurst sharing ideas. He said they might get this demo and Jeff goes, it should be double time and it became that. So, you know, as songs are so mysterious, where do they come from? If I hadn't gone to that gig, if I hadn't done it halftime, if Jeff hadn't heard it double time. Who knows it's it's it's magic. It just I mean, it's beyond me. Really, it just happens in spite of me. Yeah. It's so interesting though, to seek to see those connections and to look and then then you hear it in that finished version. Haven't known nothing about that. Something connects with you. It's a great driving songs. I used to drive around Los Angeles. I just moved to Los Angeles. I used to drive around and I listened to that album over and over and over again. I don't know a million times forever not to speed up and that I've had that experience, you like, oh yeah, I would go another penny for us. I remember I called i'l Teller, who was the person who was running the label that you were on at the time, who I had known from He was the chairman of Columbia Record, president of Columbia Records when we had def Jam there, so I knew him, and now he was at MCA and I called him up and I said, hey, I just want to let you know, if there's ever an opportunity for me to work with these guys, I would love to do that. And he said, well, that's not gonna He's like, thank you very much, that's not going to happen. I saw. It was an amazing conversations, like they worked with jeff Lynn and thanks for the call, but no interest. It's like, okay, thank you, so shot down and then oh yeah, just coming back to me. Yeah. And then a couple of years later, I was having lunch with mom Austin and he said, can I tell you a secret? And I said sure. He's like, well it's a secret. But we signed Tom Petty. It's like, how did that happen? It's like, well, they have one record left, so no one's allowed to know. But he wanted to be with us and we made the deal and I said, well, if there's ever an opportunity to work with him, It's like, well, yeah, I think you should meet with him, and he set it up. Then it was like it was amazing how it came around quickly. You know how I remember it, and tell me if I'm wrong. I remember. I think I was on tour in Europe or someplace and somebody called me and said Rick Rubin wants to talk to you, or or somebody told me that you that you had liked the record, or something, and I remember saying to Tom, we should get this guy Rick Rubin in. He might be a good producer. Maybe you don't know this or no, no, I don't know that. I had a little bit to do it at the beginning. And I don't know. I'm trying to remember why I knew you. Where I knew you from, probably the Chili Peppers because I was like, liked the sound of one of the chilien earlier. And I think, and we're we're gonna move away from you know, we've done Jeff two albums. You should do something, get more back to Live Man, because Jeff isn't Live Man. And I said, well, you know, and I think you had contacted me. I had gotten some some for some reason, I had the empathist to say to Tom, there's this guy that I think would be good. Wow, and he's interested and he said okay, and then we came in. That's how I remember. I could have it wrong. It's amazing it could be again. I have no idea how so you owe me. All I know was MO, the Mo connection. Mo connection. That was what I remember the most interesting. Well, it all happened, yeah, and it was another phase creativity. Talk talk more about Jeff's the Jeff phase, because I love the I love those records, um and as you say, it was very different than anything you had done before, so talk about how those were made. It was such a wonderful experience working with Jeff and so eye opening and educational. Tom and I had always made records, mostly occasionally with a demo, but mostly band playing live at the same time, and Jeff never does that. So they had bumped into each other and had this song free Fallen, and they wanted to record a demo. So they came over to my little house which I had a little soundcraft studio in a back bedroom, and I did have a twenty four track machine, and they've got this song free Fallen, and Jeff proceeded to lead the recording. And my job just dropped watching this guy. And I mean, I could go on about it. I I don't know how much deeply you want to get into it. I'm not going to give away any of your secrets, although I could, because people learn the secrets, they still can't do it. Yes, he just does it. But one thing that blew my mind was we had this song and a free falls a very simple song there's three chords and he made it. He crafted it into this three minute piece. He can't think. We came over at twelve noon and by six o'clock the thing was done. Background, vocals, guitar parts, everything, percussion done finished. What else you got? Wow? And I'd never seen it done that fast before. And it's because he knew how to get what he wanted really fast. What was the order of events that? Okay, here's how you here's the Jeff Lynn, sorry, Jeff, the formula which no one can touch you, so I can say this. We would go in. The song was written an acoustic guitar. We'd we'd learn it. Okay, let's go. We'd get a One secret to that formula is we used a drum machine because we didn't have a drummer. It was just the three of us. But the drum machine was dead simple, just boom boom, the silest bump bump, bump, bump, bup, bump, nothing it boom boom, so at least plenty of room for other rhythms, other basses. You can change it later, but to start with just basically a metronome, but with a drum machine with good sounds. So we go out and play this song down on acoustic guitar. Okay, let's double that two or three at a time. Let's do that again. So now you've got six acoustic guitars going shaging. Sounds really rich. Okay. Then we'd go, okay, let's let's put a guide vocal on it, which most usually became the real vocal, so we know where the verses and choruses are. And then most likely Jeff had to sound on a OBX sysus. It's just a pad sound like a harmonium sound, and he would put that in following the chords of the acoustic guitar, which would just be underneath it, which kind of glued it all together. And then the background vocals. Because it's on a drum machine, the tempo does not change from one course to the next, so basically we work on the one chorus, pop that into all the courses. Done the one chorus. Okay, we're on a twenty four track analog machine. I don't know how technically you want to get stomped me or cut it out later, but I've told you this before. Maybe you probably like this because you're a producer. So we had a twenty four track machine. Okay, we already put like six tracks of double acoustic guitars. Got maybe you used up eight tracks. Okay, Okay, the vocals, we're gonna need like twenty tracks for the vocals, So we make a slave. We'd maybe do a rough mixed onto the two inch or the quarter inch. Get a fresh piece of twenty four track tape, take that stereo mix, put it onto two tracks. There you got twenty two tracks. Open. Let me go to the chorus. Okay, I'm free. Okay, let's sing that together. I'm free. Let's do it six times. So there's twelve voices going I'm free, I'm free. Okay, let's do twelve of those. You build the thing, and Jeff just knew which notes to do and how to move, you know. But it was usually him and Tom singing together on the backgrounds to make a sound. But you ended with this glob of the chorus comes on. It's like, you know, this big sound. Then the tricky part was, okay, now you take the twenty four track and you mute the guitars. It's all vocals, you blend them together, you copy them over to the quarter inch. Okay, so now all those twenty tracks or whatever are in stereo on two tracks. You put the master twenty four track back up and then you sit there and you count one, two, three, four, play until you get it and sync on each chorus. So now you're back on your Master. You've only used up two tracks and you've got these huge twenty track choruses coming in. Amazing, And you could do that with a guitar lick. You can do that with anything, and it's kind of fun, you know, like, oh we missed it, do it again, one, two, three, okay, one more time. You know, very analog organic, but when you get it, okay, there it is. You know, nowadays you just push your button and pro tools to do that for you in two seconds. But it was kind of fun doing it. You have to get down on your knees and you know, and market and stuff mark the tape so you know where to start from. Yeah. Amazing, Yeah, really good anything. But then so the record was, you know, Niver spent more than two days. Would you put the drums on last? Yeah, so we've got a drum machine and we would keep the kick drum because we had this really good Lyn drum kick drum and he hatched just as a behind it, and we'd overdubbed the sneer drum by itself. And the advantage to that if you listen to Jess Rickers the drum sub but really unique. Each drum is open because they're not all fighting for the sonic space at the same time. So you're just doing the snare rum. You put all the mics up, hit the sneers, beautiful sneer stand without symbols or anything else. And we had this guy Phil Jones, a drummer percussionist who would come in. He'd sit there and put a tale on his leg and live performance of the snare drum. If he got off, we'd stop. Pick it up. But it's not like a sample triggering. He's actually playing it, and that there's a drum fill coming up, we'd stop. Okay, we need a drum fill. Okay, got that. Go back to the song and the Tom Tom. We need Tom Tom, Phil, Okay, let's go once again. Tom's by themselves, symbols by themselves. They were orchestrated. And that's why those records did he make sounds so beautiful because nothing's getting in the way sonically of anything else. But you know, that's that's the the basic formula. But when when did um Where in that story is when did don't come around here? No more happened? Because that was also made in a more mechanical way as that's the previous album that was Dave Stewart. Did you do a whole album with Dave? No just that song or two, two or three sons that was done with the drum machine. That was during Hard Promises, which is an album that got bogged down. We got bogged down what we were trying to do, and he came along, had this demo which Tom liked, and we It started with a a drum machine loop of some sort and Dave did his thing and at the end we had the whole band come on and do the the ending and play it out, you know. So it sounded like a band. It's kind of a mix of both worlds cool And that was supposed to be Stevie Nicks's song. Was it? Ivene was hooked up with Dave and working with Stevie and so he heard that song. He said, oh, and the rhythmics aren't doing this? Can I have it for Stevie? And she hated it? So Jimmy said, oh, well, how about Tom, So it came down the line to us. There you go. We'll be right back with more from Mike Campbell. After a quick break, we're back with the rest of Mike and Rick's conversation and his new song Southern Boy from his band the Dirty Knobbs album Reckless Abandoned. What are your first memories of our working together, because that's what came next in the in the story. First thing it pops into mind is you wreck me Chris. We were as auditioning drummers at the time. I don't know if you were part of the drummer you were, I remember, and I just remember you showed up and you were really good with helping us pick the songs and talking about what type of songs you might want to try to write, and getting the grooves right, like you don't know how it feels. I remember that was a discussion about some Steve Milber song and you could take a groove like that and make a song at it in our own way, as a lot of ideas come from other things and you make it your own. But that's what I remember most is being really deep into the song choices and the grooves and the sounds. We didn't seem to struggle it with sounds too much. It didn't feel like it was hard to get that band to sound good. It felt like it just naturally sounded so good. I don't remember struggling it all, not like Torpedoes now. The sounds were always pretty good, and we just worked on the music, you know, and just you know, dropping bad songs are bringing in better ones. Yeah. I remember the only song that was written when I came the first time, um was Good to be King was the song that Tom already had and good And I remember coming to your house and we listened to it, and I think there was there may have been a I think there was a demo for it, kind of demo in my house. Yeah, funky sounding demo, but we had an idea of it, Yeah, I remember that. But I remember that was all there was, and then we just sort of talked about what could be the rest of them, what else the rest of it could look like, you know, as we're talking about just and look back over the project, I see a theme appearing. And the theme seems to be when the elements all come together, you got the right people in the right space and time the songs materialized. Yeah, I can. I can tell you one thing that I oh wait, I don't I've never I don't remember ever voicing this before, but I remember feeling over time that with Tom, I felt like on the first album, on Wildflowers, our first album together, he really wanted to impress me. He worked hard to impress me, and once he felt like he had done that on that album, I never felt like he tried his hard again on any of the other things we did. I think he was did you know, did great? But it was a nature of prison. It was a different like I want to win over this new person. Yeah, And I think it sounds like that kept happening with the different people over the years. Well that's a reoccurring thing too. I mean, somebody said a producer shouldn't work with a band for more than two records because the first thing, you're trying to impress each other and pull the best out, and then it's like, Okay, now we're gonna do it again. There's the same thing again. You already know you're impressed with me. I already know you know what you can about your capable of and there's no mystery about it. I think a mystery and the danger is what brings out the really great stuff. But yeah, you could say that about all the jeff too and read your point where well, you know, it's almost like as an artist and I can't speak for Tom, but I can speak for myself and maybe partially for him because I know him really well. You have a producer, you're The producer is to bring out the best in you and to keep you from getting up you're lost up your own ass, which is easy to do when you're producing yourself. Okay, So when you first get with the producer, you want to make that connection where he pushes you and you can prove to him what you can do. You know, and you're interested in everything he says because it's new and oh that's really smart. I hadn't thought of that. After a couple of hourtitude, if I played this song, I already know what you're going to think of it, because I know you now and you can still do good work. But if you don't, you only get one shot at that initial thing. Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. It's like I said, it's hard to talk about music sometimes because it's birds fail you. But it's very mystical and where songs come from and where you know, great records just happen. It's kind of just a blessing and a mystery, you know, and luck. So then after that, what was the next period? I was going to say, It's like I think with Tom and you, I think it got to a point too where at the beginning you pushed him like that birst can be better or that song can be better, and he listened to you. And I think we should point too where when you're really like confident in yourself, like I don't want anybody telling me what to do. I want to do it my way, and I don't really want that opinion right now at this point, I don't want to be bothered with your point of view. I don't want you analyzing or critiquing what I want to do. I just want to go do it. Yeah, And which is fine. There's nothing personal, it's just creative energy. So I think after I also remember there was a period I can't remember which album it was, towards the end of the ones that we made together, where Tom sort of went through a dark phase. If you remember, he showed up a studio with a cane echo. Yeah, and yeah, he was not the regular time or personal problems going on there. Yeah, texts everything due absolutely, but you remember it was like the whole energy. I remember the whole energy shifted for a while. It was dark. I'm sad, yeah, and I'd rather not remember too much of that. But you're right, it was a phase we went through. I think some there was some interesting songs that came out of it. And nonetheless, like uh, echo was a good song room at the top of the world, and it was there. There were some good songs, but it was a it was a you know, you're in life or in and creativity, you go through ups and downs and dark periods and great periods. And I remember fun being in the studio at that time. It wasn't fun. No, that that little way, And that's the thing me personally, And we did that and we lived through it and we survived that. But me personally, especially at this point in my life, like I just did this record with my own band, and it's fun. Yeah, it's gotta be. I make it fun, you know, And when when guys are having fun, you can hear it, you can feel it, you can tell. I'll be happy when you get to hear my record. Yeah, I can't wait. You want to listen to a song now, it's a really good record, great, I want to hear. Yeah, Well, let's just play. This is the one that got a little bit of an angus rhythm, guitar, great groove, Thank you. Who's who's in the band. It's me Matt log on the drums, my friend Jason Say on guitar, and Lance Morrison on the bass. So cool. Yeah, you know, I remember that was really fun. While we were making Wildflowers, we went into ocean Way with the with the Heartbreakers and we did a few in a short time. In a few days, we recorded about one hundred songs. I don't know if you remember that, but ended up being most of what's on that box set. Okay, we did a lot of covers. Okay, the playback set. Yeah, but I remember that. Do you remember going to ocean Way and it was to it was Tom's idea, was I think it was? Um the old record Company was going to put out the Greatest Hits record and they needed two songs for the Greatest Hits album, and the album Wildflowers was going to be a quote unquote Tom Petty solo record and it had a different vibe. And we were doing that at sound City and Tom said, well, for the two songs, I don't want to record them in the wild Flowers setting. Let's set up a different studio. We'll do it completely differently. And we did the two songs for that album, which were Mary Jane, Mary Jane and the cover something in the Air, Something in the Air, But we also recorded a million covers just for fun. Mary Jane Shure turned out good. Yeah, I can remember. Also, I don't know, I don't even know if you know this story, but Tom sent me a rehearsal tape of song ideas and he's like, Okay, what do you think because it was like a separate writing session for the Greatest Hits, like what's going to be on the Greatest Hits? And it had a bunch of songs on it, and I remember not liking any of it. I just didn't think it was good. But in between in between a couple of the songs, or in between one of the songs, that was the guitar riff, and it was you playing what ended up being Last Dance with Mary Jane. Oh. That guitar riff was like it wasn't one of the songs on the tape. It was just a riff in between songs. That happens a lot, like a preparation riff. Yeah, yeah, that happens a lot with our band between the songs. Yeah. And I remember saying to Tom, it's like that is the song? Whatever that is is the song? Cool? Yeah, mystery. Yeah it worked out, It worked out. Yeah, crazy, what a life. Amazing to feel old now. But you're right. I mean a lot of people we've had, we had several peaks, and most bands are lucky to get one. Absolutely, and I don't know, we're just blessed. But I think we just, you know, Tom and to some extent me tuned into some songs that are timeless. Absolutely. What was the energy like on the last tour? It was great. It really was beautiful. And we had no idea. I mean, he had a little a bit of hip pain, but I know if it had been really bad, we'd have heard about it. Yeah, it was just a minor nuance and he was happy. And I remember the last the last gig at the Hollywood Ball I looked at his face at one point and he was just beaming and he was so proud of the audience and so proud of him and the band and to be in that moment, and I remember thinking like, wow, I want to I want my head to be in that space. So it was a beautiful tour. I mean, yeah, if you got to go out, that's a good way to go out. I still can't believe he's gone. I haven't two years now or over two years. Yeah, I'm okay with it most of the time. It hits maybe now and then, but you know, you have to just makes no sense, bizarre, But I guess life that doesn't make sense, mishap, you know. I try not to do all on it too much. Of course, I'm very proud of what we did. When I hear stuff on the radio, that's good work, you know. That was weird. I remember the day after getting the news. It was at dinner in a place in Santa Monica, and one of the songs from the first one of the songs from the first album came on just I don't know if it was in memorial or if they just happened, if it just happened to come on in a playlist, And I remember feeling like in hearing the music, I felt like, oh, he's more alive than ever before. It's like this is this is a lot, this is a live where here like this lives. That's the beauty of music. Yeah, mutic is Forever. Thanks to Mike Campbell for running down the history of the Heartbreakers and sharing its new music with Rick. You can hear all of our favorite music featuring Mike Campbell by checking out the playlist for this episode at broken record podcast dot com. Broken Record is produced help from Jason Gambrell, Mia Lobell, and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries. I've Been music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.