Before Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs’ tour started last week, it had been close to a year since the band played a full-on rock show (not counting some acoustic shows in December).
The former guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had appreciated being home — “I’ve got my dogs and my wife and a nice place to live and I’m happy here” — but likened it to the sea’s call to a sailor.
“Oh, I miss the audience. I miss the camaraderie. I love the tours we’ve been doing lately are in theaters,” Campbell said. “There’s so many great, beautiful old theaters across America with ornate architecture and great sound. The Dirty Knobs shows are very soul healing. It’s all joy and fun and interaction with the crowd, and I got a great band so I miss all of it. I don’t miss the airports though.”
The time off from the road was fruitful, with the band recently releasing “Mission of Mercy,” its fourth album in the past six years. The group is out on the road in support of the album, with a July 18 show at the Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall in Munhall.
The new album, released June 12, purposefully expands the band’s sound, including an homage to the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson.
“There’s the Brian Wilson thing, which is way different for the Dirty Knobs, but I think once they played on my demo, it started to sound like us. That was way different. We have a bongo song, which is nothing we’ve ever done before. We have a kind of a jazzy, beatnik poetry song, and we have a song about the end of the world,” Campbell said with a laugh. “So there’s some variety on there, and a few subtle political hints here and there, but nothing major.”
In a recent call from his Los Angeles home, Campbell spoke with TribLive about the new album, his growth as a lyricist and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.
You have the new album out, “Mission to Mercy,” so what new directions did you want to explore with that album?
This is our fourth album, and of course it’s got lots of guitars and drums and typical Dirty Knob boogie going on, and along the way through the album came up with a ballad, and then I found an old tape from years ago on analog two-inch tape of the song “Mission of Mercy,” and I had almost forgotten about it. My tech played it for me, and I thought, this has some potential. It’s obviously an homage to Brian Wilson, one of my heroes, and I was trying to remember making that track back in the day. I must have just been channeling the Beach Boys and wanting to see if I could do something that sounded like them, but it’s a good song, and I love the production on it. It’s real different for us, which by our fourth album, I think it’s good to have some variety along with the boogie, so that one popped up, and it became a powerful track on the record.
How old would you say that one was then?
Oh, 20 years or more.
You don’t really remember doing it?
I’ve got songs for days . (laughs)
Are we talking in the hundreds that are just like sitting there, waiting to be excavated?
Oh, probably sketches, yeah, if you added them all up. I have the opposite of writer’s block, unfortunately, which is good. But then these things pile up on me and I can’t finish them all.
A song like “Vagrant,” the spoken word song, is that something that you would have even tried like 10, 20 years ago or even five years ago?
Yeah, I probably would have tried it, but even this time we did it, it was a warm-up exercise for the session. I had the words, play these two chords in 5-4, and I’ll just talk over it, just to warm up really. I wasn’t taking it serious as a song or an album track. But as I put the sequence together and that popped up, I thought, well, this is way different. It might scare some people, but what the hell are we up to? But it’s the fourth album — well, we should be up to some nonsense, you know? So it’s got a sense of humor, and it’s different. It shows off wordplay, and of course, we just played it once so it’s real spontaneous. It reminds me a little bit of Tom Waits or Frank Zappa, maybe (Bob) Dylan’s “If Dogs Run Free,” as I look back on it, it kind of reminded me of that a little bit. But it’s us just having fun with words and a groove that we don’t normally play, 5-4.
Is that willingness to try something new, is that an important trait for you then?
I guess. I never thought about it as a trait or important or not important. It’s just what I want to do. Day to day, I do whatever I want to do, and that’s what came up.
You mentioned the end of the world song. I assume that’s “Armageddon,” so was Led Zeppelin on your mind when you were working on that one?
Absolutely. The drum feel, yeah. I like “Kashmir.” I thought, wouldn’t it be great to do a song that was kind of a spooky rhythm like that with the ominous, big drum sound. And I started with that concept, and then I wanted the chords and melody are kind of Middle Eastern a bit, I guess, Egyptian sounding. I don’t know what that scale is, but it’s sort of like “Kashmir” a little bit. So it’s inspired by that, yeah. And it’s just dark. It’s an old track. I had the song in pieces for years, and I finally finished it. I got a verse that works. And it’s very dark, but I think it’s OK because the punch line is “the sun won’t fade away.” So there’s hope at the end. (laughs)
You also mentioned “Bongo Mania,” so how did that work out getting Kate (Pierson) from the B-52s on a song?
That was such a lucky miracle that I got her to do it. We cut the track for fun, and Steve had his hands full — Steve Ferrone our drummer — getting the rhythm together, but he did a great job and we had this song. It’s just fun. It’s light; it’s lighthearted. As I was listening to it, it reminded me of the B-52s when it was finished. I had this silly fantasy: wouldn’t it be great if I could get Kate Pierson to sing on it? So I had the office contact her and we talked on the phone and she was up for it. So I mailed it to her, she did her bits and mailed it back, and she did amazing. She made this song twice as good with her energy and her vibe. I like that track a lot.
I was wondering about the band in general, what you get out of it? Would you be going crazy if you didn’t have that outlet of expression?
Well, I’m already crazy so I couldn’t really go crazy. I love being in a band. I’ve always been in a band. I have no interest in being a solo artist. And neither did Tom (Petty) really. Even though he did some solo records, I was always involved. We always came back to the Heartbreakers, because there’s something about a band, your brothers, your gang, that you can feed off of and share the experience and have kinetic energy between you. That’s the way I’ve always been. I’ve always thought of myself as being in a band, and so I have a great band now. I’m really happy to have these guys, and I love to go out and play with them.
What makes this band lineup work so well together?
Well, the foundation, me and the bass player, Crawdaddy, his name is Lance Morrison, he’s been with me for 20 years now, so we’re already locked in. Of course, (Steve) Ferrone, I’ve played with him for many years, so he fit in nicely. I’ve got this guitar player (Chris Holt) now who plays keyboards and sings beautifully. That’s him singing with me on the title track, “Mission to Mercy.” He doubled my voice and made it sound a lot better. So it’s nice having a great singer in the band and also keyboards, so we can stretch out our atmosphere with keyboards and not just guitarists all the time. So it’s a perfect combination, and he’s a really great guy. We all get along really well, and we’re in it for the right reasons. We’re playing theaters, and we’re just happy to play.
With all these songs that you’ve written, how would you rate yourself as a lyricist now? Does your confidence in that keep continuing to grow?
Yeah, definitely my confidence is getting better. I found, of course, with Tom I never wrote lyrics, rarely, one or two things here and there. I would suggest a line, but mostly he always wrote such great words I never bothered with it. I didn’t even know if I could do it, but when it became my mission to have my own band and write these songs, I was going to have to sing them and write them and I found that I really am getting confident with the lyrics. I love writing words now. Sometimes now I’ll just write words without any music. I’ll just get a muse and I’ll just start writing out in the song form usually. I love the process of setting up a rhyme and then trying to find the right word that says the right thing. I’m getting better at it. I still have a ways to go, but I think I can hang in there.
Have any of those lyric-first (efforts) turned into songs yet?
On this album, the only one would be “Vagrant,” which was like a beatnik-tone poem. I had all these words, stream-of-consciousness words, and the band came in and we were just warming up, getting our levels and stuff, and I said, here’s a couple of chords, play this and I’ll just talk over it. So that one started with words. I think the other ones were all begun with music, but I am exploring now in my writing and exploring writing the words without any music and then trying to fit music to it afterwards, which is opposite from the way I’ve always done it, but it’s a challenge.
You also mentioned about maybe a little bit of a political bent to your lyrics. How much does the outside world affect what you’re writing?
Well, I try to keep politics out of my art. I’m not that type of artist. I respect other artists that want to go out and preach and get political, and that’s just not me. I feel like my space is to take your mind off all that stuff and have some release and joy in spite of all the darkness that’s going on in the political world. But you can’t help but have it seep into you. You hear it every day. There’s just so much crap going on, and I try to avoid thinking about it too much, but a line now and then will creep in and it’s just a vague reference to good and bad and then you make up your own mind.
Not spelling it out, but people can read between the lines, I guess.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s my job. They can read into it if they want to read into it, but, you know, (expletive) that guy. (laughs)
I don’t know if that one will make the paper …
So insert your demon here, whoever your demon is.
Related
• Q&A: Tesla guitarist Frank Hannon on joining Motley Crue’s Return of the Carnival of Sins tour and more
• Q&A: Country icon Tim McGraw on Pawn Shop Guitar tour, Pittsburgh memories and more
• 2026 Pittsburgh area concert calendar
You’re going to be making a return to Farm Aid this year, and you played on the first one, so what do you remember about that one back in 1985?
The first one was crazy with Bob Dylan, and we had been touring with him and we went and we played the first Farm Aid ever, and we’ve done a few over the years with the Heartbreakers. And three years ago, Benmont (Tench, Heartbreakers keyboardist) and I and the Dirty Knobs with Bob played a Farm Aid unannounced surprise appearance, which was pretty crazy and fun. Farm Aid, I believe in the message and I want to help any way I can, so I was honored that they asked us to be on the bill, so I’m looking forward to that.
You mentioned the 2023 appearance with Bob Dylan, so how did that come together? Is it satisfying to pull off a surprise like that in this day and age?
Yeah, well, that’s the way Bob moves. He had reached out to me to put a little band together because he was thinking of playing Farm Aid, so he came over and I got the Knobs and Benmont came over and we did a couple of days rehearsal. I think we did three or four songs, and then he didn’t want to be announced. He wanted to just show up, which we did and so we kind of walked out unannounced and started playing, and it took people a minute to figure out who it was. But it was exciting. It’s very like anarchy. (laughs)
Everything gets ruined by the internet these days, but it seems like this is one of the times where there were no spoilers.
Yeah, well, I hope so. Yeah, it was fun. I like the surprise element of it. It was an interesting show. Bob was playing, he didn’t want to play guitar in rehearsal, but he decided he wanted to play guitar at the gig. So we all had to maneuver around Bob’s lead guitar that we weren’t expecting. But that kept us on our toes, and I think he had a lot of fun, too, just because it was so unannounced and spontaneous.
You’re also going to be doing a show with orchestral arrangements in September. Have you done that before? What are your expectations for a show like that?
The only time I came close to that was when we did “The Last DJ” album and played a gig here in L.A. and we had an orchestra come in for the last couple of songs and played along with us. Of course, I’ve always loved symphony music. I love Mozart, Beethoven’s my favorite, Bach, and I’ve always had in the back of my mind, wouldn’t it be interesting to perform these songs instrumentally with an orchestra? I used to think, well, when I get old, I’ll do it, and I looked up the other day and thought, well, you know what? I think you’re there. (laughs) So I’ve got this great arranger, Patrick Warren, who’s done strings and woodwinds on the Nas albums and we have a good relationship. I pitched the idea to him and he started writing charts for the orchestra, and we’ve got about an hour’s worth of charts now. I’m a little nervous about it because I’ll probably have to play some guitar along with the orchestra here and there. But the bits I’ve heard on his keyboard emulating strings, a lot of the songs, the music is very powerful done that way, so hopefully people will like it.
Every musician who I’ve talked to who has performed with a symphony said they’re nervous about being the one to mess up. They’re like, the symphony is not going to mess up, it’s going to be me. Is that something that’s on your mind at all?
I’m not worried about messing up. I just want to look cool.
Do you have to wear a tux or something for a symphony?
I’m thinking more like a pink tutu, maybe.
That’ll catch people off guard.
I don’t know. I’m not too nervous about (messing) up, and I’ll play a little lead guitar here and there and let the orchestra do most of it. I don’t have to sing so there’s no pressure there, and I think I’m gonna enjoy it. I hope people enjoy as much as me.
It’s going to be the 50th anniversary of the first Heartbreakers album later this year. What memories stand out to you when you think about the making of that album?
Oh, I’ve got so many memories of all those years. Time is mysterious. I lost my brother, Tom, almost 10 years ago now, nine years, and I’m still grieving. I’ll probably always grieve because we had such a close relationship, but I’m really proud of all the music we made over the years and 50 years is hard to imagine that it lasted that long, but here we are.