Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Mike Campbell On First Album Post Heartbreakers

Transcript

Mike Campbell On First Album Post Heartbreakers · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. When Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin first talked about
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: making Broken Record, one of the artists they really wanted
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to speak with was Tom Petty. But then right as
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we started production on the show, Tom Petty sadly passed away.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Everyone was processing what happened, including Malcolm and Rick. So
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: one afternoon they got together at Shango Law, turned the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: mics on and talked about Petty and his music, about
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: how Rick first fell in love with the band, driving
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: around La listening to Running Down a Dream, and the
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: plans Petty had to put out a trove of unreleased
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: material from Wildflowers, an album Rick produced. That album was
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: one of many high water marks of Petty's career. Ricks
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: long thought, and he told Malcolm that day he believes
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: albums so good because Petty was trying to impress him.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Petty's lead guitarist and occasional co writer, Mike Campbell talked
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to Rick last spring, confirming Rick's notion. They talk in
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: depth about the making of Wildflowers and about Mike's new
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: album with a band called the Dirty Knobs. It's the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: first band Mike's ever been a part of without Petty.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We started playing with in the early seventies, and it's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the first time Rick's been able to catch up with
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Mike since Tom's death. They talk about their work together
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: over the years and how the Heartbreakers always managed to
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: find new life. Plus, Mike tells a great story about
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: how he wrote the riff for Running Down a Dream.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmonds. Just a quick note here. You can
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: on our playlist, which you can find a link to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in the show notes. For licensing reasons, each time a
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: All right, enjoy the episode. Here's Mike Campbell in conversation
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: with Rick Rubin. Let's let's start talking about Gainesville. If
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: that's cool can Gainesville was some of the happiest times
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: of my life. That's where I I got out of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: high school in Jacksonville. I went to college in Gainesville,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: University of Florida on an Air Force loan society. My
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: dad was in the Air Force. Because we didn't have
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: much money. But anyway, I went to college there and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: there was a real healthy music scene going on. Must
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: bands and a couple of parks on the university where
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you could play for free. And I started making friends
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: with different musicians about what year about what year was
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: this seventy two? Well, like I got of high school,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: there was seventy Who how did Mudcrutch become a band?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Mudcrutch was a band with Tom Petty, Tom Laden and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: some other guys. And they were one of the bands
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that was they would do country rock, but they would
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: throw in some original songs now and then. And I
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: would see them at the park and p the free
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: gigs out in the lawn, and I thought, well, these
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: guys are you know they there's something going on here,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you know. And then I had a band with Randall
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Marsh was a trio like a blues jam acid trio.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And and turns out Random and I were sharing I
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: don't want to get too long with it, were sharing
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: a farm at the edge of town. And I saw
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a thing on the university student union, Mudcrutch looking for
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a new drummer, so oh, and Randall and I were
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: kind of fed up with what we were doing, so
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I should give this to Randall. He might, you know,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: get a gig here. And I thought, these are guys
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: were pretty good. They had harmonies, and you know, they
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: weren't a jam band like we were. They actually had songs.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And so I told them about it, and they came
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: out to our farm to audition Randall and I was
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: in the back room, and it turns out they just
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: lost their guitar player too that day, and so they're going, Randall,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: do you know anybody brother's this guy in the back?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: You know? And I was a geek. I had came
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in and cut off some short hair I did. I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: was not a hippie yet, you know, I was not hip.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I will do it this time nineteen twenty two, twenty
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: one something like that. And uh, I came walking in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: with my little Japanese guitar and they just went, oh god, no.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: And then I said, look it was Tom two. Tom's
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Tom Leading, Tom Petty and Jim Lanahan who became our
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: lighting director. He was the lead singer. That's another story,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and Randall and so they said, well, they were looking
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: at me like, oh, how did we get out of this?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: So what songs do you know? How about Johnny be Good?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Everybody knows that, right, And they all like looked at
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: me and Tom tell us a story on the tour,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: he says, at the end of the song, he said like,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know who you are, but you're in my
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: band forever. It's a true story. And you know, he
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: was telling them on the last tour I s was
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit, so they forgot how I looked. I
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: fixed that in time, but I got a better guitar.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: But we just hit it off right away, and I
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: realized Tom was writing songs and I was starting to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: write a little bit too, not as good as him,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: but I had the inkling to write, and so we
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: hit it off, and he showed me some songs I
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: should have said. He goes, oh, that sounds kind of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: like Roger mcgwinn, that you should keep working on that.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And so we just became fast friends from then on,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and we just connected. And it's like it seemed like
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: anytime he would have an idea, I knew what to
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: put with it, or if I had an idea, he
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: knew what to put with it instinctively. It was just
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: one of the magical things we cross passed. Beautiful. I
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: do miss him. Let's go back. Let's go back, miss
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: him too, Let's go back even further. First memories of music.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: It was the first thing that got you excited about music. Well,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: that's easy. It was my dad. My dad was in
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the Air Force and he would come home, put on
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: a record and lay on the couch and just zone
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: out for an hour. And it was either Elvis or
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Johnny Cash, and I would look at him going like,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: whatever he's hearing, it's got him completely hypnotized. He's really
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: deep into this, and so I would listen to it
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and I immediately picked up on the guitars Scotty Moore
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and Luther Perkins who played with Johnny, and I just
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: was enamored with the sound. And then I asked him
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: one day, Dad, why do you listen to Johnny Cash
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: so much? And he goes because he speaks the truth, okay,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: words or wisdom, you know, And that was my first
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And then of course the Beatles in that generation, they
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: came on TV and everything changed and I had to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: have a guitar, which I couldn't afford. But that was
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: when I saw them, and they just blew my mind
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: because up until then you'd watched the Ed Sullivan Show,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: which is the only place to see new music, and
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: be like some guy up there singing and a band
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: somewhere out You didn't even see them. It's just a singer.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And the Beatles came on. First of all, they were
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: almost my age, and there was no band behind the curtain.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: The guys playing the bass and singing the drums are
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: right there. They're all the four little combo and they're
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: all doing it with no help from anybody, and they're
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: really fucking good. And the girls are going nuts. That's
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: what I want to do. So you got a guitar
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: after seeing the Beatles? Yeah, I got. I got a
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: paunch up guitar. My mom got me a fifteen dollar
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: guitar that I couldn't It was unplayable, but I didn't know.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I thought that, boy, these guys are good. This is
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: so hard. How do they do it? Because the strings
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: or high I would bleed, you know, I loved it
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: so much. I would just play until I bleeded. And
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: so I just got the bug. And it's like once
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I found the guitar, nothing else mattered. I'm going to
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: play this guitar as much as I can. I gotta
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: go to school, but when I get back, I'm on
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the guitar and I just loved it. I still do
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: so then you're in mud Crutch and what kind of
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: gigs did you do? What was it like being in
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: that band? Well, it was it was a lot of
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: fun and we barely made enough money to make a living,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: which was really cool because I was living in this
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: my friend's garage for fifteen bucks a month. He let
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: me live there, and with Mudcrutch we would play women's
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: club dances. Sometimes the university would give us a couple
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of hundred bucks to play fraternitys occasionally, not too much
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: because we didn't play covers. Our biggest gig where we
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: really got good was a dub steer room on the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: edge of town, a topless bar. That was my first gig.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you're minding this is the best story of all.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And it was great because it was four sets a night,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: all week long. Okay, so we had to throw in
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a few covers because we only had, you know, so
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: many originals. But and we would say, oh, here's one
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: by Santana and then we'd do our own, you know,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and they were so drunk they didn't care. But the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: funny thing is the topless bar and then like the
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: third song, they had two dance stands on either side
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of the stage, and these two girls would jump up
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and they'd have their you know, and almost half thirst
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of the song, they pulled their tops off, and the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: first time they did it, the band quick playing like
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: we've ever seen that before. Oh okay, and you know,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: we learned real fast. But and then on Thursdays they'd
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: have wet T shirt contest and wet T shirt contests.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: This is Gainesville, okay, it's a lot of deep redneck
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: culture and so Doves Steakhouse topless bar. You're going to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: get some of the seedious residents are going to come
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to that bar. And you know, they were great. They
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: were so drunk. They were great audiences usually, but on
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: wet T shirt contests night, they'd have the girls get
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: up and they'd drench them in they'd have the T
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: shirt son, they drench them in water so you could
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: see everything, and they'd get up and dance, and all
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the guys would come down front, like all the drooling drunks.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: But we got good because we played like two months
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: every night and I got like one hundred bucks a week, well,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: you know, for playing you know, every many hours. But
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that was a lot of money. And we had a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: house just up the street that we shared and we
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: could pay our rent and buy some wine or you know, burghers,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and we could live, you know, as musicians. So the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: first time I was a working musician and I really
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: liked it, you know, making my money with my instrument.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: So you played a lot of hours every day in
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: front of people. Yeah, so we got tight. We learned
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: how to how to work the room. And you know,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: it's like, we're not the Beatles, but I read about
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the Beatles going to Hamburg and when you play four
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: hours every night after a month, get good one, two, three, four.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: We got this, you know what I mean. It just
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: you get good confidence, yeah, and the communication between the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: members and just muscle memory. Everything. You just get good
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and where you work it. And so we got really good,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and then we started getting some better gigs at the
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: university here and there. But eventually you reached the point
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: where this is as far as we can go in
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: this town. You know, we're at the top of the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: game here. But that's it. I'm gonna have to make
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a record, I guess. You know, if you want to
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: move up, we get to move on up to a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: bigger city, you know, and get more serious about it,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and that's what we did. So what was the next step, Well,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: we pulled all our money. We made a demo at
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: ben Mont's house when his parents were home. Ben Mountain
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: was the rich kid he had his parents had a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: nice house. So we pulled in a truck and recorded
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a demo live to when did ben Mont get in?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Because we're still we're still in mud Crutch, mud crug right,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: it was. Tom Ladden left the band after about three years.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: We had a disagreement over at dubs. He told dubs
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: that we wanted more money, which we didn't, and he
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: fired us and so we fired him. We all made
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: up after that. But then we had seen ben Mont around.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: He was just a great musician, and so let's get
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a piano in the band. So he joined the band
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: about two years into it, and you were still called Mudcrutch. Yeah,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: we were still it was. The name stayed the same.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: But we cut a live demo of three songs on
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: live onto tape, and we pulled all our money and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: three of the guys went out to La to shop
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the tape. We got a couple of feelers, one with
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Shelter Records, who had a studio in Tulsa, and they said, well,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: why don't you if you're coming out to La, which
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: we were planning just going to go out there and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: take our chances, stopping Tulsa on the way out and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: see if we can. We'll make a demo there, and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: we did, and we liked Anny Cordell a lot. He's
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: kind of like you. He was just kind of like
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: he seemed to have an overview of you know, can
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: you guys do that? That's not so cool, but when
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: you keep doing that, that's that's the ship, you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And I really love that guy.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And so he kind of got it, you know, and
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: he got town, he got the songwriting, and he got
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the band, and he signed us. I remember him coming
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to visit us when we were making Wildflowers. He came
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: to the mixed session. Yeah, and I remember Tom was
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: really excited that he was coming. He had a vibe.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: He was very wise man, and I remember that. And
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I remember we played him, we were playing him and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: we got and he always liked me too. He always
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: thought that, you know, you know, you're really insecure, but
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: you're important to this. He always gave me confidence. And
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: we were listening to that those tracks and erect Me
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: came on. He looked at me and he goes, that's
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the one I've been waiting for. God bless him. Amazing. Wow,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: you're getting misty thinking about all these memories. Okay, it's good.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: So you get signed to Shelter. Yeah, and then what happens.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny you had mentioned that, because I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: just found a journal from those days that I was
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: keeping of our first days at Shelter Records, and I
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: would write, like, went in the studio today, cut this song,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: whatever we take. It's the next single or the first thing.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Next page, it's not the first single. It's really not
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that good. Next page. Went in the studio for four hours,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: didn't get a track. We suck next day, drinking too much.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: It was like Greenhorns trying to figure out how to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: make a record. We didn't know anything about playing in
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the studio, and we struggled a lot at the beginning,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: but Cordell stuck with us because he liked the songs.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: And then at one point in the journal it goes,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: we went to the studio with the heart with the band,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you know, stand and Ron and Ben and Mike and Tom,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and then the next day or next week, Tom brought
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: in four songs American Girl Breakdown. It's like it's like
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: night and day. All of a sudden, it just happened.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: The bloodgates opened. As soon as the songs came in.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: We were there. Wow, you know, and on Tom of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a sudden it started to sound good, amazing, And that
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: kind of blew my mind when I read that, like
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: it was just a moment in time where that switch turned.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I guess he in his mind he thought this, I
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: gotta step up now, and like, you know, all the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: songs good songs. Remember, there was anything else going on
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: in his life that would have sparked that. I don't know.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I think it was just a good question. Who knows. No,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: there's nothing players that, anything, any life changing event at
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that moment other than that the band that what became
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the Heartbreakers was in one room and maybe that was
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: just that energy was enough to turn his switch on. Yeah,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: it is interesting how that happens, how you see. And
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't even remember that if I hadn't seen the journal.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: But it was almost like night and day, struggling, struggling, struggling, boom,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: here's the songs, here's the band ready to go. And
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: how how did it work out that you guys got
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: popular in the UK? First, well, we put the record
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: out and break Down an American Girl, got a little
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: bit of play in Boston and San Francisco, but it
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: was happening really And then we got offered a tour
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: opening for Nils Lofgren who had just had a hit
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: over there, and we went over to England, which was
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: so what a dream. We're going to England to play
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: we have a record out. You know, we didn't realize
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that record is not really happening right now. We're got
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: we got gigs were happening, you know, in our little mind,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: we were already there, you know, but we had no
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: idea what was about to happen. And we got over
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: there and we started touring around England with Nils and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: we were really good live. And I remember the first
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: gig we played in England was in Wales and we
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: were opening for Nils and we had no respect for
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the opening act, you know, like we're gonna we're taking
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: no prisoners, you know, we're gonna take this moment what
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: hell or high water? Kind of assholes about it, really,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: but that's the way it was Tom and I went
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: out there and the first gig in England were like
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and Tom's running around, I'm running around and we're doing
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: our thing and the crowd's going crazy and we got
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: wrapped up in our chords. It was a total spinal
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: tap because we lost and we're standing there like literally
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: wrapped tied tight. The roadies had to come out. But
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: it was great, you know, that's just how exciting it was.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And then from that we started getting good press. They
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: would come to see Nels laffer and go, oh fuck,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: what was this ship that happened right before that? You know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the kind of kicked his ass, got what We almost
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: felt bad for him because we were really going for
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: it and it was our time and it wasn't his time.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: So we kept getting really good press, so ended that tour.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: They booked our own little tour while we were there,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: got great press, and the record started to pick up,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and somehow that's we came back to the States and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: it spilled over. So it seems like it the the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: live drove the record instead of the other way around. Yeah,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: at that time it did until the record caught on, Yeah,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and then it just and then what was the first
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: song that really caught on it was either Breakdown or
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: an American Girl. I think it was Breakdown. His Breakdown
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: got the most airplay, but then American Girl came on.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: So if we were to go through and tell me
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: if you need to see the covers to be able
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to remember, but how would you say if we talk
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: about each album in order, your memories of what made
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: each of those what it was? Do you know what
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I'm saying in the making of it? M would you
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: remember it? So? For from the first record and it's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the first So yeah, the first record was us finding
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: what we were. Yeah, And I think American Girl was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the song I remember when we didn't we cut that song,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the arrangement on the harmonics on the guitar, the groove,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the character, the singing, the sound of the record. I
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: remember when we did that, even at my young ages,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: that nobody else can do that quite like we do this.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: This is our thing, chiming guitar thing that we still do.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And so that record was just a group of songs
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: that I love still probably might be my favorite record
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: of all. And it was us just like getting getting it,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: figuring it out and kind of like, wow, you got
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that this is good. You know. Second record was following
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that up some good songs, maybe not quite as as
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: deep in the songs, but getting a little more involved
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: in the studio, you know, production and layering and stuff.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Then we kind of reached a level where we were
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: kind of in a cult, I guess, and looking back
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: on it, we weren't huge mainstream yet, but we had
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: we could get gigs and we could maintain. And the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: third album, Jimmy Iveen shows up and you know, it's like, okay,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: we're on a mission. Listen, we want to we want
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to really like grab it now, see if we can
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: really get you know, hit a home run instead of doubles,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you know. And so the third record, we worked really
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: hard on the sounds, like to where it wasn't fun
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of it. At times it was, but it
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: was really like a lot of pressure on ourselves and
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: nitpicky about you know, four days on a snare sound
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And yeah, there was the only
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: record I actually walked out on one session. We were
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: doing Refugee for the seventh day it's time, and and
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't figure out why I didn't why it
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't working, and I just and we've been trying. Okay,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: let's let do this. Let move the guitar amp over there,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: let's try a different snare, let's try dadda da da da. Okay,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: it doesn't sound right, and I just fuck this. I'm
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: out of here. I can't take this anymore. And I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: when we left town, we went up to Santa Barbara
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and I got a little house on the little shack
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: on the beach and just sat there for like, what
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the fuck is happening? Why can't we make this song?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: And of course it became one of our biggest songs
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: that came back with My Hair Clears, the only time
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: that the pressure got to me where I just gotatgue
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: out of this room because it got intense and we
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: were really hard on ourselves, and Ilevine was pushing for
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: greatness too, and we were fighting that thing as you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: know in the studio where you know how the song
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: goes and you know how it sounds when you're standing
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: there playing together, and then you go into the control
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: room and it's a completely different sound, just doesn't sound
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: like anything like it did out there. How did we
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: get that in here? And it's not easy, No, it's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: not easy, and that was driving us nuts, but we
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: did get it. It's a great sounding record, that's a
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: unique sounding record looking back on it, anyone, I don't
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: have that answers your question. Yeah, so we're up to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: but now we're up to the third album and that
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was one that we got. That's the first time where
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: it got unpleasant to be in the studio and it
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: was our biggest hit. Yeah, there you go, figure And
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: it took the longest to make at that point and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: cost the most and cost the most. And then what
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: was after that, long after dark, was to follow up
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to that, and we did a record plant again with
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Ivene and by that point we were feeling a little
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: full of ourselves because we'd had a big hit. You know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I think Torpedoes got to number two because we hit
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the wall, the Pink Floyd Wall. We couldn't craft rold one,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: but it did really well and a couple of videos,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and so we felt, you know, we're we've now how
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: do we stay here? And it just continue on? I mean,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: make another record as good as that one, And you know,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: that's a that's an interesting thing with a musical career.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: If you make a great record and every record after
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: that is going to be measured to that one. Yeah,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and we were figuring that out, you know, like and
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: you know when you when you have a little success,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: you buy some time to experiment, like I said, try
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: an orchestra, or try different players or different production ideas.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: So we were doing some of that on the way
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: after dark and it had some hits on it. I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: think you got Lucky and Woman in Love or No,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Woman's missed one Hard Promises. You're right, I should have
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the album covers. Well, my heart promisesn't long after dark.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: We're following, you know, continuation of torpedoes with Ivan, just
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: trying to you know, write great songs and make them
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: sound good and hope. Did it feel like it was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: getting easier or harder? Would you say easier? Easier to record?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Easier to record because we learned yea, we learned for
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: my trial and Errorble, don't do that again. Don't set
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the drums up where were there because I ain't gonna
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: sound good, you know, don't use that bass that didn't
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: sound good. Use this, We don't use that. Aunt. We
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: could save a lot of time, get straight to the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: stuff we know that works, and spend more time in
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the music and less on the sounds and that. So
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in that sense it got easier. But you know, writing
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: great songs is always hard. I mean and yes and no.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it's easy to write a song, but then
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you got to measure it up against well, this is
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: pretty good, but is it damned the torpedo? Is it refugee?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Or here comes to my girl? Almost? Yeah, we'll get
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: back to work. It's hard to know. It's like, well,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you don't too close, You don't know, nobody knows. You
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: don't know until somebody says no, yeah, I don't think
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: so it doesn't sound good to me, But you don't
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: know because you're so close to it. And then you
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: get to a point where you realize you can't really
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: worry about it. Just do what, do the work, and
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: don't try to measure it up. Absolutely, it seems like
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: can you free yourself from it? You hear yourself, they
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: can come, The great songs can come much easier. That's
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the trap, yeah, or the or the release if as
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: soon as you stopped thinking about what's wrong, there's nothing wrong. Yeah,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: but um, but songs are mysterious, you know, as a
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: whole other conversation where they come from and why they
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: come when they come. But we just kept slugging along,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you know. After after Torpedoes, we bought some success and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: had had more. Our lifestyles went up and we played
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: bigger gigs. We started playing arenas and it just felt
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: like living a dream. Or it sounds so corny, but
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: we were living the dream and we never thought we
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: really would or not. And then we're just looking at Wow,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: just working out for us. How blessed are we? How
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: did this happen? Yeah? I could be back in games.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: We're playing at the Woman's Club and here I am.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: It mattered square garden. How did I get here? That's
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the thing you're look at. How did I get here?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: That pops up a lot. Yeah, anyway, you know, yeah,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem possible. Well, there's hope. There's hope and dreams.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Mike and Rick. After
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the break. We're back with more of Rick's conversation with
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Mike Campbell. So then after the so you did three
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: with Ivan, They got more comfortable as they went because
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: you learned from the first experience, which was the hardest,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: but it also got stale. The relationship got stale. Because
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: we were tupamanger and then what was next jeff Lynn?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Jeff Lynn shows up and there's a whole new wave
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of amazing creativity just happened. Saw all these songs came in,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and I think it makes I'm talking about it sounds
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: like when all the elements sort of fall into place,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the creative light comes on, you know what I mean
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it did for us anyway, Like we got maybe a
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: little stale after those three albums, and then we had
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Full Moone Fever, which was just like a burst of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: great songs, absolutely new production, excitement, interest, discovery. It was
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: a whole new thing. It all just came together. But
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: without the songs, it wouldn't happen. But the songs I
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: think were triggered by all the energy, new fresh energy,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: you know. And then when we worked with View too,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: it was fresh energy, you a new perspective, new challenges.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about running Down a Dream because that just
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: from I don't think I ever told you this, but
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that's the song that really got me into the band.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I wrote that one, yeah, I know, and that's the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: one that really got me and like that's the one
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that made me a fan. So how did it come
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: about what was? If you want the true story? Yes,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: why not? Um, it's interesting. You would never think this.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm write, I'm writing all I'm writing
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: right now, I'm always writing. Okay. But I heard about
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: this band, Jane's Addiction, and they were playing at Devonshire,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: some community center or something. I said, let's go see
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: this band. And I didn't like him that much, but
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: there was something about the rhythm or something that's interesting.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: So I went back home and uh, I think that
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: night and I picked the guitar and running down a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Dream was originally I was thinking at halftime, which is
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a groove that I heard them playing. Wow, it would
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: have been great halftime. Also, hear you sing it well.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: So I did a demo that version, not thinking much
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: about it, gave it to Tom. He played it for Jeff,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: but they just hooked up and Wurst sharing ideas. He
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: said they might get this demo and Jeff goes, it
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: should be double time and it became that. So, you know,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: as songs are so mysterious, where do they come from?
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: If I hadn't gone to that gig, if I hadn't
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: done it halftime, if Jeff hadn't heard it double time.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Who knows it's it's it's magic. It just I mean,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: it's beyond me. Really, it just happens in spite of me. Yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting though, to seek to see those connections
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: and to look and then then you hear it in
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that finished version. Haven't known nothing about that. Something connects
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with you. It's a great driving songs. I used to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: drive around Los Angeles. I just moved to Los Angeles.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I used to drive around and I listened to that
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: album over and over and over again. I don't know
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a million times forever not to speed up and that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I've had that experience, you like, oh yeah, I would
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: go another penny for us. I remember I called i'l Teller,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: who was the person who was running the label that
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: you were on at the time, who I had known
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: from He was the chairman of Columbia Record, president of
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Columbia Records when we had def Jam there, so I
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: knew him, and now he was at MCA and I
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: called him up and I said, hey, I just want
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: to let you know, if there's ever an opportunity for
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: me to work with these guys, I would love to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: do that. And he said, well, that's not gonna He's like,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: thank you very much, that's not going to happen. I saw.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: It was an amazing conversations, like they worked with jeff
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Lynn and thanks for the call, but no interest. It's like, okay,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: thank you, so shot down and then oh yeah, just
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: coming back to me. Yeah. And then a couple of
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: years later, I was having lunch with mom Austin and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: he said, can I tell you a secret? And I
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: said sure. He's like, well it's a secret. But we
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: signed Tom Petty. It's like, how did that happen? It's like, well,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: they have one record left, so no one's allowed to know.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: But he wanted to be with us and we made
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the deal and I said, well, if there's ever an
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: opportunity to work with him, It's like, well, yeah, I
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: think you should meet with him, and he set it up.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Then it was like it was amazing how it came
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: around quickly. You know how I remember it, and tell
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. I remember. I think I was
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: on tour in Europe or someplace and somebody called me
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and said Rick Rubin wants to talk to you, or
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: or somebody told me that you that you had liked
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the record, or something, and I remember saying to Tom,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: we should get this guy Rick Rubin in. He might
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: be a good producer. Maybe you don't know this or no, no,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know that. I had a little bit to
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: do it at the beginning. And I don't know. I'm
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: trying to remember why I knew you. Where I knew
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: you from, probably the Chili Peppers because I was like,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: liked the sound of one of the chilien earlier. And
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I think, and we're we're gonna move away from you know,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: we've done Jeff two albums. You should do something, get
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: more back to Live Man, because Jeff isn't Live Man.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And I said, well, you know, and I think you
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: had contacted me. I had gotten some some for some reason,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I had the empathist to say to Tom, there's this
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: guy that I think would be good. Wow, and he's
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: interested and he said okay, and then we came in.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: That's how I remember. I could have it wrong. It's
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: amazing it could be again. I have no idea how
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: so you owe me. All I know was MO, the
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Mo connection. Mo connection. That was what I remember the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: most interesting. Well, it all happened, yeah, and it was
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: another phase creativity. Talk talk more about Jeff's the Jeff phase,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: because I love the I love those records, um and
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: as you say, it was very different than anything you
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: had done before, so talk about how those were made.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: It was such a wonderful experience working with Jeff and
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: so eye opening and educational. Tom and I had always
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: made records, mostly occasionally with a demo, but mostly band
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: playing live at the same time, and Jeff never does that.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: So they had bumped into each other and had this
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: song free Fallen, and they wanted to record a demo.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So they came over to my little house which I
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: had a little soundcraft studio in a back bedroom, and
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I did have a twenty four track machine, and they've
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: got this song free Fallen, and Jeff proceeded to lead
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the recording. And my job just dropped watching this guy.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I could go on about it. I I
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: don't know how much deeply you want to get into it.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to give away any of your secrets,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: although I could, because people learn the secrets, they still
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: can't do it. Yes, he just does it. But one
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: thing that blew my mind was we had this song
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and a free falls a very simple song there's three
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: chords and he made it. He crafted it into this
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: three minute piece. He can't think. We came over at
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: twelve noon and by six o'clock the thing was done. Background, vocals,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: guitar parts, everything, percussion done finished. What else you got? Wow?
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And I'd never seen it done that fast before. And
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: it's because he knew how to get what he wanted
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: really fast. What was the order of events that? Okay,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: here's how you here's the Jeff Lynn, sorry, Jeff, the
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: formula which no one can touch you, so I can
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: say this. We would go in. The song was written
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: an acoustic guitar. We'd we'd learn it. Okay, let's go.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: We'd get a One secret to that formula is we
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: used a drum machine because we didn't have a drummer.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: It was just the three of us. But the drum
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: machine was dead simple, just boom boom, the silest bump bump, bump, bump, bup, bump,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: nothing it boom boom, so at least plenty of room
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: for other rhythms, other basses. You can change it later,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: but to start with just basically a metronome, but with
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: a drum machine with good sounds. So we go out
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and play this song down on acoustic guitar. Okay, let's
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: double that two or three at a time. Let's do
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: that again. So now you've got six acoustic guitars going shaging.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Sounds really rich. Okay. Then we'd go, okay, let's let's
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: put a guide vocal on it, which most usually became
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the real vocal, so we know where the verses and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: choruses are. And then most likely Jeff had to sound
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: on a OBX sysus. It's just a pad sound like
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a harmonium sound, and he would put that in following
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the chords of the acoustic guitar, which would just be
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: underneath it, which kind of glued it all together. And
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: then the background vocals. Because it's on a drum machine,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the tempo does not change from one course to the next,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: so basically we work on the one chorus, pop that
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: into all the courses. Done the one chorus. Okay, we're
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: on a twenty four track analog machine. I don't know
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: how technically you want to get stomped me or cut
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it out later, but I've told you this before. Maybe
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: you probably like this because you're a producer. So we
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: had a twenty four track machine. Okay, we already put
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: like six tracks of double acoustic guitars. Got maybe you
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: used up eight tracks. Okay, Okay, the vocals, we're gonna
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: need like twenty tracks for the vocals, So we make
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: a slave. We'd maybe do a rough mixed onto the
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: two inch or the quarter inch. Get a fresh piece
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: of twenty four track tape, take that stereo mix, put
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: it onto two tracks. There you got twenty two tracks. Open.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Let me go to the chorus. Okay, I'm free. Okay,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: let's sing that together. I'm free. Let's do it six times.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: So there's twelve voices going I'm free, I'm free. Okay,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: let's do twelve of those. You build the thing, and
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Jeff just knew which notes to do and how to move,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: you know. But it was usually him and Tom singing
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: together on the backgrounds to make a sound. But you
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: ended with this glob of the chorus comes on. It's like,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: you know, this big sound. Then the tricky part was, okay,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: now you take the twenty four track and you mute
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the guitars. It's all vocals, you blend them together, you
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: copy them over to the quarter inch. Okay, so now
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: all those twenty tracks or whatever are in stereo on
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: two tracks. You put the master twenty four track back
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: up and then you sit there and you count one, two, three, four,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: play until you get it and sync on each chorus.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: So now you're back on your Master. You've only used
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: up two tracks and you've got these huge twenty track
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: choruses coming in. Amazing, And you could do that with
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a guitar lick. You can do that with anything, and
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: it's kind of fun, you know, like, oh we missed it,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: do it again, one, two, three, okay, one more time.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: You know, very analog organic, but when you get it, okay,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: there it is. You know, nowadays you just push your
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: button and pro tools to do that for you in
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: two seconds. But it was kind of fun doing it.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: You have to get down on your knees and you know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and market and stuff mark the tape so you know
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: where to start from. Yeah. Amazing, Yeah, really good anything.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: But then so the record was, you know, Niver spent
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: more than two days. Would you put the drums on last? Yeah,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: so we've got a drum machine and we would keep
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the kick drum because we had this really good Lyn
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: drum kick drum and he hatched just as a behind it,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: and we'd overdubbed the sneer drum by itself. And the
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: advantage to that if you listen to Jess Rickers the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: drum sub but really unique. Each drum is open because
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: they're not all fighting for the sonic space at the
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: same time. So you're just doing the snare rum. You
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: put all the mics up, hit the sneers, beautiful sneer
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: stand without symbols or anything else. And we had this
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: guy Phil Jones, a drummer percussionist who would come in.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: He'd sit there and put a tale on his leg
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and live performance of the snare drum. If he got off,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: we'd stop. Pick it up. But it's not like a
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: sample triggering. He's actually playing it, and that there's a
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: drum fill coming up, we'd stop. Okay, we need a
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: drum fill. Okay, got that. Go back to the song
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: and the Tom Tom. We need Tom Tom, Phil, Okay,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: let's go once again. Tom's by themselves, symbols by themselves.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: They were orchestrated. And that's why those records did he
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: make sounds so beautiful because nothing's getting in the way
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: sonically of anything else. But you know, that's that's the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: the basic formula. But when when did um Where in
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: that story is when did don't come around here? No
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: more happened? Because that was also made in a more
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: mechanical way as that's the previous album that was Dave Stewart.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Did you do a whole album with Dave? No just
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that song or two, two or three sons that was
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: done with the drum machine. That was during Hard Promises,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: which is an album that got bogged down. We got
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: bogged down what we were trying to do, and he
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: came along, had this demo which Tom liked, and we
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: It started with a a drum machine loop of some
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: sort and Dave did his thing and at the end
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: we had the whole band come on and do the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: the ending and play it out, you know. So it
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: sounded like a band. It's kind of a mix of
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: both worlds cool And that was supposed to be Stevie
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Nicks's song. Was it? Ivene was hooked up with Dave
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and working with Stevie and so he heard that song.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: He said, oh, and the rhythmics aren't doing this? Can
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I have it for Stevie? And she hated it? So
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Jimmy said, oh, well, how about Tom, So it came
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: down the line to us. There you go. We'll be
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: right back with more from Mike Campbell. After a quick break,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: we're back with the rest of Mike and Rick's conversation
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and his new song Southern Boy from his band the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Dirty Knobbs album Reckless Abandoned. What are your first memories
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: of our working together, because that's what came next in
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: the in the story. First thing it pops into mind
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: is you wreck me Chris. We were as auditioning drummers
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: at the time. I don't know if you were part
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of the drummer you were, I remember, and I just
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: remember you showed up and you were really good with
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: helping us pick the songs and talking about what type
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: of songs you might want to try to write, and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: getting the grooves right, like you don't know how it feels.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I remember that was a discussion about some Steve Milber
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: song and you could take a groove like that and
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: make a song at it in our own way, as
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of ideas come from other things and you
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: make it your own. But that's what I remember most
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: is being really deep into the song choices and the
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: grooves and the sounds. We didn't seem to struggle it
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: with sounds too much. It didn't feel like it was
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: hard to get that band to sound good. It felt
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: like it just naturally sounded so good. I don't remember
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: struggling it all, not like Torpedoes now. The sounds were
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: always pretty good, and we just worked on the music,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and just you know, dropping bad songs are
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: bringing in better ones. Yeah. I remember the only song
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that was written when I came the first time, um
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: was Good to be King was the song that Tom
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: already had and good And I remember coming to your
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: house and we listened to it, and I think there
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: was there may have been a I think there was
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: a demo for it, kind of demo in my house. Yeah,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: funky sounding demo, but we had an idea of it, Yeah,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I remember that. But I remember that was all there was,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and then we just sort of talked about what could
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: be the rest of them, what else the rest of
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: it could look like, you know, as we're talking about
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: just and look back over the project, I see a
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: theme appearing. And the theme seems to be when the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: elements all come together, you got the right people in
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the right space and time the songs materialized. Yeah, I can.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I can tell you one thing that I oh wait,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I don't I've never I don't remember ever voicing this before,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: but I remember feeling over time that with Tom, I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: felt like on the first album, on Wildflowers, our first
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: album together, he really wanted to impress me. He worked
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: hard to impress me, and once he felt like he
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: had done that on that album, I never felt like
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: he tried his hard again on any of the other
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: things we did. I think he was did you know,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: did great? But it was a nature of prison. It
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: was a different like I want to win over this
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: new person. Yeah, And I think it sounds like that
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: kept happening with the different people over the years. Well
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: that's a reoccurring thing too. I mean, somebody said a
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: producer shouldn't work with a band for more than two
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: records because the first thing, you're trying to impress each
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: other and pull the best out, and then it's like, Okay,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: now we're gonna do it again. There's the same thing again.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: You already know you're impressed with me. I already know
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you know what you can about your capable of and
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: there's no mystery about it. I think a mystery and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the danger is what brings out the really great stuff.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you could say that about all the jeff
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: too and read your point where well, you know, it's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: almost like as an artist and I can't speak for Tom,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: but I can speak for myself and maybe partially for
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: him because I know him really well. You have a producer,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: you're The producer is to bring out the best in
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: you and to keep you from getting up you're lost
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: up your own ass, which is easy to do when
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: you're producing yourself. Okay, So when you first get with
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the producer, you want to make that connection where he
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: pushes you and you can prove to him what you
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: can do. You know, and you're interested in everything he
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: says because it's new and oh that's really smart. I
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: hadn't thought of that. After a couple of hourtitude, if
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I played this song, I already know what you're going
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: to think of it, because I know you now and
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: you can still do good work. But if you don't,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you only get one shot at that initial thing. Interesting. Yeah,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: it is interesting. It's like I said, it's hard to
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: talk about music sometimes because it's birds fail you. But
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: it's very mystical and where songs come from and where
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you know, great records just happen. It's kind of just
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: a blessing and a mystery, you know, and luck. So
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: then after that, what was the next period? I was
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: going to say, It's like I think with Tom and you,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I think it got to a point too where at
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: the beginning you pushed him like that birst can be
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: better or that song can be better, and he listened
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: to you. And I think we should point too where
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: when you're really like confident in yourself, like I don't
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: want anybody telling me what to do. I want to
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: do it my way, and I don't really want that
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: opinion right now at this point, I don't want to
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: be bothered with your point of view. I don't want
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: you analyzing or critiquing what I want to do. I
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: just want to go do it. Yeah, And which is fine.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: There's nothing personal, it's just creative energy. So I think
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: after I also remember there was a period I can't
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: remember which album it was, towards the end of the
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: ones that we made together, where Tom sort of went
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: through a dark phase. If you remember, he showed up
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: a studio with a cane echo. Yeah, and yeah, he
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: was not the regular time or personal problems going on there. Yeah,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: texts everything due absolutely, but you remember it was like
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the whole energy. I remember the whole energy shifted for
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: a while. It was dark. I'm sad, yeah, and I'd
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: rather not remember too much of that. But you're right,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: it was a phase we went through. I think some
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: there was some interesting songs that came out of it.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: And nonetheless, like uh, echo was a good song room
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: at the top of the world, and it was there.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: There were some good songs, but it was a it
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: was a you know, you're in life or in and creativity,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you go through ups and downs and dark periods and
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: great periods. And I remember fun being in the studio
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: at that time. It wasn't fun. No, that that little way,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing me personally, And we did that
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: and we lived through it and we survived that. But
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: me personally, especially at this point in my life, like
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: I just did this record with my own band, and
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: it's fun. Yeah, it's gotta be. I make it fun,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you know, And when when guys are having fun, you
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: can hear it, you can feel it, you can tell.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I'll be happy when you get to hear my record. Yeah,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: I can't wait. You want to listen to a song now,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: it's a really good record, great, I want to hear. Yeah, Well,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: let's just play. This is the one that got a
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: little bit of an angus rhythm, guitar, great groove, Thank you.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Who's who's in the band. It's me Matt log on
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the drums, my friend Jason Say on guitar, and Lance
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Morrison on the bass. So cool. Yeah, you know, I
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: remember that was really fun. While we were making Wildflowers,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: we went into ocean Way with the with the Heartbreakers
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: and we did a few in a short time. In
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: a few days, we recorded about one hundred songs. I
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: don't know if you remember that, but ended up being
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: most of what's on that box set. Okay, we did
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of covers. Okay, the playback set. Yeah, but
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I remember that. Do you remember going to ocean Way
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: and it was to it was Tom's idea, was I
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: think it was? Um the old record Company was going
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: to put out the Greatest Hits record and they needed
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: two songs for the Greatest Hits album, and the album
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Wildflowers was going to be a quote unquote Tom Petty
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: solo record and it had a different vibe. And we
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: were doing that at sound City and Tom said, well,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: for the two songs, I don't want to record them
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: in the wild Flowers setting. Let's set up a different studio.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: We'll do it completely differently. And we did the two
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: songs for that album, which were Mary Jane, Mary Jane
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: and the cover something in the Air, Something in the Air,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: But we also recorded a million covers just for fun.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Mary Jane Shure turned out good. Yeah, I can remember. Also,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't even know if you know
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: this story, but Tom sent me a rehearsal tape of
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: song ideas and he's like, Okay, what do you think
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: because it was like a separate writing session for the
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Greatest Hits, like what's going to be on the Greatest Hits?
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: And it had a bunch of songs on it, and
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I remember not liking any of it. I just didn't
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: think it was good. But in between in between a
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: couple of the songs, or in between one of the songs,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: that was the guitar riff, and it was you playing
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: what ended up being Last Dance with Mary Jane. Oh.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: That guitar riff was like it wasn't one of the
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: songs on the tape. It was just a riff in
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: between songs. That happens a lot, like a preparation riff. Yeah, yeah,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: that happens a lot with our band between the songs. Yeah.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: And I remember saying to Tom, it's like that is
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: the song? Whatever that is is the song? Cool? Yeah, mystery.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah it worked out, It worked out. Yeah, crazy, what
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: a life. Amazing to feel old now. But you're right.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people we've had, we had
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: several peaks, and most bands are lucky to get one. Absolutely,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: and I don't know, we're just blessed. But I think
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: we just, you know, Tom and to some extent me
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: tuned into some songs that are timeless. Absolutely. What was
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: the energy like on the last tour? It was great.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: It really was beautiful. And we had no idea. I mean,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: he had a little a bit of hip pain, but
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I know if it had been really bad, we'd have
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: heard about it. Yeah, it was just a minor nuance
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: and he was happy. And I remember the last the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: last gig at the Hollywood Ball I looked at his
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: face at one point and he was just beaming and
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: he was so proud of the audience and so proud
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: of him and the band and to be in that moment,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: and I remember thinking like, wow, I want to I
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: want my head to be in that space. So it
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: was a beautiful tour. I mean, yeah, if you got
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: to go out, that's a good way to go out.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I still can't believe he's gone. I haven't two years
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: now or over two years. Yeah, I'm okay with it
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: most of the time. It hits maybe now and then,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: but you know, you have to just makes no sense, bizarre,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: But I guess life that doesn't make sense, mishap, you know.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I try not to do all on it too much.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Of course, I'm very proud of what we did. When
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: I hear stuff on the radio, that's good work, you know.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: That was weird. I remember the day after getting the news.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: It was at dinner in a place in Santa Monica,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: and one of the songs from the first one of
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the songs from the first album came on just I
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: don't know if it was in memorial or if they
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: just happened, if it just happened to come on in
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: a playlist, And I remember feeling like in hearing the music,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I felt like, oh, he's more alive than ever before.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: It's like this is this is a lot, this is
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: a live where here like this lives. That's the beauty
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: of music. Yeah, mutic is Forever. Thanks to Mike Campbell
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: for running down the history of the Heartbreakers and sharing
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: its new music with Rick. You can hear all of
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: our favorite music featuring Mike Campbell by checking out the
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: playlist for this episode at broken record podcast dot com.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced help from Jason Gambrell, Mia Lobell,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries. I've Been music is
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.