April 15, 2025 • 57 mins
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty died in 2017, but his music continues to live on thanks to hits like "Refugee", "Here Comes My Girl", and "Runnin' Down a Dream." But recently Jason and Peter were stunned to learn that Petty didn’t write those songs alone. Really, no Really!
Mike Campbell was an original member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and co-wrote many of the band's legendary hits and was considered by Petty to be the Heartbreakers’ co-captain.
Campbell himself, continues to have an impressive career, now fronting the band The Dirty Knobs and playing and writing music with legendary rockers like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, George Harrison and more. But that got the guys wondering, what it’s like being the “unrecognized talent” regularly standing just behind and co-writing with iconic names?
While much of Mike’s career was alongside Petty, he notably gave Don Henley the music for his 1984 hit "The Boys of Summer" and he worked closely with Stevie Nicks, Aretha Franklin and too many others to name.
Campbell just released his first book: Heartbreaker: A Memoir
***
ON THIS EPISODE:
- Where Heartbreaker guitar lines came from.
- What gives guitarists their “sound”?
- Mike stores his guitars in a dry-cleaning rack?
- They say Bob Dylan is “enigmatic” – What does that mean?
- Tiny clubs vs. stadiums – Which is better to play?
- On-stage and having to pee. What do you do?
- How has the music business changed during Mike’s career?
- Jason has an insane pneumatic couch. ???
- Googleheim: Dylan Fans… We gotchu!
***
FOLLOW MIKE:
Website (tour dates & tickets) - www.thedirtyknobs.com
Book - Heartbreaker: A Memoir
Instagram: @mikecampbellofficial
YouTube - @mikecampbellofficial
X - @MikeCampbellHQ
Facebook – MikeCampbellOfficial
***
FOLLOW ROBERT TILDEN:
Spotify: Boyo
***
FOLLOW REALLY NO REALLY:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Now really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really now really hello, and welcome to really know Really,
with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who humbly remind you
not to be petty and please subscribe. Speaking of Petty,
rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty left this
world in twenty seventeen, but his music continues to live
on thanks to hits like Refugee, Here Comes My Girl,
(00:27):
and Running Down a Dream. But recently Jason and Peter
were stunned to learn that Petty didn't write those songs alone.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Really No Really.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Mike Campbell was an original member of Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers and co wrote many of.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The band's legendary hits.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
In fact, he was considered by Petty to be the
Heartbreakers co captain, and while much of Mike's career was
alongside Petty, he notably gave Don Henley.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
The music for his nineteen eighty four hit The.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Boys of Summer, and he worked closely with Stevie Nicks,
Aretha Franklin, and too many others to name.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Campbell has definitely had an.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Impressive career himself, now fronting the band The Dirty Knobs
and playing and writing music with the legendary rockers like
Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, George Harrison and Moore and all
that got the guys wondering what's it like being the
unrecognized talent regularly standing just behind and co writing with
iconic names.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
That question and more is the subject of.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
His newly released book, Heartbreaker, a Memoir and now here
are two more Heartbreakers And yes they did make me
say back.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Jason and Peter, Hello, everybody, welcome to really know really
that always gets a bell because it makes Peter happy.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
My partner, Peter Tilden. I'm Jason. I say why I
hate the bell? Please? If I publicly stated why I
hate the bell.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
You have publicly stated that you hate the bell, tell
you what I don't know is it?
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Is it your musophonia or whatever? The no, no, no
no no, although you've proven then I do have music.
I know. Yes, I'll tell you why. In my thirty
years in radio, Yeah, okay, the stick of old jocks
is if you listen to the old guy when I
got into it's all, it's this, it's hey because they
didn't have sound effects, they didn't have AI. This was it.
(02:07):
So it drives me crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Well, can I say something in response to how much
you hate the bell and your thirty years of experience
in radio, I would like to point out I.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Didn't bring the bell in.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Somebody a partner in this broadcast with thirty years of
experience in radio, suddenly there was a bell.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Because I thought it occasionally occasionally, like every fifteenth episode
maybe would be funny. Didn't realize it was going to
be really every time you said, really, know, really, what
did them?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
If you're not watching on YouTube, I have yet to
touch the bell in this episode.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Let's talk about the episode, all right, that's what.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We have a guest in the studio, and I think
not not our primary guest, but we have a guest
in the studio and share number three. This very fine
young man over there in the hat that says shamanics.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Shamanics. Yes, we're going to find out more about it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Is a very a lovely man that I've known since
he was a young lad little man who looks just
like you. He did a video for his band I
did for Boreo. You bet, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
the show. Mister Robert tilden.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Miter. He knew where the camera right.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
I got prepped. Also all right, it wasn't. It wasn't
in my nature.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I was proud to be knock my feet up from
underneath me. I'm sorry.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
And Robert.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Robert is here today for a number of reasons.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
One is, uh, just bring your kid to work day,
bring your kick in the workday. But also your your
primary career at this moment is music writing, playing all kinds.
So we have a big, a big music since brand
are you talking about our other Roberts? I know about Boyle,
but you also do music outside of Boyle, don't you?
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Yeah? Did?
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I like to score things and produce things and read
music books and consume and everything.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
So yeah, and you now you play not not sent
synthically on a keyboard, but you play keyboard.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Yes, I play everything. I like.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
It's like a jack of all trades in the sense
where you can kind of do everything, but not to
the greatest ability.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
You know, you.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Play real guitar, though, real guitar that's your primary.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yes, yes, but you play bass, play bass? Keyboard?
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Is that the one you'd love to play?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I'm struggling.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
I mean the lessons lessons, but also it's like someone
was talking.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
The other day about learning.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
I was saying I wanted to learn animation or something
that seems very hard and takes a lot of time.
And they were just saying, you know, use YouTube university,
which I thought was a weird term, but you can.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Just I feel like using I'm actually taking a free
base course on I. I'm freebasing and uh and it's
very helpful.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
It is very helpful. I mean, how do you do
it when you're free bassed? What do you use? I'm
not giving you tips, wants. This will be the one
pr thing that will break through all of really, no really,
Jason Alexander Minte the free base. That's right, good time,
I knock out a couple of teeth. Make it look real.
So today's guest, Yeah, is a unique individual. Mike Campbell.
(05:08):
Mike Campbell met Tom Petty in gains the Florida when
they were youths and they were mud crutched together. Then
of course is that a is that a music group?
That was? That was a group And just remember I'm
a music moron, so walk me through there. So they
met when they were kids, and then he was in
the Heartbreakers. He wrote the really one of the really
not really. He wrote some of Tom's biggest hits then
Fleetwood Mac needed somebody to replace Lindsay Buckingham. Who they
(05:29):
call Mike Campbell and who is he done music with
Randy Newman, One's Yvon Roy Orbison, Bob Siegert, Joe Cocker,
Michael McDonald, Jackson Brown and Chicks Ringo. And he was,
this is going to be this is mind lord to me.
He's the backup ban the Heartbreakers with a backup band
for Bob Dylan on tour. So I wonder if Mike
Campbell liked I knew that was the next thing. Oh,
(05:52):
I thought, if you Mike Campbell looked gonna like you. Oh,
he's got to like me. He's got a new book out, Heartbreaker,
a memoir. Also touring with the Dirty Knobs. But you're home, right,
You're off the road at this point for a minute.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
I am.
Speaker 7 (06:05):
I'm recording right now, our fourth album. We just started yesterday.
So I'm at home in La.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, very cool. Well, thanks thanks for coming to La
in La. And he still couldn't come down here to
the He's busy recording.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
But I'm just saying that sounds like a character I'm
familiar with.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
I know I had I could have done it from
my house. I had to come all the way down here.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
People say to me, People say, no, no, Mike, I'm
not blaming you.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I'm blaming our our staff. Of course, who couldn't be.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
If you had Katie, she could have taken care of you.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Boy, Truer words have never been spoken. We're coming next now,
you're up for it. You're coming next time. And by
the way, people say to me, is Jason anything like
the character? I go, no, no, not at all, never complains,
never irritated, not at all. So I actually want to
ask the first question, Mike.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So our show really, no, really, We're going to talk
about a lot of things today, but we try and
find something that makes Peter and I go, what is
that all about? And your career has done something that
I find so interesting And I was first made aware
of it, not specific to you, when I watched the
(07:17):
documentary I think it was twenty Feet from Stardom about
the glorious backup singers that are on all these great
songs and albums that we know and that you know,
people in the know know who they are, but they
go largely unrecognized.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Now you were certainly not unrecognizing your career.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
But what was so fascinating to me when Peter said
we were having you on was to realize how great
a writing and playing contribution you had made, certainly to
the success of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, And yet
I think the average person may not be aware of
how large that contribution is.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And I just want to know how you.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Because I've asked some other people that are in similar circumstances,
how that's with you?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
How that? How that? How do you carry that? And
does it bother you? Is it fine?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Do you know going in that you know the spotlight
is probably going to be on the other guy. I mean,
what what's your journey through being that other guy? And
yet such a substantial part of these creations?
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Well, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (08:22):
I can't explain that. Tom always call me the co captain.
And from the time I met Tom, I mean, I've
always been a basically shy, quiet person. He's got a great,
dynamic personality and it was a perfect fit.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
You know.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
I didn't challenge his leadership or his charisma, and I
was very comfortable because I trusted him and I had
this great partner who could do all that for me.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
I just.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
You know, so it just our personality has just worked
that way, you know.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
But meanwhile, the really really for me, you have a
song like break Now the guitar line is the song
without that guitar line, It's a bunch of chords, your guitar.
Speaker 8 (09:09):
I agree, and we're out, and we're out, and I
have no bitterness in that's about.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
No, It's funny as a guitar because I play a
little guitar. My son who's doing a stay because he
wanted to talk to you as a group called and
he the guitar line writing songs is really really interesting.
So I love playing along with Tom Petty songs and
you go, wow, these are some basic chords and some
really interesting chord changes. But then you do your thing
and it changes the whole dynamic of the song every
(09:39):
single time. So really, not really going, I said to Jason,
Really no, really, people should know that he wrote some
of the biggest songs alongside Tom Petty and then came
up with not only the music for it and later
on the lyrics, but the guitar line. So when you
come up with it, is that ever intimidating where you're
in there and I know you play studio musician too,
where you can't find the line that's going to make
(10:01):
the song great, and it does the guest state for
a just state for years.
Speaker 7 (10:06):
It's never hard for me. I think that's one reason
Tom likes me is he could bring a song in.
It was just the basic chords, and we all have
We both had the same influences the sixties and the
Beach Boys, Beatles, Stones, all that, so I instinctively just
organically would join in. And it was always fun to discover, well,
(10:27):
what can I add to this without getting in the way.
And I always had a way of just finding the
right thing that he liked and that we agreed on.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
Just lucky.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Really, you know, I do play music, and I do
know music, but I'm not a musician.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So if someone.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Writes it down and I'm lucky and I'm on the
right instrument, I can play it. But when you're creating
solo lines like that, are you immediately able to go
I hear it in my head and it comes out
in my hands. Is that a direct communication or is
there a thought process behind it? A technical process of
getting it to be the thing you hear in your head.
Speaker 7 (11:06):
There's no thought process, really. My gift for my blessing,
which I'm very grateful for, is a subliminal stream of consciousness.
All my input to the music. You know, ninety five
percent of it happens in the moment. Breakdown, you know,
breakdown just an example. I don't take these things out
(11:28):
because I like to they come out of the air
and if you just they passed through you and breakdown.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
For instance, we cut the song.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Down very simple, and so we cut it the basic track.
It was maybe six seven minutes long, and I said, okay, well,
let me play some guitar along with the track they
recorded me and I just you know, shut my mind
off and let it happen.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And just.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
I immediately kind of went to a blues form because
the mood it's in, and so I knew it along
pretty bad stuff. Really just letting it happen. At the
end of the six minutes, I kind of got bored
with trying to think of stuff, so I just instinctively
went down. It was there in the air. I didn't
think anything about it. So I recorded that and said, well,
(12:19):
we'll look at it tomorrow. I went home and then
Tom called me back and said, you got to come
back down to the studio. I'm here with Dwight Twillie,
and we heard the lick that you played at the
end of your little jam and that that needs to
go at the beginning of the song. I didn't remember
what it was, you know, so I went back down
and heard it and go, oh, that's it, okay, learned
it and played it on the top of the song.
So all the guitar persons you here on Heartbreakers records
(12:41):
are spontaneous, most of them, and I just let them happen,
you know. I don't try to analyze or write them
out or think them out. Occasionally you have to, but
if I do put any thought process into it, I
would go to the vocal melody, what's the guy singing?
Speaker 6 (12:59):
What's the O? And I'll find those on the guitar.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
If I get stuck and nothing's coming, I'll just go
to the melody because I know that's going to work,
and then I'll turn the guitar around on it and
turn into something. It's kind of magical, really, I mean,
I'm still fascinated by it.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
It is magical, and it's magical for people like me
who you know, I cannot I can hear music in
my head. I have to struggle to get it out
through my fingers, you know. I just there's no instrument
that is such a part of me that the translation
is spontaneous.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah, and I will find that magical for people that haven't. Yeah,
I hear you.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
Well, the reason I'm able to do that is because
I put in the hours of work of learning my
scales and my craft and my feel so I had
those tools already, so I don't have to think about that.
I can just let my fingers do what they want
to do, and my mind kind of follows them.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
But you know, the.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
Magic metaphor is silly, but it's true. It's like you
pull a rabbit out of the hat. But that was
there before, here's here where to come from.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (14:02):
The music a lot of times, just for me, is
like that. And the songs too, they just come out
of the air.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Well, it's you know, it's the same really in the
acting world. I find you know, you do all your
prep and you do your rehearsal, but what you're hoping
for is in that performance something takes over that nobody
knew was going to happen, and it's exactly right, and
it's in the flow and everybody feels it and you're
not in control of it. You're sort of releasing to it.
(14:26):
But I've only, like I say, I've only experienced it.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
That's where I put my ten thousand hours as opposed
to where you put yours.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Solf. Yeah, it is beautiful.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
That's exactly what you hit the nail on the head
right there, Jason's exactly that. You have your tools, you
learn your craft, and you put in a moment and
rather than script it, you go with it. You know,
maybe you change the phrase a little bit, and acting
you would change the word a little bit because it didn't
feel right in the moment, you come up with something better.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
It just happens. Yeah, and it's like, wow, that was fun.
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I was going to say that in learning about your past.
I mean, you live like a lot of us living
when you were teenagers in the hell holes and then
you moved out to the woods, the woods and we're
sharing a place. But the one thing that always stood out,
and same with my son, if you love the music,
you're holding your guitar, you're playing all the time. You
played constantly, right, that was what you did when other
(15:20):
guys were going and doing other stuff. And I think
one of your guys, your roommates went off to the
Bermuda Triangle, disappeared. Another one went to Hawaii and lived
his life there. You just kept playing and playing and playing,
and then you met Tom when you were howled.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
Oh, twenty twenty one something like that in Gainesville.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
By the way, at Gainesville at that time. It's funny
because the southern thing I would have thought was all
Allman Brothers. But I did country music for a lot
of years. Jason actually did some with me, did the
Brad Paisley videos and stuff. So I got to do
country music in those years when Keith Urban was coming up,
et cetera, and I didn't know anything about it, but
immersing myself in that there's some amazing players, and you
(16:00):
guys kind of tended toward that, more toward country, more
toward birds, more toward that kind of sound and beatle harmonies,
kind of birds harmonies. How did that seep into Gainesville?
What was around in Gainesville that got you to that?
Speaker 7 (16:13):
Well, the college, you know, the Gainesville is basically the
University of Florida college community, So it was that young,
idealistic energy around the campus.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
There were lesser free concerts.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
But the thing about the blues is the South is
deeply blues and country ingrained, and we grew up around
all that, you know. But we also were Tom and
I were really enamored with the whole sixties thing, you know,
the Beach Boys, the dream of the Golden Sun and
the beautiful girls, and then of course England with the Beatles,
(16:49):
Stones Kings, all those great bands.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
That's what turned us on. So when in the South,
you know, there's a lot of.
Speaker 7 (16:56):
Bands, and as soon as the bands saw the Almond
Brothers or Leonard Skinner be successful, that you wanted to
do that, you know, but we didn't.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
It didn't really fit with us.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
We wanted to play Bergie you know, Coors harmonies, and
that's so we were kind of stood out in a
way because everybody else is playing all my brother's copies
and we were doing our own thing. And it's just
because that's what we were, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Also, I'm curious about Tom. Yeah, the words intimidating, and
I think your quote was you can't sell Tom. You
couldn't talk Tom into anything. So you got a guy
that I got it. I got it, I got it.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I feel I feel your pain, Mike. I'm just I'm
not I feel your pain.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Robert, do you have something you wanted?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (17:48):
I was just interested because you said you're inspired by
the Birds and the Beatles and the Stones, and I
was listening to your guitar parts the other day and
there's like a tonal quality that I feel like kind
of bridge the gap between them and the future. It
sounds like you're doing what they're doing, but in a
kind of futuristic way with your tone. And I wonder
(18:09):
is that is that the same kind of just flow
where you just set your guitar in a certain way
with the amp and it just sounded how it sounded
or were you really intentional with that?
Speaker 6 (18:21):
Not intentional, it just the way it is.
Speaker 7 (18:22):
You know, you could take a guitar and amplifier and
get a sound on it and hand it to Eric Clappton,
it's going to sound like him. Hand it to B. B. King,
it's going to sound like him. Hand it to George Harrison,
or hand it to me, it's going to sound like me.
It's in the hands And a lot of the tone
is the way you hit the strings and the way
you by brought up the strings. Is your own personality
(18:43):
and the tone. You know, a lot of it comes
from the way you attack it with your own hands,
not the amp per se. But also in terms of
guitar I love all those guitarists, but I also have
to mention Mike Bloomfield, who's from the blues Caty. But
that first Paul Butterfield Blues album where Mike Bloomfield is
(19:04):
just playing all over the place.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
I tried to follow that a lot.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
I studied that quite a bit and tried to get
inside his tone and his feel and his bending and stuff.
So I learned a lot off that record as well.
So you know, you it's like Jason was saying, you
put your ten thousand hours or how the saying goes,
and you do your homework, you build your skills and
your your basic framework, and then you apply that in
the creative situation and hopefully it'll give you some results.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Did I see a video that you have more guitars
than I've ever seen anybody have, but they're on like
a dry cleaning rack that you can press up press
a button. Because I've mentioned that. The people and like
a friend of yours and approuveser Rye and I don't
know that. I don't. People don't. They go, OU haven't
seen it, and so I thought, maybe I'm doubting it.
But it's up in the ceiling, and the guitars are
how do you press up?
Speaker 6 (19:54):
Yeah, give some guitars.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
Did a little piece on that, and you can find
it on YouTube probably somewhere. But it's a practical thing
over you know, my old life. I've collected guitars because
I love them, but I played them all, you know,
and if when you get more than a handful, they
end up in a case or else in a warehouse
with a stack of cases, and you're in the studio
and you go, well, where's that, bless Paul. You know
(20:18):
it's in one of those cases. You know, No, that's
not it. I always at the warehouse. Oh, there it is.
So I wanted to have them where I could see
them and access them because I do use them all,
you know, like paint brushes when I'm working. So I
got the idea, I have a cabana out back that's
got a high ceiling to make a carousel up above
the room like a Chinese laundry, and put them all there.
(20:41):
So and put the cases, empty cases away, so I can.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Walk in and go. There's a less Paul.
Speaker 7 (20:46):
There's a Rickenbacker, and I've got it on a hydra
hydraulic lift so it comes down where I can reach them,
and I lift it back up and I've got the
rehearsal band set up underneath.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
So it's quite a nice vibe.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
How many guitars is that? And do you have to
do what we all have to do, which is with
the wife. When did you get that that I've had
that I've had that? You've never seen that guitar before?
Speaker 7 (21:09):
Yeah, my wife, God bless her. She's talked me into
buying a lot of things that I was going to
pass on. She's a blessing. But well, you know, the
oldest joke is how many guitars does a guitar player
really need?
Speaker 6 (21:22):
One more?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
One more?
Speaker 6 (21:25):
Right?
Speaker 7 (21:26):
But I love guitars and they are pieces of art,
and I don't buy I haven't bought one in several
years because it kind of got all the ones I
ever wanted, But most of them are vintage and old.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
I like the old ones. They have a better sound.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
And I walk in that room and I see all
the guitars up there, and I don't have time to
get to all of you today, you know, But.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
What a great visual. It's such a great, great thing
to say. But I have a practical question about that, Mike.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Knowing nothing about guitars, I always thought that if you
if you didn't case the guitar, that it was prone
to warping or some sort of damage or straight Is
none of that true.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
It's perfectly fine, open like that.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
You don't want to leave it out in the sun.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
But if you get a basically you know, comfortable room,
some people put humidifiers in there.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I don't.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
I'm not that precious about it. You know, they're tough.
The old ones are made really well. Unless you really
put them out in the weather. They just sit there
and they're the same as they were two years ago.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
But don't you worry like I was just displaced because
of the fires. You know, it was impacted. Oh yeah,
what do you what's your plan? If you hear like
I don't know what neighborhood you're in, but you hear
we're going to evacuate when it's coming over the hill.
Are there three hundred people that are each going to
grab a guitar? Or how do you get them out
of there.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
No, well, that's that's a good question.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
What do you what's your plan if you hear like
I don't know what neighborhood you're in, but you hear
we're going to evacuate when it's coming over the hill,
Are there under people that are each going to grab
a guitar? Or how do you get them out of there?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
No?
Speaker 7 (23:04):
Well, that's that's a good question. And I did have
a plan. I could see the smoke from my roof.
I never got I got to be ready warning. I
didn't get the evacuation, but I called up the studio
trucking company, who I have a relationship with. They sent
a truck over with a couple of guys. I was
actually in Hawaii when it all went down, maintain. They
(23:26):
came over to the house and grabbed them all up
and put them in a safe city. And then when
things are safe, they brought them back and put them
back up for you. I don't pamper them, but I
do treasure them.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
So moving forward with Tom Petty. So the Dylan movie
is out. My son loved it. Jason kind of was
not sure about it. We appreciated the movie.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I wasn't I mean, it's probably sacrilege. I grew up
with much older siblings, and my sister, instead of having
the proper music collection of the sixties and epies, the
at the soundtrack album of every musical and Broadway show novel.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So, so I didn't grow up affected by Dylan, you know,
as much as someone of.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
My head should. So I was fascina.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
I know, I know, believe me, my wife is threatened
to leave me on many occasions because of this. But yeah,
I didn't. I didn't think the movie tracked for me.
Speaker 6 (24:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
It comes down to that artistic integrity decision at the
end about what he's going to play at Monterey and
and you know, uh, is he going to serve the
people that sort of brought him there or is he
going to be true to his muse? And I I
couldn't track through the film what that internal struggle was
all about. So as a nice boy was brought up
by a nice mother, I would have said, all right,
(24:48):
what the hell, I'll play electric tomorrow. Let me do
the festival the guy brought me to today, and I'll
do my electric set tomorrow. But that was that was
my issue with the film, other than that's it's a
really well done film.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
But you you worked with it's amazing now looking at
you and going, this guy was around Dylan, wrote with Dylan,
toured with Dylan, played with Dylan, and my producer goes,
you got to ask him, he's always called enigmatic. What
the hell does that mean? What is Bob Dylan really?
What's he like hanging out with He's.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
Like a riddle in size inside a puzzle right outside
of a wrapt around in enigma. The guy's a genius,
you know, he's the every true word of the genius.
That he's got that childlike quality. But uh, responding to
your Jason, to your thing about the film and going electric,
h my impression of Bob is he's going to do
(25:42):
whatever he wants to do. He's not going to worry
about if somebody thinks it's this or that. He was
probably just in the mood. I just got my electric guitar.
I've got Mike Bloomfield over here playing with me. I
want to plug in and play too, And he just
did what excuse me? I don't know if we can
do that on here, but that's the way he is.
He does what he wants and he doesn't cater to
anybody's expectations.
Speaker 6 (26:04):
That's the beauty of his personality.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
But when you're hanging with him, is he all forward?
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Movie?
Speaker 4 (26:08):
It's funny. It's funny. A friend who played with Ringo,
you know, in the All Star band, and he said,
the first couple of years Ringo, the news was do
not ask Ringo about the Beatle. He just doesn't want
to talk about the Beatles. And then as he got older,
I guess that he got older, he started volunteering and
then they said you couldn't stop him telling stories about
the Beatles. Right? What is Doling like to eat dinner with?
Does he tell Dylan stories? Can you ask him questions?
(26:30):
Is there stuff that's forbidden to talk about? Is it
a wor no?
Speaker 7 (26:34):
He's you know, I have had some private just me
and him at at the table, and it's like he
told me, he said, you know, I don't like I
can't communicate or relate to many people, but I like
musicians because they understand me, you know. And we talked
about music. We talked about Muddy Waters and blues and
at one point he goes, you know the world doesn't
(26:55):
need any more songs. There's thousands of songs. They've already
been written. I'm not going to I'm just going to
do something with us. I'm not going to write any
more songs. And I said, well, you know, Bob, I
think people would probably like to hear what's on your mind.
I think he should keep writing songs. But he's just
once you get over the veneer, oh my god, it's
so and so, you just get down as two musicians talking.
(27:17):
That's what he's like. He's just deep into the music.
And he's very generous, and he's very he's very smart.
You got to be on your toes.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
You know.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
He doesn't sufferate fools. If you say something stupid, he's
going to notice it, you know. But he's really sweet.
You know, he's a great guy, and he's really you know,
he's it's hard to put in words, but I have
nothing but reverence for mister Dylan.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
I wonder if you have any insight into this, Mike.
It's a fascinating moment. It's in the documentary that was
made when they were recording We Are the World, and
Dylan is one of the last guys that's gonna solo.
Speaker 6 (27:54):
That night, and yeah, yeah, he gets seen that.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, he kind of gets his head and in his
way and Stevie wonder eventually, what it looks like is
if Stevie wonder sort of does a Dylan impression to
show Dylan how to sing the.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Dylan lines, and then he was able to do it.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
But does that do you understand potentially what was going
on in his head that made him so tighten up
like that.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
I have a hunch that he is.
Speaker 7 (28:27):
Has a knee jerk reaction to all the attention that's
piled on him and the expectations, you know, and he
walks in the room and oh, what's he going to do?
He's a genius, It's going to be amazing, and he
feels all that. He's just like, you know, he's kind
of in a way, he's kind of shy and like,
leave me alone. You know, I don't want all that attention.
I'm not I'm not God. I'm not going to show
you the truth. You find that for yourself. I think
(28:50):
that's what it is. It's just like that on my face,
you know. And he makes some nervous and self conscious
as anybody would be.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Yep, but you know I.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Saw that Stevie Wonderner showing him how he should sing it.
It was hilarious.
Speaker 7 (29:04):
Maybe I think he really appreciated it because he took
the heat off him.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
You bet.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
He seemed to really just blossom right after that. Oh
I can I can do that?
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Okay? You know Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
My impression was, yeah, you know, if it were me,
I I sort of projected into Bob Dylan in that moment,
and I thought, if I were in that room, you know,
I can, I can sing a little, but I'm not
going to open my mouth in that room.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
I think, you know, you surround.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
Us, say, if he walked into a movie to do
a cameo and and you were nervous, maybe there was
some starlets there that you were like, oh my god,
it's Steven Spielberg or whatever, and they said okay, uh
be George, and he'd be like and somebody was sipping
and go, oh he do it like this?
Speaker 6 (29:50):
Oh yeah right. I know that it was kind of
like that, you know happens.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
I was.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
I was wondering from just working with different artists like
Dylan and Patty, did you feel like you had to
channel different parts of your musical self to write and
play with them, or was it you feel like you
kind of had one unanimous kind of writing brain with
with these people, like with with Dylan, did you have
to have different expectations of a kind of guitarist and
(30:18):
writing a partner or was it just all kind of
one collaborative thing.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
Well, whoever you're working with, you know, Roy Orbison or
Delish Fan.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
Whoever, you bring your skills to the table.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
And you you try to give them what they want,
what you think they might want to hear from you.
You know, it's interesting because sometimes people hire you to
do something and they want you to do what you do,
and you come in want to do what they want
you to do. You know, like try to maybe they
want something like this, but it's not. You're always channeling.
You're always channeling your influences that you draw on them
(30:57):
when you can and hopefully they're there for you them.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Who you know? I read that you guys open. I
always loved seeing concert bills that are weird, even growing
up in Philadelphia where I was. You'd go to the
Electric Factory and you'd see like a bad example of
like Abba and Frank Zappa. Some promoter would put things
together just because they got them the dates for free
and they try and build it. I know, you guys
opened for Kiss. What was the weirdest, weirdest billy you
(31:23):
were ever on? We thought the weirdest.
Speaker 7 (31:25):
Bill that was there. That's in the book is a
great story about that. It's hilarious, but the weirdest bill.
At that stage of our career, they were trying to
hook us up with anybody, open for this, open for that,
jump on this, And one day after it was in
the Midwest somewhere, they had us opening for the La Express,
which was a jazz band. You know, it's like a
lot of you know, saxophones that do out up they do,
(31:47):
but you know, it had nothing to do with us
at all. And so they were the headliner and we
were the nobodies. So we came on before them to
these jazz afficionados and I remember we walking the stage.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
And what's this the monkeys?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (32:02):
Nice that? Yeah, but we did. We showed them. But
that was the weirdest mismatch I've ever Wow.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Well, the other thing is the leap from you're playing
small clubs, the coffee houses, and then there were the
clubs that were like three hundred, three hundred, ten one thousand,
your first time you're playing a stadium. What's in your
head when you're looking out at that and you're trying
to connect with that crowd. I mean in theater, Jason
that always told me that it's black. You can't really
(32:32):
see them again, the first couple I'm experiencing them sonically,
they cannot seeium. You come out at one hundred thousand
seed or sixty thousand cedar, what's coming back in you is?
It must be intense first of all, but what are
you focusing on it?
Speaker 6 (32:45):
Focus on the music, you know.
Speaker 7 (32:47):
And it's interesting that the big, huge crowds, like we've
played at the US Festival there's two hundred thousand people,
or Hyde Park, you know, sixty thousand people. And when
you have a situation like that, you can't you feel
it and you see.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Them all, but you don't see their individual faces.
Speaker 7 (33:04):
You just see this collage of people, you know, and
so it just becomes kind of a backdrop and you
try to just play like you were in a fifty
seat club. And interesting thing is is when you're in
a small room and you can actually see their faces,
you're really in connected with them.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
You actually play to them, and the.
Speaker 7 (33:22):
Bigger crowds you're playing to the collage and you're just
trying to make it as real as you can. But
there's no direct person on person communication. But the sound
is pretty overwhelming. It's like somebody opens an oven in
front of you.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
It's like.
Speaker 7 (33:39):
It's quite an experience. But there is a difference. But
it was never intimidating playing the bigger places because it's
so big. You know, it's out there and they're hearing
a whole different mix than you're hearing up here, so
you're hoping that they're getting a good show, but you
just try not to let it affect you just do
your thing.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Well, is it as fulfilling or do you like playing?
All these bands that are play these huge venues always
end up, whether it's The Stones, whoever, doing McCartney still
play small gigs every once in a while. Yeah, Is
it because it's more fulfilling seeing the people's faces rather
than that collage?
Speaker 7 (34:11):
Probably? But both are great. You know, it's like saying,
what's better recording in the studio or playing live? Well,
they're both great and they're different, But yeah, I mean
a smaller gig. I think I've read Keith Richards said
the best room for rock and roll is about two
hundred people. And I know what he means, because the
thing about the smaller rooms is everybody's hearing the same sound.
The walls are right here, we're all in the same sonics,
(34:35):
we're all in the same era. And when it's a
big gig, you've got your monitor mix and then you've
got these big speakers way out here throwing something out
there to all these people.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
There's a disconnect. But that all comes down to the songs.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
You know.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
You want to just make sure the songs connect with
whether it's one or you know, eight hundred people, whatever
you know.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Mike, I'm going to ask you the musician version of
a question I get as an actor all the time
because I do a lot of live by performing.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
So it's twofold one.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Is you're up there, you're having a great night, everything's
going great, and you suddenly realize either you're bladder, your
sphincter is in desperate need of attention and you've got
another hour on the set, or or you're in the
middle of the thing and you go, I have no
idea what freaking chord or lyric, Just it goes out
of your head. You know, even though you've played it
(35:24):
a thousand times. Have you had that happen? And what
you're react either of those things happen and what you're reacting?
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Okay, let me I'll answer the first question first.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
If you're grinning, you grin and bear it.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Uh huh.
Speaker 7 (35:36):
If you're smart, you'll prepare yourself before you get on
the stage. And if you get up there and it's think,
oh no, nothing I can do? You know it was
waiting at the end, you run to the restroom. You know,
that's that nobody ever thinks question.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
By the way, nobody thinks that. You know, you might
you might have another bit of attention being taken somewhere.
Speaker 7 (35:57):
But yeah, well that doesn't happen too often, you know.
If you're but if you're like drinking six beers and
then go on stage, you're going to have trouble about
forty five minutes into the ship.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
But I don't do that. And the other question.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Was going up on the lyric or getting lost in
the song.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
That's a good question.
Speaker 7 (36:17):
I'll give you an example of that in my new
life now as the singer in front of the band,
Like when I was in the Heartbreakers, I had the
easiest job. And I never had appreciation for all the things,
all the moving parts that Tom was dealing with at
that microphone.
Speaker 6 (36:34):
I'm just back there. Oh yeah.
Speaker 7 (36:36):
And I never could forget them. You know, if I
if I make brain forgot, my fingers would have memory.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
They just do it.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
But I would always just thought, you know. But now
that I have in to front the band, remember the words,
sing on pitch, connect with the audience, all these things,
there's a lot of tasks. Yeah, and I found thank god,
now I can get a teleprompter if I get stuck.
But I found that not the guitar chords, but the lyrics.
(37:04):
Sometimes I'll be up there and okay the solo. I'm
getting lost in the solo and I got to sing
the verse when it comes up, and I.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Go, uh huh, oh, I know, what's that word?
Speaker 6 (37:14):
What's the first word? You know?
Speaker 7 (37:16):
Or sometimes if it doesn't, sometimes it'll come to me right,
they'll split second before I'm supposed to say.
Speaker 6 (37:21):
If it doesn't, I just make something up.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
You and I talked in the same language, my friend,
So what did you working with? Wedn't even talked about
George Harrison and the Wilbery's, but when you learn if
you're taken away. We talked about Dylan. You work with Harrison,
you worked with some of the biggest guys, you worked
with Ringo, you worked with Warrens. I always said, what
did you take away? Did you learn something from Dylan
that you took with you? Did you learn from Harrison?
Speaker 6 (37:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (37:43):
If you pay attention, you learn from everybody you work with.
You pull something, you observe them, and you go, oh,
I could do I could do something more like that.
It'd be good for me, or you know, they all
inspire you and I'm always learning. I always pay close
attention the people like that. You watch them, how they work,
how they their processed, their creative processes and their work
(38:06):
ethic and all that.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
But there's some watching from Dylan. Is there something specific?
Speaker 7 (38:13):
Well yeah, there were so many things. But one thing
I like, uh that I learned I think from Dylan,
which I think Tom also learned, is to be.
Speaker 6 (38:21):
Fearless and be brave.
Speaker 7 (38:25):
Like before the Heartbreakers worked with Dylan, we were kind
of old showbiz. We get our set list, it had
we work on it, have an arc to it, and
that's it. We're gonna go out, We're gonna we're gonna
please the people, We're gonna work them up, we're going
to ingratiate with them.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
And then Bob comes along.
Speaker 7 (38:41):
It's like, I'm just going to do what I like
and if they like it, fine, it's not they can
go get some popcorn, you know. And it's like there's
some freedom in that, like, oh, okay, well we're going
to try this song. We didn't rehearse it, but be
brave and courageous. We can make this work because we're good,
you know. And there's something to that that I think
I did learn the spontaneu he definitely in The Dirty Knobs.
We're very spontaneous, will change anything at any time, and
(39:04):
it creates a lot of kinetic energy.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
You know. That's very cool.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I want to ask you a question, Mike, ause we
as we start to tie up for Rob here and
Rob you can tag onto my question as much again.
So Robert is, you know, the primary writer and the
front man for this this band that's begun to do
quite well.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
Boyo, young guy in his twenties.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
But I'm imagining the music business when you guys began
versus what's happening now and what he's facing is a
very different creature. How do you navigate it? And do
you have any advice for guys like Rob who are
who are you know, really banging away and banging away
at it somewhat successfully, but it's still an upward slog.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Yeah what what's? What have you learned or how do you?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Do you have any advice for the young guys who
are trying to navigate this stuff?
Speaker 7 (39:55):
Yeah, I hear, I hear you. And it is so
different now than when I started out. It was a
different game plan to try to keep it together and
be successful, completely different game plan. I don't even really
understand the social media music scene. You know, we still
sell vinyl. We do okay with the vinyl and stuff
(40:17):
and some CDs I guess, but mostly we do vinyl
and streaming whatever that you know, I don't even know.
But it's so because it's alien to me. I know
it's different though, and I know that building a career
in this world is like the wild West. I mean,
so my only advice would be just do what I did.
(40:38):
You know, love what you do, and if they don't,
if you don't sell millions of records, at least you're
doing what you love to do you know, And maybe
you will. But my hunch is if you're doing something
like I never did it because I thought I was
going to be rich. I never thought I would. I thought, sure,
I'll never be rich playing the guitar. I'm not George Harrison.
You know, I'm not John Lennon. I'm just some dumb
(40:59):
kid from Jacksonville. But you know, my thought process was not.
I think a lot of bands now they think of
TV and social media and they want to be famous,
you know, or be a celebrity. I think that's a
dark hole. I think it's the wrong way to go
about music. For me, it was I never thought about that.
(41:20):
I would dream about it, but it was like this
unattainable dream. But what I did do is I loved
it so much. I love playing the guitar, I love listening,
I loved writing. And I would have done it no
matter what. If I ended up pumping gas for a living,
I'd still be playing music. And if I think, if
you love it, then you're going to be okay, you know,
whatever happens.
Speaker 6 (41:40):
If you if you love what you're doing, you've already
won the game.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
True that that's beautiful, man.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I mean also the thing because I also, I don't know,
you've given me a lot of I think musical inspirations,
So hearing that is just wonderful.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (41:54):
You know, in the industry, I mean, the industry is
always more things Like I talked to my managinery. He says, well,
last week we did this, This week, we have to
do this to get your record played. So it's just
you know, don't get hung up on that because it's
going to always morph.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
I keep dreaming. I have this dream that there's.
Speaker 7 (42:11):
Going to be a sunflare and it's going to zap
all digital music and no social media, no cell phones,
and we're going to have to go back to playing
music and making records.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
How do we how do we trip in? Let's do
the globe the solar flare telethon, have people singing in front,
donate money to create a god. Before we go, I
got to mention one thing. You and your wife are
so involved in dog rescue, and I thought that was
important to go out on that too.
Speaker 7 (42:42):
So well, thank it's Paul the TAZZI found and thank
you for mentioning that. Uh my wife and I. If
you read the book, there's a great story of how
we met. We were brought together by a dog, and
we just got a new puppy.
Speaker 6 (42:54):
Recently.
Speaker 7 (42:55):
I read something once I said, look, dogs are a
blessing and a get. They come into your life and
they have a job to do. Their job is to
make you happy for the twelve years or whatever. And
when their job is done, they say goodbye and they
send another dog into your life somehow mystically to come
in and finish the job that they didn't finish. So
(43:16):
I like to look at it like that because it
always is heart wrenching. But my new dog, we just
got a puppy and he's like joy does joy all
through the house, this little energy, this guy.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
And I know someday maybe he will outliard me.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
I don't know, but I don't care. I want to
enjoy them while I'm here, you know. And dogs are great.
I can't endorse them more. They make your life better.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Check out it's foundating the book and it's in there too,
about the meeting of the meeting of the dog and
you and your wife. It's a heartbreaker memoir. The dirty
knobs are out not right the second because you're sitting
at home, but you're out on tour, So go see
them because why not? Why why wouldn't wouldn't you? And
continue success man and doing what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
D Campbell, you're You're a good dude.
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You are. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
I don't know what you learned, Robbie, you learned stuff.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Oh yeah, I thought it was just it was just
kind of like a masterclass. And hearing a hearing a collaborator,
like a Keith Richards type of guy's really interesting.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
It's interesting being in that position. And it's so funny
giving him back the line that you couldn't talk Tom
into anything, and he goes, I could, so he had
currency because he when you're that powerful a songwriter, and Tom,
I guess need notes, he needs you. Even though he's
a big ego and a big name and a big
hit maker. I guess he still knew. Like I said,
(44:47):
if you hit heart, if you hear some of those songs,
the guitar line is the song is the melody to
the song, good luck, good luck, good luck. I'm backing
up and leave it so and bands are bands are heard? Right, Robert?
How many bands have you been in? Now? We're not
even It's always this guy. And I thought this guy
didn't show up. This guy's drunk.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
When you were asking the enigmatic question of what that means,
I feel like he kind of defined, like he embodies
what that means. He has a very kind of interesting
indirect way of answering certain things right he knows, you know,
like about Dylan cannot really connect with people, but only
connect with musicians. There's just certain things that he answers,
ways that he answers that are indirect, but you know
(45:24):
what they mean.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
But the mystery is still there. My weirdest Dylan experience
was my only Dylan experience, was when we were living
up near Malibu. I went to the Malibu Movie Theater
and it was tiny, and I think we went to
see Blade two. Why, I don't know. We probably had
nothing else to do. And we pull in and it's
kind of a little empty shopping center and a pickup
truck pulls in next to my car. Now there are
(45:46):
a million space truck pulls in right next to my
car and really close, and I go, look at this
a hole? What is this about? And I get out
of the car and I'm walking into the theater and
it's Bob Dylan coming to see Blade two. And we
sat in an almost empty movie theater, which is tine.
It's a really small theater. Yeah, and I didn't watch
Blade too. I watched Bob Dylan watching watching Blade too,
(46:09):
and it was the most bizarre thing because he didn't
do anything odd. He looked like a normallyasion there got
up and left, but it was almost like a ghost.
You know, he comes in. You can't believe you're seings
based on absolutely nothing. My knee jerk.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Thinking about Dylan as far as relationships with people, you know,
there's a little bit of a doesn't quite always read
the room. But along with that is also this savant
ability two for poetry, for words, for music, for.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
It.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
It must be fascinating to live in that. Because he's
not a great singer, he knows he's not, doesn't matter,
and yet you know he's fronting the thing. I find
Dylan fascinating. You know, I'm not kidding that. I just
wasn't music be aware. As a teenager, all the guys
around me were being very affected by Dylan and all
(47:05):
his contemporaries.
Speaker 4 (47:06):
I was, you know, I know you're doing you were
doing so. But I love that he's fear. I love
I have a thing on the computer I pulled and
I'm going to quote it horribly, but I said, what
would you create today if you didn't have any fear?
Because that stops. It's the great stopper. And you know
what on that segway, nothing's going to stop us from
talking to David Googan. What a great radio I am.
(47:27):
I am a little afraid I'm not gonna David makes
me laugh because he always signed, by the way, David
great question when I you know, I did a little
prep with David and he said, you know what, find
out what it means and what the hell's and thematic
mean with Dylan what does that mean? So thank you David.
Speaker 9 (47:42):
I have to say, Peter, you missed out. Blade two
is one of my favorite.
Speaker 4 (47:49):
Pictures. But I mean missed out. I paid for it.
I went and saw it. Yeah, but you were watching Derek.
You know what Blade won. I went with my friend
Howard and it was I was doing Morning, the Morning
Show and it was in a premiere. It was with
the stars and Wesley Snith and it was in a
huge theater and I fell. It's a one time name.
One other person in Blade went out out the Dwarf.
See what Stephen. It was wasn't Stephen Dodorf and played Yeah,
(48:11):
he was the bad gun. Come on, please, who played blades?
So christmosophic? So I fell asleep. So he was all
asleep in this theater snoring. They wake me to Blade.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
You're lucky, You're lucky, Wesley Snipes didn't take your head up.
Speaker 9 (48:27):
So David Blade Blade two is much better than Blade went.
But that's my personal opinion. Actually, a couple of things
on the on the correction meter.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
Dylan.
Speaker 9 (48:39):
Now you guys mentioned Dylan playing at the Monterey Folk Festival.
While Dylan did play that festival in nineteen sixty three,
that was notable because that was his first West Coast appearance.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
That was not when he went electric. That was at
the Newport.
Speaker 9 (48:54):
Folk Festival in sixty five.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
That was Peter's mistake, right, I wouldn't have said any
of that, that was all.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
You wouldn't have said that twice.
Speaker 9 (49:01):
Absolutely, And also you got to me thinking of as
far as collecting of guitars, if people are interested in
what many people believe to be the largest significant collection
of guitars, that is the jim Ers, I hopefully I've
got considered right name right, he is the billionaire owner
(49:25):
of NFL's Indianapolis Colts, and he has a collection of
over two hundred guitars, including Dylan's electric guitar when he
played at the New Part.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
And Cobain's guitar. He's got insane stuff. I mean, he'll
pay whatever he has to pay to get paying from
the ceiling. I don't think display cases. I think he don't.
Did he also buy David Gilmore's black Stratocastes? He did?
Speaker 9 (49:49):
I mean did, And it's actually if you're I believe
it's on a.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Year long Indian app tour. Yeah, yeah, you can go.
Speaker 6 (49:57):
See it now if you're in that very cool saying collection.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
What I liked about hearing about the guitar rack Laundri
is that it makes the little piccadillo in my guest
house seem a little less strange.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
You know about the couch, the pneumatic couch. So can
I can I mention that so Jason has this log
cabin guesthouse, which is very nice, and the couch there's
a big sofa and it faces.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Well, there's a problem because the way the room is configurated,
there's a large screen sort of projection on these on
the north end of the room, but the fireplace is
on the south end of the room. So if you're
putting in furniture, where do you orient the couch. It's
a problem you oriented to the fireplace, oriented to the screen.
Speaker 4 (50:41):
So why did you put a big screen over the fireplace?
You couldn't. It wasn't over the fireplace. I said, why
couldn't you put a big screen everyone wall?
Speaker 3 (50:48):
First of all, you're gonna have to look look above
the mantle anyway.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
Jason, the first time I'm there in the back house
when I met him thirty plus years ago, was he
something the couch is It rises pneumatically, you turn it,
it goes back down and it now faces whichever direction
you want.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Right like on a lazy Susan.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
It's on a lazy Susan that is lifted pneumatically into
a six feet into the air, so the couch legs
can pass over all the surrounding furniture as you rotated,
and then it floats gently back down to the floor.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
Which not to give away secrets as much like how
they do the Houdini experience at the Magic Castle. But
you didn't hear that from too it.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Our friend Wayne Night when the when the table started
to rise during the Hodini seance in the Pitch Black,
I hear from way night. Well, there can be no
natural explanation for this phenomena.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
It must be Houdini. And then the guy who was
doing the seance when it's the strangle right night, because
that's his whole job. Robert, thanks for joining us. Yeah,
appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Robert Tilden of Boyo can continued success to you, sir,
Thank you so much. As the man says, if you're
pumping gas, it's okay, just make the meus.
Speaker 4 (51:59):
That's what heat myself. But you know what, pump gass
as good as you're playing guitar. Yeah, do it with
a rhythm, Yeah, never half hearted. Have you ever driven
out of gas station with the pump stilling? I did it.
You know what happens, It goes with it. I just
it rips off and they charge you a lot of money.
But it breaks off, I guess. And when I did it,
I was distracted as one time I did it. Well, okay,
(52:21):
he didn't tell me this. I'm learning something.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Yeah, oh my god, David you too, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
there we go.
Speaker 4 (52:27):
I was distracted and I pull out and you get
that sinking feeling you go oh, and then you hear
a noise. Thank god, they know they're idiots, so it
doesn't spill and explode. It cuts off. But then a
guy walks out to here and goes, happens.
Speaker 8 (52:40):
All the time, and then says, it happens. Bill, answer
your bill, and you drive up with the sinking feeling
you get when you realize I didn't I paid, but
I got back in the car and the phone kept
talking and didn't take it out of the thing. Oh
my god, right, it's a it's a hard I mean, I.
Speaker 5 (53:01):
Was, Yeah, I was, to be honest, I was selfishly
more worried about my car and what that implied.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
I thought, I maybe you would the car and thank you. Yeah, well, David,
where'd you do it?
Speaker 1 (53:13):
I did it.
Speaker 9 (53:14):
I was driving from Oregon to Idaho, and uh I
when I got out of the car about you know,
one hundred miles later, I discovered you know, the thing
stuck in.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
There and the dog leash, which was yeah, boy, wow,
that kills that. That that's right from vacation. Thank you everybody,
ladies and gentlemen, keep making the music. We'll see you
next time. Here are really No Really, and always make
sure when you've done puffing public service announcement than really.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
As another episode of Really No Really comes to it close.
I know you're wondering what stars of the music world
started in the background of other famous singers. Well, I'll
carry you to the answer and home. But first let's
thank our guest Mike Campbell. His book Heartbreaker, a Memoir,
is available everywhere now and his website The Dirty Knobs
dot com lists tour dates and ticket of ails. On Instagram, YouTube,
(54:10):
and Facebook, he is at Mike Campbell Official, and on
x he is at Mike Campbell HQ. You can also
find the music of our guest host Robert Tilden on Spotify,
where his band is Boyo. Find all pertinent links in
our show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
and threads at Really No Really Podcast, And of course,
(54:31):
you can share your thoughts and feedback with us.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Online at reallynoreli dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
If you have a really some amazing factor story that
boggles your mind, share it with us, and if we
use it, we will send.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
You a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's
the thought that counts.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube. Hit that subscribe
button and take that bell so you're updated when we
release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday.
So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Pop Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now
the answer to the question what stars of the music
world started in the background of other famous singers, Well,
the truth is that many of today's star music artists
(55:10):
began anonymously backing up other great artists.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
But here are a notable few. Mary J.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Blige was a backup artist, earning her first credit on
eighties rapper Father MC's track All Due for You. Cheryl
Crowe sang backing vocals for Michael Jackson and traveled on
his Bad tour in the late eighties.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
She appeared in the music video for Dirty Diana.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Luther Vandross was the go to backup singer throughout the
seventies and sang behind stars like David Bowie, Bette Midler,
and Ringo Starr when Stefani was actually the backup singer
for No Doubt, the band started by her brother Eric
and his partner John Spence, but after the tragic death
of John Spence, Steffani was moved up to lead singer
and the rest is history. Katy Perry sang backup vocals
(55:50):
for the Christian metal band Pod and performed with them
live on The Tonight Show with Jay Lenna. Before John
Legend became a legend, he was a background singer and
musician for artists like Alicia Keys and The Black Eyed Piece.
Cher was a noted backup singer for producer Phil Spector
and sang in the back of hit tunes like Dadoo,
Ronram and The Righteous Brothers. You've Lost That Love and Feeling.
(56:10):
Whitney Houston was singing back up at fourteen years old
for stars like her mom, Sissy Houston, as well as Wilson.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Pickett and Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Michael McDonald can be heard behind artists like Stephen Bishop
and most notably Steely Dan.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
His angelic harmonies are.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Most recognizable on the song peg And Lastly, Mariah Carey
was studying cosmetology and working as a waitress when she
got hired as a backup artist for eighties Poff and
R and B Sensation.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Brenda K.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Starr all that to say that the voice behind the
star voices is often the person to notice the most.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Take it from me.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
The guy who opens and closes for two other guys can.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
Hit really no, really
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Really really is production of Blase Entertainment.
Now really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really now really hello, and welcome to really know Really,
with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who humbly remind you
not to be petty and please subscribe. Speaking of Petty,
rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty left this
world in twenty seventeen, but his music continues to live
on thanks to hits like Refugee, Here Comes My Girl,
(00:27):
and Running Down a Dream. But recently Jason and Peter
were stunned to learn that Petty didn't write those songs alone.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Really No Really.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Mike Campbell was an original member of Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers and co wrote many of.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The band's legendary hits.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
In fact, he was considered by Petty to be the
Heartbreakers co captain, and while much of Mike's career was
alongside Petty, he notably gave Don Henley.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
The music for his nineteen eighty four hit The.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Boys of Summer, and he worked closely with Stevie Nicks,
Aretha Franklin, and too many others to name.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Campbell has definitely had an.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Impressive career himself, now fronting the band The Dirty Knobs
and playing and writing music with the legendary rockers like
Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, George Harrison and Moore and all
that got the guys wondering what's it like being the
unrecognized talent regularly standing just behind and co writing with
iconic names.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
That question and more is the subject of.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
His newly released book, Heartbreaker, a Memoir and now here
are two more Heartbreakers And yes they did make me
say back.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Jason and Peter, Hello, everybody, welcome to really know really
that always gets a bell because it makes Peter happy.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
My partner, Peter Tilden. I'm Jason. I say why I
hate the bell? Please? If I publicly stated why I
hate the bell.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
You have publicly stated that you hate the bell, tell
you what I don't know is it?
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Is it your musophonia or whatever? The no, no, no
no no, although you've proven then I do have music.
I know. Yes, I'll tell you why. In my thirty
years in radio, Yeah, okay, the stick of old jocks
is if you listen to the old guy when I
got into it's all, it's this, it's hey because they
didn't have sound effects, they didn't have AI. This was it.
(02:07):
So it drives me crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Well, can I say something in response to how much
you hate the bell and your thirty years of experience
in radio, I would like to point out I.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Didn't bring the bell in.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Somebody a partner in this broadcast with thirty years of
experience in radio, suddenly there was a bell.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Because I thought it occasionally occasionally, like every fifteenth episode
maybe would be funny. Didn't realize it was going to
be really every time you said, really, know, really, what
did them?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
If you're not watching on YouTube, I have yet to
touch the bell in this episode.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Let's talk about the episode, all right, that's what.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We have a guest in the studio, and I think
not not our primary guest, but we have a guest
in the studio and share number three. This very fine
young man over there in the hat that says shamanics.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Shamanics. Yes, we're going to find out more about it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Is a very a lovely man that I've known since
he was a young lad little man who looks just
like you. He did a video for his band I
did for Boreo. You bet, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
the show. Mister Robert tilden.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Miter. He knew where the camera right.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
I got prepped. Also all right, it wasn't. It wasn't
in my nature.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I was proud to be knock my feet up from
underneath me. I'm sorry.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
And Robert.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Robert is here today for a number of reasons.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
One is, uh, just bring your kid to work day,
bring your kick in the workday. But also your your
primary career at this moment is music writing, playing all kinds.
So we have a big, a big music since brand
are you talking about our other Roberts? I know about Boyle,
but you also do music outside of Boyle, don't you?
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Yeah? Did?
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I like to score things and produce things and read
music books and consume and everything.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
So yeah, and you now you play not not sent
synthically on a keyboard, but you play keyboard.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Yes, I play everything. I like.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
It's like a jack of all trades in the sense
where you can kind of do everything, but not to
the greatest ability.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
You know, you.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Play real guitar, though, real guitar that's your primary.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yes, yes, but you play bass, play bass? Keyboard?
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Is that the one you'd love to play?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I'm struggling.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
I mean the lessons lessons, but also it's like someone
was talking.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
The other day about learning.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
I was saying I wanted to learn animation or something
that seems very hard and takes a lot of time.
And they were just saying, you know, use YouTube university,
which I thought was a weird term, but you can.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Just I feel like using I'm actually taking a free
base course on I. I'm freebasing and uh and it's
very helpful.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
It is very helpful. I mean, how do you do
it when you're free bassed? What do you use? I'm
not giving you tips, wants. This will be the one
pr thing that will break through all of really, no really,
Jason Alexander Minte the free base. That's right, good time,
I knock out a couple of teeth. Make it look real.
So today's guest, Yeah, is a unique individual. Mike Campbell.
(05:08):
Mike Campbell met Tom Petty in gains the Florida when
they were youths and they were mud crutched together. Then
of course is that a is that a music group?
That was? That was a group And just remember I'm
a music moron, so walk me through there. So they
met when they were kids, and then he was in
the Heartbreakers. He wrote the really one of the really
not really. He wrote some of Tom's biggest hits then
Fleetwood Mac needed somebody to replace Lindsay Buckingham. Who they
(05:29):
call Mike Campbell and who is he done music with
Randy Newman, One's Yvon Roy Orbison, Bob Siegert, Joe Cocker,
Michael McDonald, Jackson Brown and Chicks Ringo. And he was,
this is going to be this is mind lord to me.
He's the backup ban the Heartbreakers with a backup band
for Bob Dylan on tour. So I wonder if Mike
Campbell liked I knew that was the next thing. Oh,
(05:52):
I thought, if you Mike Campbell looked gonna like you. Oh,
he's got to like me. He's got a new book out, Heartbreaker,
a memoir. Also touring with the Dirty Knobs. But you're home, right,
You're off the road at this point for a minute.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
I am.
Speaker 7 (06:05):
I'm recording right now, our fourth album. We just started yesterday.
So I'm at home in La.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, very cool. Well, thanks thanks for coming to La
in La. And he still couldn't come down here to
the He's busy recording.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
But I'm just saying that sounds like a character I'm
familiar with.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
I know I had I could have done it from
my house. I had to come all the way down here.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
People say to me, People say, no, no, Mike, I'm
not blaming you.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I'm blaming our our staff. Of course, who couldn't be.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
If you had Katie, she could have taken care of you.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Boy, Truer words have never been spoken. We're coming next now,
you're up for it. You're coming next time. And by
the way, people say to me, is Jason anything like
the character? I go, no, no, not at all, never complains,
never irritated, not at all. So I actually want to
ask the first question, Mike.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So our show really, no, really, We're going to talk
about a lot of things today, but we try and
find something that makes Peter and I go, what is
that all about? And your career has done something that
I find so interesting And I was first made aware
of it, not specific to you, when I watched the
(07:17):
documentary I think it was twenty Feet from Stardom about
the glorious backup singers that are on all these great
songs and albums that we know and that you know,
people in the know know who they are, but they
go largely unrecognized.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Now you were certainly not unrecognizing your career.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
But what was so fascinating to me when Peter said
we were having you on was to realize how great
a writing and playing contribution you had made, certainly to
the success of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, And yet
I think the average person may not be aware of
how large that contribution is.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And I just want to know how you.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Because I've asked some other people that are in similar circumstances,
how that's with you?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
How that? How that? How do you carry that? And
does it bother you? Is it fine?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Do you know going in that you know the spotlight
is probably going to be on the other guy. I mean,
what what's your journey through being that other guy? And
yet such a substantial part of these creations?
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Well, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (08:22):
I can't explain that. Tom always call me the co captain.
And from the time I met Tom, I mean, I've
always been a basically shy, quiet person. He's got a great,
dynamic personality and it was a perfect fit.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
You know.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
I didn't challenge his leadership or his charisma, and I
was very comfortable because I trusted him and I had
this great partner who could do all that for me.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
I just.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
You know, so it just our personality has just worked
that way, you know.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
But meanwhile, the really really for me, you have a
song like break Now the guitar line is the song
without that guitar line, It's a bunch of chords, your guitar.
Speaker 8 (09:09):
I agree, and we're out, and we're out, and I
have no bitterness in that's about.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
No, It's funny as a guitar because I play a
little guitar. My son who's doing a stay because he
wanted to talk to you as a group called and
he the guitar line writing songs is really really interesting.
So I love playing along with Tom Petty songs and
you go, wow, these are some basic chords and some
really interesting chord changes. But then you do your thing
and it changes the whole dynamic of the song every
(09:39):
single time. So really, not really going, I said to Jason,
Really no, really, people should know that he wrote some
of the biggest songs alongside Tom Petty and then came
up with not only the music for it and later
on the lyrics, but the guitar line. So when you
come up with it, is that ever intimidating where you're
in there and I know you play studio musician too,
where you can't find the line that's going to make
(10:01):
the song great, and it does the guest state for
a just state for years.
Speaker 7 (10:06):
It's never hard for me. I think that's one reason
Tom likes me is he could bring a song in.
It was just the basic chords, and we all have
We both had the same influences the sixties and the
Beach Boys, Beatles, Stones, all that, so I instinctively just
organically would join in. And it was always fun to discover, well,
(10:27):
what can I add to this without getting in the way.
And I always had a way of just finding the
right thing that he liked and that we agreed on.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
Just lucky.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Really, you know, I do play music, and I do
know music, but I'm not a musician.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So if someone.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Writes it down and I'm lucky and I'm on the
right instrument, I can play it. But when you're creating
solo lines like that, are you immediately able to go
I hear it in my head and it comes out
in my hands. Is that a direct communication or is
there a thought process behind it? A technical process of
getting it to be the thing you hear in your head.
Speaker 7 (11:06):
There's no thought process, really. My gift for my blessing,
which I'm very grateful for, is a subliminal stream of consciousness.
All my input to the music. You know, ninety five
percent of it happens in the moment. Breakdown, you know,
breakdown just an example. I don't take these things out
(11:28):
because I like to they come out of the air
and if you just they passed through you and breakdown.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
For instance, we cut the song.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Down very simple, and so we cut it the basic track.
It was maybe six seven minutes long, and I said, okay, well,
let me play some guitar along with the track they
recorded me and I just you know, shut my mind
off and let it happen.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And just.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
I immediately kind of went to a blues form because
the mood it's in, and so I knew it along
pretty bad stuff. Really just letting it happen. At the
end of the six minutes, I kind of got bored
with trying to think of stuff, so I just instinctively
went down. It was there in the air. I didn't
think anything about it. So I recorded that and said, well,
(12:19):
we'll look at it tomorrow. I went home and then
Tom called me back and said, you got to come
back down to the studio. I'm here with Dwight Twillie,
and we heard the lick that you played at the
end of your little jam and that that needs to
go at the beginning of the song. I didn't remember
what it was, you know, so I went back down
and heard it and go, oh, that's it, okay, learned
it and played it on the top of the song.
So all the guitar persons you here on Heartbreakers records
(12:41):
are spontaneous, most of them, and I just let them happen,
you know. I don't try to analyze or write them
out or think them out. Occasionally you have to, but
if I do put any thought process into it, I
would go to the vocal melody, what's the guy singing?
Speaker 6 (12:59):
What's the O? And I'll find those on the guitar.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
If I get stuck and nothing's coming, I'll just go
to the melody because I know that's going to work,
and then I'll turn the guitar around on it and
turn into something. It's kind of magical, really, I mean,
I'm still fascinated by it.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
It is magical, and it's magical for people like me
who you know, I cannot I can hear music in
my head. I have to struggle to get it out
through my fingers, you know. I just there's no instrument
that is such a part of me that the translation
is spontaneous.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah, and I will find that magical for people that haven't. Yeah,
I hear you.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
Well, the reason I'm able to do that is because
I put in the hours of work of learning my
scales and my craft and my feel so I had
those tools already, so I don't have to think about that.
I can just let my fingers do what they want
to do, and my mind kind of follows them.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
But you know, the.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
Magic metaphor is silly, but it's true. It's like you
pull a rabbit out of the hat. But that was
there before, here's here where to come from.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (14:02):
The music a lot of times, just for me, is
like that. And the songs too, they just come out
of the air.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Well, it's you know, it's the same really in the
acting world. I find you know, you do all your
prep and you do your rehearsal, but what you're hoping
for is in that performance something takes over that nobody
knew was going to happen, and it's exactly right, and
it's in the flow and everybody feels it and you're
not in control of it. You're sort of releasing to it.
(14:26):
But I've only, like I say, I've only experienced it.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
That's where I put my ten thousand hours as opposed
to where you put yours.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Solf. Yeah, it is beautiful.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
That's exactly what you hit the nail on the head
right there, Jason's exactly that. You have your tools, you
learn your craft, and you put in a moment and
rather than script it, you go with it. You know,
maybe you change the phrase a little bit, and acting
you would change the word a little bit because it didn't
feel right in the moment, you come up with something better.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
It just happens. Yeah, and it's like, wow, that was fun.
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I was going to say that in learning about your past.
I mean, you live like a lot of us living
when you were teenagers in the hell holes and then
you moved out to the woods, the woods and we're
sharing a place. But the one thing that always stood out,
and same with my son, if you love the music,
you're holding your guitar, you're playing all the time. You
played constantly, right, that was what you did when other
(15:20):
guys were going and doing other stuff. And I think
one of your guys, your roommates went off to the
Bermuda Triangle, disappeared. Another one went to Hawaii and lived
his life there. You just kept playing and playing and playing,
and then you met Tom when you were howled.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
Oh, twenty twenty one something like that in Gainesville.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
By the way, at Gainesville at that time. It's funny
because the southern thing I would have thought was all
Allman Brothers. But I did country music for a lot
of years. Jason actually did some with me, did the
Brad Paisley videos and stuff. So I got to do
country music in those years when Keith Urban was coming up,
et cetera, and I didn't know anything about it, but
immersing myself in that there's some amazing players, and you
(16:00):
guys kind of tended toward that, more toward country, more
toward birds, more toward that kind of sound and beatle harmonies,
kind of birds harmonies. How did that seep into Gainesville?
What was around in Gainesville that got you to that?
Speaker 7 (16:13):
Well, the college, you know, the Gainesville is basically the
University of Florida college community, So it was that young,
idealistic energy around the campus.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
There were lesser free concerts.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
But the thing about the blues is the South is
deeply blues and country ingrained, and we grew up around
all that, you know. But we also were Tom and
I were really enamored with the whole sixties thing, you know,
the Beach Boys, the dream of the Golden Sun and
the beautiful girls, and then of course England with the Beatles,
(16:49):
Stones Kings, all those great bands.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
That's what turned us on. So when in the South,
you know, there's a lot of.
Speaker 7 (16:56):
Bands, and as soon as the bands saw the Almond
Brothers or Leonard Skinner be successful, that you wanted to
do that, you know, but we didn't.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
It didn't really fit with us.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
We wanted to play Bergie you know, Coors harmonies, and
that's so we were kind of stood out in a
way because everybody else is playing all my brother's copies
and we were doing our own thing. And it's just
because that's what we were, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Also, I'm curious about Tom. Yeah, the words intimidating, and
I think your quote was you can't sell Tom. You
couldn't talk Tom into anything. So you got a guy
that I got it. I got it, I got it.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I feel I feel your pain, Mike. I'm just I'm
not I feel your pain.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Robert, do you have something you wanted?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (17:48):
I was just interested because you said you're inspired by
the Birds and the Beatles and the Stones, and I
was listening to your guitar parts the other day and
there's like a tonal quality that I feel like kind
of bridge the gap between them and the future. It
sounds like you're doing what they're doing, but in a
kind of futuristic way with your tone. And I wonder
(18:09):
is that is that the same kind of just flow
where you just set your guitar in a certain way
with the amp and it just sounded how it sounded
or were you really intentional with that?
Speaker 6 (18:21):
Not intentional, it just the way it is.
Speaker 7 (18:22):
You know, you could take a guitar and amplifier and
get a sound on it and hand it to Eric Clappton,
it's going to sound like him. Hand it to B. B. King,
it's going to sound like him. Hand it to George Harrison,
or hand it to me, it's going to sound like me.
It's in the hands And a lot of the tone
is the way you hit the strings and the way
you by brought up the strings. Is your own personality
(18:43):
and the tone. You know, a lot of it comes
from the way you attack it with your own hands,
not the amp per se. But also in terms of
guitar I love all those guitarists, but I also have
to mention Mike Bloomfield, who's from the blues Caty. But
that first Paul Butterfield Blues album where Mike Bloomfield is
(19:04):
just playing all over the place.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
I tried to follow that a lot.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
I studied that quite a bit and tried to get
inside his tone and his feel and his bending and stuff.
So I learned a lot off that record as well.
So you know, you it's like Jason was saying, you
put your ten thousand hours or how the saying goes,
and you do your homework, you build your skills and
your your basic framework, and then you apply that in
the creative situation and hopefully it'll give you some results.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Did I see a video that you have more guitars
than I've ever seen anybody have, but they're on like
a dry cleaning rack that you can press up press
a button. Because I've mentioned that. The people and like
a friend of yours and approuveser Rye and I don't
know that. I don't. People don't. They go, OU haven't
seen it, and so I thought, maybe I'm doubting it.
But it's up in the ceiling, and the guitars are
how do you press up?
Speaker 6 (19:54):
Yeah, give some guitars.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
Did a little piece on that, and you can find
it on YouTube probably somewhere. But it's a practical thing
over you know, my old life. I've collected guitars because
I love them, but I played them all, you know,
and if when you get more than a handful, they
end up in a case or else in a warehouse
with a stack of cases, and you're in the studio
and you go, well, where's that, bless Paul. You know
(20:18):
it's in one of those cases. You know, No, that's
not it. I always at the warehouse. Oh, there it is.
So I wanted to have them where I could see
them and access them because I do use them all,
you know, like paint brushes when I'm working. So I
got the idea, I have a cabana out back that's
got a high ceiling to make a carousel up above
the room like a Chinese laundry, and put them all there.
(20:41):
So and put the cases, empty cases away, so I can.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Walk in and go. There's a less Paul.
Speaker 7 (20:46):
There's a Rickenbacker, and I've got it on a hydra
hydraulic lift so it comes down where I can reach them,
and I lift it back up and I've got the
rehearsal band set up underneath.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
So it's quite a nice vibe.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
How many guitars is that? And do you have to
do what we all have to do, which is with
the wife. When did you get that that I've had
that I've had that? You've never seen that guitar before?
Speaker 7 (21:09):
Yeah, my wife, God bless her. She's talked me into
buying a lot of things that I was going to
pass on. She's a blessing. But well, you know, the
oldest joke is how many guitars does a guitar player
really need?
Speaker 6 (21:22):
One more?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
One more?
Speaker 6 (21:25):
Right?
Speaker 7 (21:26):
But I love guitars and they are pieces of art,
and I don't buy I haven't bought one in several
years because it kind of got all the ones I
ever wanted, But most of them are vintage and old.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
I like the old ones. They have a better sound.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
And I walk in that room and I see all
the guitars up there, and I don't have time to
get to all of you today, you know, But.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
What a great visual. It's such a great, great thing
to say. But I have a practical question about that, Mike.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Knowing nothing about guitars, I always thought that if you
if you didn't case the guitar, that it was prone
to warping or some sort of damage or straight Is
none of that true.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
It's perfectly fine, open like that.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
You don't want to leave it out in the sun.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
But if you get a basically you know, comfortable room,
some people put humidifiers in there.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I don't.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
I'm not that precious about it. You know, they're tough.
The old ones are made really well. Unless you really
put them out in the weather. They just sit there
and they're the same as they were two years ago.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
But don't you worry like I was just displaced because
of the fires. You know, it was impacted. Oh yeah,
what do you what's your plan? If you hear like
I don't know what neighborhood you're in, but you hear
we're going to evacuate when it's coming over the hill.
Are there three hundred people that are each going to
grab a guitar? Or how do you get them out
of there.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
No, well, that's that's a good question.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
What do you what's your plan if you hear like
I don't know what neighborhood you're in, but you hear
we're going to evacuate when it's coming over the hill,
Are there under people that are each going to grab
a guitar? Or how do you get them out of there?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
No?
Speaker 7 (23:04):
Well, that's that's a good question. And I did have
a plan. I could see the smoke from my roof.
I never got I got to be ready warning. I
didn't get the evacuation, but I called up the studio
trucking company, who I have a relationship with. They sent
a truck over with a couple of guys. I was
actually in Hawaii when it all went down, maintain. They
(23:26):
came over to the house and grabbed them all up
and put them in a safe city. And then when
things are safe, they brought them back and put them
back up for you. I don't pamper them, but I
do treasure them.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
So moving forward with Tom Petty. So the Dylan movie
is out. My son loved it. Jason kind of was
not sure about it. We appreciated the movie.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I wasn't I mean, it's probably sacrilege. I grew up
with much older siblings, and my sister, instead of having
the proper music collection of the sixties and epies, the
at the soundtrack album of every musical and Broadway show novel.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So, so I didn't grow up affected by Dylan, you know,
as much as someone of.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
My head should. So I was fascina.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
I know, I know, believe me, my wife is threatened
to leave me on many occasions because of this. But yeah,
I didn't. I didn't think the movie tracked for me.
Speaker 6 (24:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
It comes down to that artistic integrity decision at the
end about what he's going to play at Monterey and
and you know, uh, is he going to serve the
people that sort of brought him there or is he
going to be true to his muse? And I I
couldn't track through the film what that internal struggle was
all about. So as a nice boy was brought up
by a nice mother, I would have said, all right,
(24:48):
what the hell, I'll play electric tomorrow. Let me do
the festival the guy brought me to today, and I'll
do my electric set tomorrow. But that was that was
my issue with the film, other than that's it's a
really well done film.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
But you you worked with it's amazing now looking at
you and going, this guy was around Dylan, wrote with Dylan,
toured with Dylan, played with Dylan, and my producer goes,
you got to ask him, he's always called enigmatic. What
the hell does that mean? What is Bob Dylan really?
What's he like hanging out with He's.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
Like a riddle in size inside a puzzle right outside
of a wrapt around in enigma. The guy's a genius,
you know, he's the every true word of the genius.
That he's got that childlike quality. But uh, responding to
your Jason, to your thing about the film and going electric,
h my impression of Bob is he's going to do
(25:42):
whatever he wants to do. He's not going to worry
about if somebody thinks it's this or that. He was
probably just in the mood. I just got my electric guitar.
I've got Mike Bloomfield over here playing with me. I
want to plug in and play too, And he just
did what excuse me? I don't know if we can
do that on here, but that's the way he is.
He does what he wants and he doesn't cater to
anybody's expectations.
Speaker 6 (26:04):
That's the beauty of his personality.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
But when you're hanging with him, is he all forward?
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Movie?
Speaker 4 (26:08):
It's funny. It's funny. A friend who played with Ringo,
you know, in the All Star band, and he said,
the first couple of years Ringo, the news was do
not ask Ringo about the Beatle. He just doesn't want
to talk about the Beatles. And then as he got older,
I guess that he got older, he started volunteering and
then they said you couldn't stop him telling stories about
the Beatles. Right? What is Doling like to eat dinner with?
Does he tell Dylan stories? Can you ask him questions?
(26:30):
Is there stuff that's forbidden to talk about? Is it
a wor no?
Speaker 7 (26:34):
He's you know, I have had some private just me
and him at at the table, and it's like he
told me, he said, you know, I don't like I
can't communicate or relate to many people, but I like
musicians because they understand me, you know. And we talked
about music. We talked about Muddy Waters and blues and
at one point he goes, you know the world doesn't
(26:55):
need any more songs. There's thousands of songs. They've already
been written. I'm not going to I'm just going to
do something with us. I'm not going to write any
more songs. And I said, well, you know, Bob, I
think people would probably like to hear what's on your mind.
I think he should keep writing songs. But he's just
once you get over the veneer, oh my god, it's
so and so, you just get down as two musicians talking.
(27:17):
That's what he's like. He's just deep into the music.
And he's very generous, and he's very he's very smart.
You got to be on your toes.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
You know.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
He doesn't sufferate fools. If you say something stupid, he's
going to notice it, you know. But he's really sweet.
You know, he's a great guy, and he's really you know,
he's it's hard to put in words, but I have
nothing but reverence for mister Dylan.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
I wonder if you have any insight into this, Mike.
It's a fascinating moment. It's in the documentary that was
made when they were recording We Are the World, and
Dylan is one of the last guys that's gonna solo.
Speaker 6 (27:54):
That night, and yeah, yeah, he gets seen that.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, he kind of gets his head and in his
way and Stevie wonder eventually, what it looks like is
if Stevie wonder sort of does a Dylan impression to
show Dylan how to sing the.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Dylan lines, and then he was able to do it.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
But does that do you understand potentially what was going
on in his head that made him so tighten up
like that.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
I have a hunch that he is.
Speaker 7 (28:27):
Has a knee jerk reaction to all the attention that's
piled on him and the expectations, you know, and he
walks in the room and oh, what's he going to do?
He's a genius, It's going to be amazing, and he
feels all that. He's just like, you know, he's kind
of in a way, he's kind of shy and like,
leave me alone. You know, I don't want all that attention.
I'm not I'm not God. I'm not going to show
you the truth. You find that for yourself. I think
(28:50):
that's what it is. It's just like that on my face,
you know. And he makes some nervous and self conscious
as anybody would be.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Yep, but you know I.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Saw that Stevie Wonderner showing him how he should sing it.
It was hilarious.
Speaker 7 (29:04):
Maybe I think he really appreciated it because he took
the heat off him.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
You bet.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
He seemed to really just blossom right after that. Oh
I can I can do that?
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Okay? You know Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
My impression was, yeah, you know, if it were me,
I I sort of projected into Bob Dylan in that moment,
and I thought, if I were in that room, you know,
I can, I can sing a little, but I'm not
going to open my mouth in that room.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
I think, you know, you surround.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
Us, say, if he walked into a movie to do
a cameo and and you were nervous, maybe there was
some starlets there that you were like, oh my god,
it's Steven Spielberg or whatever, and they said okay, uh
be George, and he'd be like and somebody was sipping
and go, oh he do it like this?
Speaker 6 (29:50):
Oh yeah right. I know that it was kind of
like that, you know happens.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
I was.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
I was wondering from just working with different artists like
Dylan and Patty, did you feel like you had to
channel different parts of your musical self to write and
play with them, or was it you feel like you
kind of had one unanimous kind of writing brain with
with these people, like with with Dylan, did you have
to have different expectations of a kind of guitarist and
(30:18):
writing a partner or was it just all kind of
one collaborative thing.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
Well, whoever you're working with, you know, Roy Orbison or
Delish Fan.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
Whoever, you bring your skills to the table.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
And you you try to give them what they want,
what you think they might want to hear from you.
You know, it's interesting because sometimes people hire you to
do something and they want you to do what you do,
and you come in want to do what they want
you to do. You know, like try to maybe they
want something like this, but it's not. You're always channeling.
You're always channeling your influences that you draw on them
(30:57):
when you can and hopefully they're there for you them.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Who you know? I read that you guys open. I
always loved seeing concert bills that are weird, even growing
up in Philadelphia where I was. You'd go to the
Electric Factory and you'd see like a bad example of
like Abba and Frank Zappa. Some promoter would put things
together just because they got them the dates for free
and they try and build it. I know, you guys
opened for Kiss. What was the weirdest, weirdest billy you
(31:23):
were ever on? We thought the weirdest.
Speaker 7 (31:25):
Bill that was there. That's in the book is a
great story about that. It's hilarious, but the weirdest bill.
At that stage of our career, they were trying to
hook us up with anybody, open for this, open for that,
jump on this, And one day after it was in
the Midwest somewhere, they had us opening for the La Express,
which was a jazz band. You know, it's like a
lot of you know, saxophones that do out up they do,
(31:47):
but you know, it had nothing to do with us
at all. And so they were the headliner and we
were the nobodies. So we came on before them to
these jazz afficionados and I remember we walking the stage.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
And what's this the monkeys?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (32:02):
Nice that? Yeah, but we did. We showed them. But
that was the weirdest mismatch I've ever Wow.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Well, the other thing is the leap from you're playing
small clubs, the coffee houses, and then there were the
clubs that were like three hundred, three hundred, ten one thousand,
your first time you're playing a stadium. What's in your
head when you're looking out at that and you're trying
to connect with that crowd. I mean in theater, Jason
that always told me that it's black. You can't really
(32:32):
see them again, the first couple I'm experiencing them sonically,
they cannot seeium. You come out at one hundred thousand
seed or sixty thousand cedar, what's coming back in you is?
It must be intense first of all, but what are
you focusing on it?
Speaker 6 (32:45):
Focus on the music, you know.
Speaker 7 (32:47):
And it's interesting that the big, huge crowds, like we've
played at the US Festival there's two hundred thousand people,
or Hyde Park, you know, sixty thousand people. And when
you have a situation like that, you can't you feel
it and you see.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Them all, but you don't see their individual faces.
Speaker 7 (33:04):
You just see this collage of people, you know, and
so it just becomes kind of a backdrop and you
try to just play like you were in a fifty
seat club. And interesting thing is is when you're in
a small room and you can actually see their faces,
you're really in connected with them.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
You actually play to them, and the.
Speaker 7 (33:22):
Bigger crowds you're playing to the collage and you're just
trying to make it as real as you can. But
there's no direct person on person communication. But the sound
is pretty overwhelming. It's like somebody opens an oven in
front of you.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
It's like.
Speaker 7 (33:39):
It's quite an experience. But there is a difference. But
it was never intimidating playing the bigger places because it's
so big. You know, it's out there and they're hearing
a whole different mix than you're hearing up here, so
you're hoping that they're getting a good show, but you
just try not to let it affect you just do
your thing.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Well, is it as fulfilling or do you like playing?
All these bands that are play these huge venues always
end up, whether it's The Stones, whoever, doing McCartney still
play small gigs every once in a while. Yeah, Is
it because it's more fulfilling seeing the people's faces rather
than that collage?
Speaker 7 (34:11):
Probably? But both are great. You know, it's like saying,
what's better recording in the studio or playing live? Well,
they're both great and they're different, But yeah, I mean
a smaller gig. I think I've read Keith Richards said
the best room for rock and roll is about two
hundred people. And I know what he means, because the
thing about the smaller rooms is everybody's hearing the same sound.
The walls are right here, we're all in the same sonics,
(34:35):
we're all in the same era. And when it's a
big gig, you've got your monitor mix and then you've
got these big speakers way out here throwing something out
there to all these people.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
There's a disconnect. But that all comes down to the songs.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
You know.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
You want to just make sure the songs connect with
whether it's one or you know, eight hundred people, whatever
you know.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Mike, I'm going to ask you the musician version of
a question I get as an actor all the time
because I do a lot of live by performing.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
So it's twofold one.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Is you're up there, you're having a great night, everything's
going great, and you suddenly realize either you're bladder, your
sphincter is in desperate need of attention and you've got
another hour on the set, or or you're in the
middle of the thing and you go, I have no
idea what freaking chord or lyric, Just it goes out
of your head. You know, even though you've played it
(35:24):
a thousand times. Have you had that happen? And what
you're react either of those things happen and what you're reacting?
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Okay, let me I'll answer the first question first.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
If you're grinning, you grin and bear it.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Uh huh.
Speaker 7 (35:36):
If you're smart, you'll prepare yourself before you get on
the stage. And if you get up there and it's think,
oh no, nothing I can do? You know it was
waiting at the end, you run to the restroom. You know,
that's that nobody ever thinks question.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
By the way, nobody thinks that. You know, you might
you might have another bit of attention being taken somewhere.
Speaker 7 (35:57):
But yeah, well that doesn't happen too often, you know.
If you're but if you're like drinking six beers and
then go on stage, you're going to have trouble about
forty five minutes into the ship.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
But I don't do that. And the other question.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Was going up on the lyric or getting lost in
the song.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
That's a good question.
Speaker 7 (36:17):
I'll give you an example of that in my new
life now as the singer in front of the band,
Like when I was in the Heartbreakers, I had the
easiest job. And I never had appreciation for all the things,
all the moving parts that Tom was dealing with at
that microphone.
Speaker 6 (36:34):
I'm just back there. Oh yeah.
Speaker 7 (36:36):
And I never could forget them. You know, if I
if I make brain forgot, my fingers would have memory.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
They just do it.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
But I would always just thought, you know. But now
that I have in to front the band, remember the words,
sing on pitch, connect with the audience, all these things,
there's a lot of tasks. Yeah, and I found thank god,
now I can get a teleprompter if I get stuck.
But I found that not the guitar chords, but the lyrics.
(37:04):
Sometimes I'll be up there and okay the solo. I'm
getting lost in the solo and I got to sing
the verse when it comes up, and I.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Go, uh huh, oh, I know, what's that word?
Speaker 6 (37:14):
What's the first word? You know?
Speaker 7 (37:16):
Or sometimes if it doesn't, sometimes it'll come to me right,
they'll split second before I'm supposed to say.
Speaker 6 (37:21):
If it doesn't, I just make something up.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
You and I talked in the same language, my friend,
So what did you working with? Wedn't even talked about
George Harrison and the Wilbery's, but when you learn if
you're taken away. We talked about Dylan. You work with Harrison,
you worked with some of the biggest guys, you worked
with Ringo, you worked with Warrens. I always said, what
did you take away? Did you learn something from Dylan
that you took with you? Did you learn from Harrison?
Speaker 6 (37:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (37:43):
If you pay attention, you learn from everybody you work with.
You pull something, you observe them, and you go, oh,
I could do I could do something more like that.
It'd be good for me, or you know, they all
inspire you and I'm always learning. I always pay close
attention the people like that. You watch them, how they work,
how they their processed, their creative processes and their work
(38:06):
ethic and all that.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
But there's some watching from Dylan. Is there something specific?
Speaker 7 (38:13):
Well yeah, there were so many things. But one thing
I like, uh that I learned I think from Dylan,
which I think Tom also learned, is to be.
Speaker 6 (38:21):
Fearless and be brave.
Speaker 7 (38:25):
Like before the Heartbreakers worked with Dylan, we were kind
of old showbiz. We get our set list, it had
we work on it, have an arc to it, and
that's it. We're gonna go out, We're gonna we're gonna
please the people, We're gonna work them up, we're going
to ingratiate with them.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
And then Bob comes along.
Speaker 7 (38:41):
It's like, I'm just going to do what I like
and if they like it, fine, it's not they can
go get some popcorn, you know. And it's like there's
some freedom in that, like, oh, okay, well we're going
to try this song. We didn't rehearse it, but be
brave and courageous. We can make this work because we're good,
you know. And there's something to that that I think
I did learn the spontaneu he definitely in The Dirty Knobs.
We're very spontaneous, will change anything at any time, and
(39:04):
it creates a lot of kinetic energy.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
You know. That's very cool.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I want to ask you a question, Mike, ause we
as we start to tie up for Rob here and
Rob you can tag onto my question as much again.
So Robert is, you know, the primary writer and the
front man for this this band that's begun to do
quite well.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
Boyo, young guy in his twenties.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
But I'm imagining the music business when you guys began
versus what's happening now and what he's facing is a
very different creature. How do you navigate it? And do
you have any advice for guys like Rob who are
who are you know, really banging away and banging away
at it somewhat successfully, but it's still an upward slog.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Yeah what what's? What have you learned or how do you?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Do you have any advice for the young guys who
are trying to navigate this stuff?
Speaker 7 (39:55):
Yeah, I hear, I hear you. And it is so
different now than when I started out. It was a
different game plan to try to keep it together and
be successful, completely different game plan. I don't even really
understand the social media music scene. You know, we still
sell vinyl. We do okay with the vinyl and stuff
(40:17):
and some CDs I guess, but mostly we do vinyl
and streaming whatever that you know, I don't even know.
But it's so because it's alien to me. I know
it's different though, and I know that building a career
in this world is like the wild West. I mean,
so my only advice would be just do what I did.
(40:38):
You know, love what you do, and if they don't,
if you don't sell millions of records, at least you're
doing what you love to do you know, And maybe
you will. But my hunch is if you're doing something
like I never did it because I thought I was
going to be rich. I never thought I would. I thought, sure,
I'll never be rich playing the guitar. I'm not George Harrison.
You know, I'm not John Lennon. I'm just some dumb
(40:59):
kid from Jacksonville. But you know, my thought process was not.
I think a lot of bands now they think of
TV and social media and they want to be famous,
you know, or be a celebrity. I think that's a
dark hole. I think it's the wrong way to go
about music. For me, it was I never thought about that.
(41:20):
I would dream about it, but it was like this
unattainable dream. But what I did do is I loved
it so much. I love playing the guitar, I love listening,
I loved writing. And I would have done it no
matter what. If I ended up pumping gas for a living,
I'd still be playing music. And if I think, if
you love it, then you're going to be okay, you know,
whatever happens.
Speaker 6 (41:40):
If you if you love what you're doing, you've already
won the game.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
True that that's beautiful, man.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I mean also the thing because I also, I don't know,
you've given me a lot of I think musical inspirations,
So hearing that is just wonderful.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (41:54):
You know, in the industry, I mean, the industry is
always more things Like I talked to my managinery. He says, well,
last week we did this, This week, we have to
do this to get your record played. So it's just
you know, don't get hung up on that because it's
going to always morph.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
I keep dreaming. I have this dream that there's.
Speaker 7 (42:11):
Going to be a sunflare and it's going to zap
all digital music and no social media, no cell phones,
and we're going to have to go back to playing
music and making records.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
How do we how do we trip in? Let's do
the globe the solar flare telethon, have people singing in front,
donate money to create a god. Before we go, I
got to mention one thing. You and your wife are
so involved in dog rescue, and I thought that was
important to go out on that too.
Speaker 7 (42:42):
So well, thank it's Paul the TAZZI found and thank
you for mentioning that. Uh my wife and I. If
you read the book, there's a great story of how
we met. We were brought together by a dog, and
we just got a new puppy.
Speaker 6 (42:54):
Recently.
Speaker 7 (42:55):
I read something once I said, look, dogs are a
blessing and a get. They come into your life and
they have a job to do. Their job is to
make you happy for the twelve years or whatever. And
when their job is done, they say goodbye and they
send another dog into your life somehow mystically to come
in and finish the job that they didn't finish. So
(43:16):
I like to look at it like that because it
always is heart wrenching. But my new dog, we just
got a puppy and he's like joy does joy all
through the house, this little energy, this guy.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
And I know someday maybe he will outliard me.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
I don't know, but I don't care. I want to
enjoy them while I'm here, you know. And dogs are great.
I can't endorse them more. They make your life better.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Check out it's foundating the book and it's in there too,
about the meeting of the meeting of the dog and
you and your wife. It's a heartbreaker memoir. The dirty
knobs are out not right the second because you're sitting
at home, but you're out on tour, So go see
them because why not? Why why wouldn't wouldn't you? And
continue success man and doing what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
D Campbell, you're You're a good dude.
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You are. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
I don't know what you learned, Robbie, you learned stuff.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Oh yeah, I thought it was just it was just
kind of like a masterclass. And hearing a hearing a collaborator,
like a Keith Richards type of guy's really interesting.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
It's interesting being in that position. And it's so funny
giving him back the line that you couldn't talk Tom
into anything, and he goes, I could, so he had
currency because he when you're that powerful a songwriter, and Tom,
I guess need notes, he needs you. Even though he's
a big ego and a big name and a big
hit maker. I guess he still knew. Like I said,
(44:47):
if you hit heart, if you hear some of those songs,
the guitar line is the song is the melody to
the song, good luck, good luck, good luck. I'm backing
up and leave it so and bands are bands are heard? Right, Robert?
How many bands have you been in? Now? We're not
even It's always this guy. And I thought this guy
didn't show up. This guy's drunk.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
When you were asking the enigmatic question of what that means,
I feel like he kind of defined, like he embodies
what that means. He has a very kind of interesting
indirect way of answering certain things right he knows, you know,
like about Dylan cannot really connect with people, but only
connect with musicians. There's just certain things that he answers,
ways that he answers that are indirect, but you know
(45:24):
what they mean.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
But the mystery is still there. My weirdest Dylan experience
was my only Dylan experience, was when we were living
up near Malibu. I went to the Malibu Movie Theater
and it was tiny, and I think we went to
see Blade two. Why, I don't know. We probably had
nothing else to do. And we pull in and it's
kind of a little empty shopping center and a pickup
truck pulls in next to my car. Now there are
(45:46):
a million space truck pulls in right next to my
car and really close, and I go, look at this
a hole? What is this about? And I get out
of the car and I'm walking into the theater and
it's Bob Dylan coming to see Blade two. And we
sat in an almost empty movie theater, which is tine.
It's a really small theater. Yeah, and I didn't watch
Blade too. I watched Bob Dylan watching watching Blade too,
(46:09):
and it was the most bizarre thing because he didn't
do anything odd. He looked like a normallyasion there got
up and left, but it was almost like a ghost.
You know, he comes in. You can't believe you're seings
based on absolutely nothing. My knee jerk.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Thinking about Dylan as far as relationships with people, you know,
there's a little bit of a doesn't quite always read
the room. But along with that is also this savant
ability two for poetry, for words, for music, for.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
It.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
It must be fascinating to live in that. Because he's
not a great singer, he knows he's not, doesn't matter,
and yet you know he's fronting the thing. I find
Dylan fascinating. You know, I'm not kidding that. I just
wasn't music be aware. As a teenager, all the guys
around me were being very affected by Dylan and all
(47:05):
his contemporaries.
Speaker 4 (47:06):
I was, you know, I know you're doing you were
doing so. But I love that he's fear. I love
I have a thing on the computer I pulled and
I'm going to quote it horribly, but I said, what
would you create today if you didn't have any fear?
Because that stops. It's the great stopper. And you know
what on that segway, nothing's going to stop us from
talking to David Googan. What a great radio I am.
(47:27):
I am a little afraid I'm not gonna David makes
me laugh because he always signed, by the way, David
great question when I you know, I did a little
prep with David and he said, you know what, find
out what it means and what the hell's and thematic
mean with Dylan what does that mean? So thank you David.
Speaker 9 (47:42):
I have to say, Peter, you missed out. Blade two
is one of my favorite.
Speaker 4 (47:49):
Pictures. But I mean missed out. I paid for it.
I went and saw it. Yeah, but you were watching Derek.
You know what Blade won. I went with my friend
Howard and it was I was doing Morning, the Morning
Show and it was in a premiere. It was with
the stars and Wesley Snith and it was in a
huge theater and I fell. It's a one time name.
One other person in Blade went out out the Dwarf.
See what Stephen. It was wasn't Stephen Dodorf and played Yeah,
(48:11):
he was the bad gun. Come on, please, who played blades?
So christmosophic? So I fell asleep. So he was all
asleep in this theater snoring. They wake me to Blade.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
You're lucky, You're lucky, Wesley Snipes didn't take your head up.
Speaker 9 (48:27):
So David Blade Blade two is much better than Blade went.
But that's my personal opinion. Actually, a couple of things
on the on the correction meter.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
Dylan.
Speaker 9 (48:39):
Now you guys mentioned Dylan playing at the Monterey Folk Festival.
While Dylan did play that festival in nineteen sixty three,
that was notable because that was his first West Coast appearance.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
That was not when he went electric. That was at
the Newport.
Speaker 9 (48:54):
Folk Festival in sixty five.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
That was Peter's mistake, right, I wouldn't have said any
of that, that was all.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
You wouldn't have said that twice.
Speaker 9 (49:01):
Absolutely, And also you got to me thinking of as
far as collecting of guitars, if people are interested in
what many people believe to be the largest significant collection
of guitars, that is the jim Ers, I hopefully I've
got considered right name right, he is the billionaire owner
(49:25):
of NFL's Indianapolis Colts, and he has a collection of
over two hundred guitars, including Dylan's electric guitar when he
played at the New Part.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
And Cobain's guitar. He's got insane stuff. I mean, he'll
pay whatever he has to pay to get paying from
the ceiling. I don't think display cases. I think he don't.
Did he also buy David Gilmore's black Stratocastes? He did?
Speaker 9 (49:49):
I mean did, And it's actually if you're I believe
it's on a.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Year long Indian app tour. Yeah, yeah, you can go.
Speaker 6 (49:57):
See it now if you're in that very cool saying collection.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
What I liked about hearing about the guitar rack Laundri
is that it makes the little piccadillo in my guest
house seem a little less strange.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
You know about the couch, the pneumatic couch. So can
I can I mention that so Jason has this log
cabin guesthouse, which is very nice, and the couch there's
a big sofa and it faces.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Well, there's a problem because the way the room is configurated,
there's a large screen sort of projection on these on
the north end of the room, but the fireplace is
on the south end of the room. So if you're
putting in furniture, where do you orient the couch. It's
a problem you oriented to the fireplace, oriented to the screen.
Speaker 4 (50:41):
So why did you put a big screen over the fireplace?
You couldn't. It wasn't over the fireplace. I said, why
couldn't you put a big screen everyone wall?
Speaker 3 (50:48):
First of all, you're gonna have to look look above
the mantle anyway.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
Jason, the first time I'm there in the back house
when I met him thirty plus years ago, was he
something the couch is It rises pneumatically, you turn it,
it goes back down and it now faces whichever direction
you want.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Right like on a lazy Susan.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
It's on a lazy Susan that is lifted pneumatically into
a six feet into the air, so the couch legs
can pass over all the surrounding furniture as you rotated,
and then it floats gently back down to the floor.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
Which not to give away secrets as much like how
they do the Houdini experience at the Magic Castle. But
you didn't hear that from too it.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Our friend Wayne Night when the when the table started
to rise during the Hodini seance in the Pitch Black,
I hear from way night. Well, there can be no
natural explanation for this phenomena.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
It must be Houdini. And then the guy who was
doing the seance when it's the strangle right night, because
that's his whole job. Robert, thanks for joining us. Yeah,
appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Robert Tilden of Boyo can continued success to you, sir,
Thank you so much. As the man says, if you're
pumping gas, it's okay, just make the meus.
Speaker 4 (51:59):
That's what heat myself. But you know what, pump gass
as good as you're playing guitar. Yeah, do it with
a rhythm, Yeah, never half hearted. Have you ever driven
out of gas station with the pump stilling? I did it.
You know what happens, It goes with it. I just
it rips off and they charge you a lot of money.
But it breaks off, I guess. And when I did it,
I was distracted as one time I did it. Well, okay,
(52:21):
he didn't tell me this. I'm learning something.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Yeah, oh my god, David you too, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
there we go.
Speaker 4 (52:27):
I was distracted and I pull out and you get
that sinking feeling you go oh, and then you hear
a noise. Thank god, they know they're idiots, so it
doesn't spill and explode. It cuts off. But then a
guy walks out to here and goes, happens.
Speaker 8 (52:40):
All the time, and then says, it happens. Bill, answer
your bill, and you drive up with the sinking feeling
you get when you realize I didn't I paid, but
I got back in the car and the phone kept
talking and didn't take it out of the thing. Oh
my god, right, it's a it's a hard I mean, I.
Speaker 5 (53:01):
Was, Yeah, I was, to be honest, I was selfishly
more worried about my car and what that implied.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
I thought, I maybe you would the car and thank you. Yeah, well, David,
where'd you do it?
Speaker 1 (53:13):
I did it.
Speaker 9 (53:14):
I was driving from Oregon to Idaho, and uh I
when I got out of the car about you know,
one hundred miles later, I discovered you know, the thing
stuck in.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
There and the dog leash, which was yeah, boy, wow,
that kills that. That that's right from vacation. Thank you everybody,
ladies and gentlemen, keep making the music. We'll see you
next time. Here are really No Really, and always make
sure when you've done puffing public service announcement than really.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
As another episode of Really No Really comes to it close.
I know you're wondering what stars of the music world
started in the background of other famous singers. Well, I'll
carry you to the answer and home. But first let's
thank our guest Mike Campbell. His book Heartbreaker, a Memoir,
is available everywhere now and his website The Dirty Knobs
dot com lists tour dates and ticket of ails. On Instagram, YouTube,
(54:10):
and Facebook, he is at Mike Campbell Official, and on
x he is at Mike Campbell HQ. You can also
find the music of our guest host Robert Tilden on Spotify,
where his band is Boyo. Find all pertinent links in
our show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
and threads at Really No Really Podcast, And of course,
(54:31):
you can share your thoughts and feedback with us.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Online at reallynoreli dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
If you have a really some amazing factor story that
boggles your mind, share it with us, and if we
use it, we will send.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
You a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's
the thought that counts.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube. Hit that subscribe
button and take that bell so you're updated when we
release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday.
So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Pop Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now
the answer to the question what stars of the music
world started in the background of other famous singers, Well,
the truth is that many of today's star music artists
(55:10):
began anonymously backing up other great artists.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
But here are a notable few. Mary J.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Blige was a backup artist, earning her first credit on
eighties rapper Father MC's track All Due for You. Cheryl
Crowe sang backing vocals for Michael Jackson and traveled on
his Bad tour in the late eighties.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
She appeared in the music video for Dirty Diana.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Luther Vandross was the go to backup singer throughout the
seventies and sang behind stars like David Bowie, Bette Midler,
and Ringo Starr when Stefani was actually the backup singer
for No Doubt, the band started by her brother Eric
and his partner John Spence, but after the tragic death
of John Spence, Steffani was moved up to lead singer
and the rest is history. Katy Perry sang backup vocals
(55:50):
for the Christian metal band Pod and performed with them
live on The Tonight Show with Jay Lenna. Before John
Legend became a legend, he was a background singer and
musician for artists like Alicia Keys and The Black Eyed Piece.
Cher was a noted backup singer for producer Phil Spector
and sang in the back of hit tunes like Dadoo,
Ronram and The Righteous Brothers. You've Lost That Love and Feeling.
(56:10):
Whitney Houston was singing back up at fourteen years old
for stars like her mom, Sissy Houston, as well as Wilson.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Pickett and Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Michael McDonald can be heard behind artists like Stephen Bishop
and most notably Steely Dan.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
His angelic harmonies are.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Most recognizable on the song peg And Lastly, Mariah Carey
was studying cosmetology and working as a waitress when she
got hired as a backup artist for eighties Poff and
R and B Sensation.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Brenda K.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Starr all that to say that the voice behind the
star voices is often the person to notice the most.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Take it from me.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
The guy who opens and closes for two other guys can.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
Hit really no, really
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Really really is production of Blase Entertainment.
Hosts And Creators
Peter Tilden
Jason Alexander
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