Mike Campbell explained why he couldn’t have prevented Tom Petty’s death in 2017, and said his conscience was clear on the matter.
Petty passed at the age of 66 of an accidental overdose. He’d been using drugs to manage the pain of a fractured hip and marriage problems, which had also affected the Heartbreakers’ last tour.
In a new interview with Guitar Player, Campbell said he could only intrude so far into Petty’s personal life. “With Tom it was like, ‘Your private life is yours, and mine is mine. I can see what you’re doing, but out of respect for you, I’ll trust you’ll do the right thing. If you need me, call me.’
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He continued: “I could have said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to cut this shit out,’ … [Y]ou could say that and he would just look at you like, ‘But I’m Tom Petty. I’m going to do whatever I fucking want. Get out of my face.’
“Tom made his own decisions about what he wanted, even to the last tour. That was his decision – he wanted to go on tour. Nobody was going to tell him ‘no’ for any reason. We suggested to him that we could postpone the tour, but he said, ‘Nope, I’m doing this.’”
Asked how he felt about the road trip likely contributing to Petty’s death, Campbell said: “I don’t torture myself. My conscience is clear because Tom knew that I knew, and Tom knew that I wasn’t forcing him and getting in his face about it.
“[T]he last conversation I had with Tom about it, I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? Are you up to it?’ He said, ‘I’m not staying home. I’m going out. I want to do it. If I have to be in a wheelchair, I’m going to do it.’ I said, ‘Okay, then what?’ He said, ‘Well, when the tour’s over, I’m going to go get my surgery. We’ll write some more songs, make another record.’
He added: “So I have no second thoughts about it. I don’t beat myself up like that.…I did all I could.”
What Mike Campbell Thinks of the Last Song the Heartbreakers Played
Campbell also reflected on the fact that “American Girl,” the classic track he’s described as the Heartbreakers identifying their sound, was the final song the band played together.
“Yeah. Irony,” he said. “But I don’t ever think of ‘American Girl’ as the last song we ever played together, unless somebody brings it up. It’s like one of the first songs we ever played together. I don’t have a sad attachment to it – it’s too much of an optimistic burst of joy.
“But I am glad we played that song together at the Hollywood Bowl… Every time we played it, the hair on the back of my neck would stand up. There’s something about it that’s just inspired and poetic and exuberant. It’s the Heartbreakers, that tonality we found that day between the keyboards and the guitar harmonics and the energy and the riffs.
“That was the sound of our band. That’s what we sounded like when we were at our best. And that’s what we tried to do after that. That’s the sound we worked for.”
Watch Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Final Performance
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
