eartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell vividly remembers the first time his star bandmate Tom Petty heard a recording of him singing. “‘That’s weird,’ Tom said, ‘it kinda sounds like me,’” Campbell recalled. “It comes from the way I talk and the way he talked.” It also comes from the place where they both grew up – the American south, a lineage evident in both the drawling cadence of their vocals and the defiant core of their character. While Campbell sang lead on only one song in the deep Heartbreakers’ catalogue – I Don’t Wanna Fight from their 1999 album Echoes – he’s now the front-and-center singer, writer and, naturally, lead guitarist, on every single song on the brand new album, titled Wreckless Abandon, by his own band, the Dirty Knobs. Fans will recognize the connection between the vocals of Campbell and Petty right away, though the band leader said: “I really made a conscious effort to try and filter out stuff that might sound like I’m mimicking my friend. I think I found my own voice. But some of it I can’t get rid of,” he admitted to the Guardian from his Los Angeles home. There’s also an inescapable connection between the two artists in their songwriting styles. Campbell either wrote, or co-wrote, 36 songs in the Heartbreakers’ canon, including hits like Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, Runnin’ Down A Dream and You Got Lucky. For all of those songs, Campbell provided the bulk of the music while Petty fleshed out the melody and wrote the lyrics. More, he served as producer on some Heartbreakers recordings. The Knobs’ album represents Campbell’s first full studio work since Petty’s death three years ago, which resulted from an accidental overdose of prescription opioids he was taking to deal with a long history of hip and knee pain. That shocking event brought one of America’s most popular, representative and long-running bands to a tragic close. As rousing and rocking as the Heartbreakers’ music was, the Knobs churn out a more raw and dirty sound, bringing in some of the muddiness of Neil Young’s grunge. “It’s a four-piece – with no keyboards – so it’s a guitar band, essentially,” Campbell said. “All the takes on the record are live. The solos are live. I wanted to capture the four of us playing all at once to get a really big sound.” One highlight of the music is the intimate relationship between the guitars of Campbell and co-lead player Jason Sinay. “He instinctively knew how to fit in with my sound,” the band leader said. “I had a great guitar dynamic with Tom. I would listen to what he was playing and try to support it or lift it up. If there was a solo, I usually played it because Tom was busy singing and playing rhythm. In the Dirty Knobs, Jason is in my old role. He listens to what I’m doing and he tries to fill it in the best he can.” The two also share a similar philosophy about how a lead guitar functions in a song. The new album extends Campbell’s career-long focus on concise solos informed by an attention to melody. “If there’s a solo, it’s short and to the point,” he said. “And if there’s a fill that’s required between the voice, it serves the song.” Boosting the band’s rapport is their long-aborning history. The roots of the Knobs snake all the way back to 2001, when Campbell first had the notion to start a side band to fill in the gaps between the Heartbreakers’ albums or tours. At first, it was hard to consider the Knobs a proper side project because it involved two other members of the Heartbreakers – drummer Steve Ferrone and bassist Ron Blair. While that version of the band played the odd club gig, it didn’t last long. “It became apparent to me that having two members of the Heartbreakers was probably not a wise choice,” the guitarist said. “‘That would be competing with myself and it would probably make Tom uncomfortable.” So, a few years later, he formed a new Knobs featuring Sinay and a different rhythm section – drummer Matt Laug and bassist Lance Morrison. For over a decade, this unit casually wood-shopped songs Campbell wrote by playing the odd club gig, filling out their set with 60s covers. “It would be a real challenge to win the audience over without playing any hits,” Campbell said. “You’re not going to hear Free Fallin’ or Runnin’ Down a Dream. It was like going back to how I started out, playing for a small audience and enjoying it. There were no preconceptions.” That laissez-faire arrangement continued for years. “There was never any ambition beyond, ‘Hey, do you wanna come over and play?’” Campbell said. “We were never going to try and make a record.” All that changed when the Heartbreakers came to an abrupt end. After some emotional healing, Campbell intended to revive the Knobs but in the meantime an offer came from Fleetwood Mac to join their world tour as a replacement for Lindsay Buckingham. Campbell had already enjoyed a long history with Mac member Stevie Nicks, having co-written her massive hit Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, as well as other songs on her solos albums over the years. Still, the situation with Mac seemed potentially awkward, considering Buckingham had been thrown out of the band just before the tour. “I’ve always respected Lindsay Buckingham and I took it on as a challenge to do justice to the songs the best I could,” Campbell said. “I’m not Lindsay and he’s not me, but I learned the best I could to support the songs as they were on the record. It was out of my comfort zone because I’m used to playing my own guitar parts. [But] I really enjoyed it.” In fact, he said, he’d work with Fleetwood Mac again, if the opportunity arose. After all, he’s used to being “a team player”, as he calls it. For that very reason, Campbell said he never thought about doing more lead singing during his 40-plus years with the Heartbreakers. “I was in a band with Tom and he was so good,” he said. “And I really didn’t much confidence in my singing then.” Even now, he said “I’m not a singer singer. It’s like something Roy Orbison once told me when the Traveling Wilburys were in the other room. He said, ‘I’m a singer. Those other guys [meaning Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and George Harrison] are stylists.’ I also think I’m more of a stylist than a singer.” Even so, Campbell was able to bring deep emotion to his vocals in the most personal song on the Knobs’ album, I Still Love You. It’s the only lyric on the set that reflects his personal life. The rest, he says, were written in character or in the third person, like the single Fuck That Guy, which shoots a witty middle finger to the selfish pig of your choice. By contrast the wrenching I Still Love You addresses issues “between me and my wife”, Campbell said. “We were going through a rough patch. I still get very emotional every time I play it because I remember how I felt going through that.” Things worked out in his marriage but, Campbell acknowledges, the song’s lyrics now give him a chance to exorcise some of the pain he feels from the loss of his greatest musical ally. Since Petty’s passing, some observers have speculated that he pushed himself too far, covering up his physical pain with pills in order to fulfill his obligations to his fans and his larger team. Campbell dismissed that view. “Tom’s decision to tour, with the pain he was having, was because he wanted to play,” Campbell said. “I remember talking to him and saying, ‘Are you up to it?’ and he said, ‘I’m doing this tour if I have to sit in a chair. I’m not staying home.’ It’s like the sailor and the sea – you always want to be out there. I know he was struggling but he was also really happy. Even to the very last gig, I saw that look on his face that said, ‘There’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.” In terms of processing his grief over the loss, Campbell said: “I don’t know what phase I’m in. I’m still grieving. I will probably be grieving Tom for the rest of my life. We were best friends. We were poor kids who had a dream to play music and maybe make a record someday, and all of those dreams came true for us, together. That’s huge.” At the same time, he takes comfort in his belief that Petty “will always be around. People will never forget him,” Campbell said. “And I want to carry that torch in my music. I still have more dreams to dream.” Wreckless Abandon will be released on 20 November