Mike Campbell Opens Up About Final Tour with Tom Petty

Mike Campbell releases his memoir, Heartbreaker, on March 18. In the book, he explores his lengthy relationship with Tom Petty.

In a new interview with Guitar Player, Campbell talks about the final Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers tour in 2017. Petty tragically died from an accidental overdose nearly a week after the tour concluded. He was dealing with a broken hip, but instead of postponing the tour to undergo surgery, Petty decided to power through and leaned on a number of painkillers to deal with the injury.

Campbell explains that he and Petty had an "invisible understanding" about their personal issues and that they weren't confrontational towards each other.

" ... There was no second thoughts or reservations about going out on tour," said Campbell. "In fact, the 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.'"

Campbell noted that their manager even said they could postpone the tour for Petty to get hip surgery, but Petty was adamant about needing to be on the road and performing.

Campbell says he has no regrets on how things went down and said, " ... I did all I could."

Heartbreaker is available for pre-order via HachetteBookGroup.com.