Mike
find my own voice,’” says the musician,
who just for fun teamed with guitarist Jason
Sinay, bassist Lance Morrison, and drum-
mer Matt Lang during Heartbreakers
downtime. “And that’s what I did. I can’t
get rid of ALL of it. But I got rid of enough
of it that I can be myself.”
around him. He was such a professional.
And one thing I found interesting about
Roy in the studio was, he’d be on the mic,
but his lips would barely move. It was all
coming from inside. And Tom and I would
look at each other and go, ‘“Is he actually
singing? We hear the sound, but his lips
aren’t moving!”And that voice? I think he
was just born with it. Speaking of The
Wilburys, we were in the studio, and Tom
and George and Jeff were in the other room.
And Roy said, “I’m a real singer. And it’s
not ego — I just know that I was born with
this voice. But those guys in there? They're
real stylists!” He looked up to them, and
called them ‘stylists’ as opposed to ‘singers.’
IE: Even more amazing — you cut two
03•2020
ENTERTAINER:
You’ve
ILLINOIS
worked with some amazing vocalists over
the years, like Del Shannon, who was
originally going to be in The Traveling
Wilburys.
MIKE CAMPBELL: Yeah. And Del was
amazing. He had that, that VOICE, you
know? And he was one of those guys who
was so full of energy; he could hardly stand
still.
IE: And Roy Orbison. Another stunning
stylist. What do you learn from somebody
like that?
MC: I hope I learned something, just being
8 illinoisentertainer.com march 2020
Mike Campbell
albums with Bob Dylan and toured
behind him in Australia.
MC: How blessed am I? I can tell you a
story about Dylan. And it’s kind of funny,
but it shows you what a pure genius he is.
We were in the studio, recording the song
“Emotionally Yours” for his 1985 album
Empire Burlesque, and he said, “You wrote
and recorded “The Boys of Summer” with
Don Henley,” right? Did you use a drum
machine on that?” And I said, “Yeah.” And
he said, “Bring the drum machine tomor-
row! I want to do that, too!” So I brought the
drum machine down the next day, and we
set it up and were playing along with it. But
during the take, Bob goes completely off the
drum machine, just in his own way, and at
the end of the take, he kind of ended back
on the drum machine again. And he turned
to me and said, “What’s wrong? That
sounded horrible!” And I told him, “Well,
we have to play ALONG with the drum
machine.” And he said, “You mean it won’t
follow ME?” And I said no, but he never
missed a beat, and snapped, “Well, what
good is it then?”
IE: One question that has to be asked,
though: Did you come up with that mem-
orably guitar lead on Petty’s “The
Waiting”?
MC: Yeah. And it’s funny — I just heard that
on the radio the other day, and what it was,
was that when we cut the track, I played the
bass. And near the end on the bass, I go
'Doo-doo-doo-doo-dee-DOO-doo,’ just off
the top of my head. And when we listened
back to it, I thought, “Well, that could be a
good guitar lick.” So I went and learned it
on the guitar, and that became the hook. It’s
funny how things happen.
IE: And you just toured with Fleetwood
Mac, replacing the departing Lindsey
Buckingham. But he has a completely dif-
ferent style than you do, more classic fin-
gerpicking. How difficult was that?