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YOU WONT BELIEVE: 2 - What They Never Told You

The sacred duty of playing the hits

Founding members of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, hold the notes of memory

Salon

“I had no inkling Tom would go so early. I always wondered who would go first. I’m still grieving”: Mike Campbell on life as Tom Petty’s right hand man and the highs and lows of being a Heartbreaker

The life and times of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell

Louder

“Geffen thought we were too young to write our own songs. Bob Dylan wrote a song, Bruce Springsteen had a song”: Ryan Hedgecock on Lone Justice's brief but fierce ’80s run – and how Tom Petty and Mike Campbell ended up penning a song on their debut

The promising young band were the subject of a flurry of publicity after they were signed to Geffen, but a behind-the-scenes mismatch in vision led to the outfit's premature demise

Guitar World

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“Tom listened to it and said, ‘It sounds kind of jazzy.’ I went back and changed the chorus, and that’s the version I played for Don”: Mike Campbell on writing The Boys of Summer with Don Henley – after Tom Petty passed on it

Campbell made an all-important change to the song before handing it over to Henley

Guitar World

“I play the double-neck and trade solos with Joe Walsh on Hotel California. It’s a bit terrifying, but it’s the greatest thing ever”: Chris Holt landed The Eagles without an audition – but his gigs with Mike Campbell and Don Henley might have helped

Former Don Henley sideman has a multi-amp rig when he plays with Mike Campbell, and a stipped down in-ears-only setup for the Sphere – but he always has 12 guitars standing by

Guitar World

Spotify streams of the latest Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer song increased by 182,000% just two hours after the trailer dropped

The song from the latest Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer has shot up in popularity on Spotify.

TechRadar

“He mostly played bass. I had a ’64 Strat that I got for $200. Tom didn’t really have a good electric, so I let him use that one”: How Mike Campbell and Tom Petty developed their Heartbreakers sound – with the help of some choice early gear picks

Though Petty was in need of a decent electric, the two Heartbreakers quickly landed on a sound that would define their guitar partnership

Guitar World

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"It could have been the end, but it became a new beginning": Fleetwood Mac and the game-changing arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks - only in the new issue of Classic Rock

Also in this issue: Joe Walsh, Don Airey, Those Damn Crows, Pete Townshend, Lollapalooza 92, Luke Spiller, Mike Campbell, Yngwie Malmsteen, Samantha Fish and more

Louder

“It’s one of the most beautiful, living, breathing pieces of art – all the grime has just aged into the wood”: Margo Price on playing Willie Nelson’s Trigger, growing up with Gibson and bringing her signature J-45 to life

The country singer-songwriter on what she learned working with Mike Campbell and how playing drums influences her guitar style

Guitar World

Tom Petty, Motörhead, The Doors, plus some big surprises: we reveal 10 top music journalists’ most treasured vinyl records

10 of the world's top music journalists reveal their most cherished records as part of our Vinyl Week special event

What Hi-Fi?

“The ‘Destruct’ button really sets it apart from just about any other Tele”: Fender and Mike Campbell recreate the Red Dog – The Heartbreaker’s heavily modded 1972 Telecaster, which he played with Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac

Campbell bought the Red Dog from one of his students, and used it across his career on some of his most notable works

Guitar World

“Walk Like an Egyptian was so silly. But solid players have asked, ‘What are you playing at the end?’” Vicki Peterson sees herself as “a bit of a hack player,” but she still made guitar-pop history with the Bangles – and guested with Tom Petty

She compares her work in The Bangles to what she’s doing now, lists the guitars she’d save from a house fire, and explains how she wound up with a Carvin in her collection

Guitar World

"It’s a thin line between child and genius." Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell reveals how a drum machine confused the hell out of Bob Dylan when he tried to write a hit single in the mid '80s

After seeing how Mike Campbell's input revitalised Don Henley, Bob Dylan fancied a slice of the action, but was thwarted by a uncooperative drum machine

Louder

“I didn’t think I played that well. I had a hunch he could pull something out with the slide. I handed him the guitar, and he just did it”: The time Mike Campbell asked George Harrison to take over his own guitar solo

Campbell recalls rejecting his own solo on the Traveling Wilburys' debut single – and why Harrison's playing style was a better fit

Guitar World

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Louder

“We tried the spaceship at The Who’s studio. Pete Townshend saw it and said: ‘I want one!’”: How Jeff Lynne took Electric Light Orchestra and the Traveling Wilburys to infinity and beyond

ELO were the mad Englishmen who conquered the US in the 1970s – and Jeff Lynne was at the heart of it

Guitar World

“I brought a musicality that Tom wasn’t capable of. I had techniques that I could express to him in his songs that he couldn't have done on his own”: Mike Campbell on what he brought to the Heartbreakers as Tom Petty’s guitar foil

The Heartbreakers guitarist will release his career-spanning memoir next week

MusicRadar

“I think I brought a musicality that Tom wasn’t capable of”: Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell opens up on his productive but sometimes fractious relationship with bandmate Tom Petty

“Sometimes he made me so angry I couldn’t look at him,” Campbell says of Petty in his new memoir

The Independent UK

What to stream: 'Moana 2,' John Mulaney, 'Confessions of Octomom,' Amanda Seyfried and 'Dope Thief'

“Moana 2,” the third-biggest movie box-office hit of 2024, and Amanda Seyfried playing a Philadelphia patrol officer fighting rampant opioid addiction in Peacock's “Long Bright River” are some of this week’s new streaming entertainment releases

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The Conversation

From Jewish summer camp to gospel to Chabad, Bob Dylan’s faith doesn’t fit in a box − but he’s long had a connection to Israel

James Mangold’s film “A Complete Unknown,” nominated for eight Oscars, captures the elusive, enigmatic quality of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s: the years he emerged as a major musical and cultural phenomenon. A scant few years after he came to New York from Minnesota, and legally changed his name…

The Independent UK

The 10 best Super Bowl halftime show performances, from Rihanna to Kendrick Lamar

Bad Bunny is set to headline the prestigious halftime show in Santa Clara, California this weekend

Louder

10 huge hits given away from one artist to another

From Prince to Joni Mitchell and Macca to the Bee Gees, the stars who were in such a creative purple patch that they had classics going spare and shopped them elsewhere.

Louder

"I woke up three days later, in France, in this stupid castle, and I'm thinking: 'What just happened?'": How Stevie Nicks escaped the chaos of Fleetwood Mac and soared solo

In 1980 Stevie Nicks stepped out of Fleetwood Mac with a hit-laden debut solo album that showed she could fly just as high on her own

Louder

Garth Hudson, one of the men who helped Bob Dylan go electric, has died

Keyboard player Garth Hudson, who also played with Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Roger Waters and more, has died aged 87

Louder

“You’re 17, it’s a normal dumb night, then someone’s screaming, ‘Get on the floor!’ I’m gonna die. This is the end of my life”: The armed hold-up that set the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne on the road to music

Sold on their older brothers’ counterculture dream of living in outer space listening to the Beatles, Coyne and bandmate Steven Drozd very nearly became full-time drug dealers instead of musicians

GamesRadar

GTA 6 wishlist – everything we want from the next instalment of Grand Theft Auto

Big in 2025 | We've got high hopes for our trip to Vice City

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