Funny in Florida
Big-name comedians coming to the Jacksonville area in 2025.
- Mike Campbell played lead guitar with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for four decades.
- Mike Campbell has roots in Jacksonville and graduated from Ribault High School.
- Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs play Aug. 18 at the Florida Theatre in downtown Jacksonville.
If you read Mike Campbell’s new autobiography, “Heartbreaker,” you might get the impression that he’s not a big fan of Jacksonville. He mentions the city a couple dozen times in the book, none of them fondly.
Campbell, best known for his four decades as lead guitarist with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, lived in Jacksonville as a teen, attending John Gorrie Junior High and graduating from Ribault High.
“I wanted to go to Robert E. Lee High School, but we moved to the sticks,” he said.
He lived in the Sherwood Forest area of the city, which is where he learned to play guitar, and he couldn’t wait to get out (the paper mill next door didn’t help). His break came when a school counselor steered him toward Gainesville and the University of Florida, where he met the future Heartbreakers.
“I don’t have any hard feelings against Jacksonville,” Campbell said in a phone interview. “It was just a hard time in my life.”
He’s returning to his own stomping grounds for an Aug. 14 concert at the Florida Theatre with his new band, the Dirty Knobs. He said he’s looking forward to playing at the same venue where, as a teen, he saw concerts by the Beach Boys, the Zombies, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Chad & Jeremy and Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs.
“I saw some great shows there,” he said. “I’ve never played Jacksonville with my own band. The Florida Theatre has a lot of charm for me.”
One person who helped break Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in Jacksonville was Campbell’s mother. When the band would release a new record, she’d call the WAPE request line. “This is Helen Rigdon from right here in Jacksonville and I think it would be just wonderful if you played ‘Listen to Her Heart’ by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, because let me tell you something, that’s my son Michael’s band,” he quotes her in his book.
The Dirty Knobs is a four-piece band he put together after Petty’s death in 2017. It includes two members of Don Henley’s touring band and new drummer Steve Ferrone, a former Heartbreaker who came aboard when the Knobs’ previous drummer left to join AC/DC. “I love this band,” Campbell said. “We’re getting really, really good.”
He said he put together the Dirty Knobs because he just couldn’t see himself sitting around at home forever.
“I’m a musician and I’ve always been in a band my whole life. I like having my gang around me and I love to play,” he said. “I don’t expect to be a billionaire from this band, but we do all right; we’re playing theaters and not biker bars.”
The band is on tour with Blackberry Smoke and has opened for everyone from the Who to George Strait. The Jacksonville show is the last on the tour and the band will headline.
Campbell wrote the music for many of the Heartbreakers’ biggest hits, as well as many of the songs on the three albums the Dirty Knobs have released. He’s also written big hits for Don Henley (“Boys of Summer,” “The Heart of the Matter”) and played guitar with Fleetwood Mac for a tour, so picking a setlist is always a challenge, he said.
“I defer to the Dirty Knobs, but I love to fill in old Heartbreakers songs that I wrote,” he said. “I know how they’re supposed to sound. It’s a celebration to remember the old days.”
The setlist changes almost every night, he said. “I like to surprise the band and pull out songs they’re not familiar with and just go for it.”
Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs play the Florida Theatre at 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14. Tickets are $54-$91.50.