Mike Campbell Brings The Dirty Knobs to Farm Aid, Four Decades After Backing Dylan at the Festival’s Debut: ‘It Was Quite a Moment’
Billboard ·
With his own band now, the guitarist offers "a great two-hour release from the wicked world."
When Mike Campbell brings his band The Dirty Knobs to the stage at Farm Aid in Virginia Beach, Va. on Saturday (9/26), he’ll be coming full circle.
In 1985, at the first Farm Aid in Champaign, Ill., Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, with Campbell on guitar, played at the debut of Willie Nelson’s festival to support family farmers — as the backing band for Bob Dylan.
“It was quite a moment,” Campbell recalled to Billboard , specifically referring to Dylan’s performance of “Maggie’s Farm,” during which — as the guitarist later wrote in his memoir — he heard “someone take a solo, a grinding, dirty, acoustic blues lead that sounded like Link Wrap playing Doc Watson.”
Campbell looked over at Dylan, then Petty — ”it sure wasn’t me playing it” — then realized that Nelson had stepped out “digging into Trigger, his battered nylon-string acoustic.”
The Heartbreakers’ high-profile gig behind Dylan at that first Farm Aid has been credited to the business relationship between the band’s manager, Tony Dimitriades and Elliot Roberts at Lookout Management, who represented Dylan.
In Heartbreaker: A Memoir, Campbell’s compelling biography published in 2025, and in conversation with Billboard , the guitarist remembers the roots of the collaboration differently: “[Dylan] called me up one day. We don’t ever talk on the phone, really. But back then, we were in touch a little bit. And he said he was putting a band together to go on tour. And he said, `I was thinking of using John Cougar’s band,’” referring to the stage name John Mellencamp used at that time.
“And me being who I am, I said, `Don’t do that. Get the Heartbreakers! We know all your songs. I think we would be a better fit for you.’ And I guess he agreed with me.”
What followed was a historic rock ’n’ roll partnership as the Heartbreakers and Dylan embarked on the True Confessions Tour, playing some 60 shows in Australian New Zealand, Japan and the United States — including two nights at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. and three nights at Madison Square Garden.
On the eve of this year’s Farm Aid, however, Campbell is reveling in a more recent performance. The Dirty Knobs are touring behind their widely acclaimed fourth album Mission of Mercy and, says Campbell, the previous night’s show at The Cabot, in Beverly, Mass “was really stupendous.”
Six years after the Dirty Knobs released the band’s debut album, Wreckless Abandon — and after four decades as Tom Petty’s sidemade in the Heartbreakers — Campbell is confident in his role as a rock’n’roll frontman.
“I’ve got my feet under me,” says Campbell, “and my vocals have improved to where I don’t freak out every time I have to sing. I know my range and I know how to get the songs across and I’m really comfortable engaging with the audience now. I like talking to them and leading the band — and I feel like I was always meant to do that.
“We have a lot of rapport with the audience. We crack jokes now and then. And it’s a party, you know, it’s a great two-hour release from the wicked world. That’s what I do. That’s my job.”
While the Dirty Knobs’ songs vary in style, reflecting the great diversity of top 40 music when Campbell was growing up in the 1960s, the band overall has a more dense, blues-rooted feel. “I didn’t want to clone the Heartbreakers,” says Campbell, “and I did not want to be a tribute band. I have no interest in that. I want the Dirty Knobs to be their own group and have their own energy. And, you know, it’s a slightly rougher sound in general terms.”
But the Dirty Knobs also do not shy from playing a few songs from the Heartbreakers in concert. “I like my legacy, I’m really proud of it,” says Campbell. “I put a few of the [Heartbreakers’] songs in the show now and then, maybe three or four every night, because I love the songs and I wrote a lot of them. I like doing them with this band.”
Campbell acknowledges that, for his fans, the Dirty Knobs’ shows can be a healing experience. “Well, that’s the way I frame it, yeah. I call it a rock and roll soul healing, and I tell the crowd every night, you know, you belong to us for the next two hours,” says Campbell.
“Forget the world outside. It’ll fix itself. Right now, we’re in here together, and we’re going to share a moment of escape from all the wickedness and [experience] some beauty and bliss and soulful healing through the rock and roll music. And it’s like a church to me. We’re there to preach the gospel and hopefully everybody will go home feeling better than when they came in.”