Mike Campbell: This Tom Petty Track Defined the Heartbreakers’ Sound

From “Refugee” to “Here Comes My Girl” to “You Wreck Me,” the songwriting duo proved  how powerful their creative forces could be when they put them together.

Throughout their decades-long tenure together, Tom Petty, his lead guitarist and co-writer Mike Campbell, and their band, the Heartbreakers, had no small shortage of career-defining hits.

If one were only to look at the chord charts for Tom Petty’s vast repertoire, they might assume the Florida native’s music was simple and, dare we say it, even boring, Americansongwriter reports.

But therein lies the magic of the Heartbreakers’ sound. Petty had a masterful way of presenting straightforward, no-fuss rock ‘n’ roll in a way that was fresh, pop-sensible, and enduringly catchy. The Heartbreakers’ sound blended elements of Southern rock, pop, and blues without letting any one genre take over.

For lead guitarist Mike Campbell, no track exemplified the Heartbreakers’ sound quite like “American Girl.” Petty and the Heartbreakers released the song on their 1976 debut, and it remained a staple in their live sets up until Petty’s death in 2017. “Every time we played it, the hair on the back of my neck would stand up,” Campbell told Guitar Player in March 2025. “There’s something about it that’s just inspired and poetic and exuberant.”

“It’s the Heartbreakers,” he continued. “That tonality we found that day between the keyboards and the guitar harmonics and the energy and the riffs. That was the sound of our band. That’s what we sounded like when we were at our best. And that’s what we tried to do after that. That’s the sound we worked for.” Ironically, this early years track would be the last song Campbell ever performed publicly with Petty. But for Campbell, he chooses not to focus on the last time. “I don’t ever think of “American Girl” as the last song we ever played together unless somebody brings it up. I don’t have a sad attachment to it. It’s too much of an optimistic burst of joy.”

Recently Mike Campbell he said  'Country music is in the DNA of Tom Petty'
Decades ago, before the Heartbreakers even existed in their full form, Petty was playing country songs in what he would later describe as "real redneck country" Floridian bars, trying to earn a living as a burgeoning performer.
"[The crowd was] always kind of weirded out by us because we had long hair, playing country music," Petty said in 2005's Conversations With Tom Petty. "And that was completely unheard of in those days."

There came a point where Petty felt country music had lost its way. "I hate to generalize on a whole genre of music, but it does seem to be missing that magic element that it used to have," he told Rolling Stone in 2013. "I'm sure there are people playing country that are doing it well, but they're just not getting the attention that the shittier stuff gets. But that's the way it always is, isn't it?"

Below Margo Price’s rendition of the song features Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. Campbell co-wrote the tune with Petty for the short-lived country-rock group Lone Justice, who included the song on its self-titled debut album in 1985. Campbell played guitar on Lone Justice’s version of the tune as well.