Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs - Mission Of Mercy

 

Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs — Mission Of Mercy

Band chases ghosts and new horizons on 2026 album

On Mission of Mercy, the new album from Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs, Campbell is four albums into a project that began as his anonymous bar band in 2004. However, he didn't release a record until 2020.

According to Campbell in his memoir Heartbreaker, as well as Tom Petty's biographer Warren Zanes, the idea of Campbell fronting a band was not well received by his boss. "It sounds like a bad impression of me," was Petty's response to a tape of demos Campbell had sent him.

But Campbell kept at it, quietly, until three years after Petty's death, Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs released Wreckless Abandon. Since then, Campbell's four-piece rock band has always been exactly what it is: a four-piece rock band following the muse of its leader. And yet, at its heart is a complicated legacy, writes Christopher Raley, in Glide Magazine. Campbell was more than just the lead guitar player for the Heartbreakers. He was Petty's songwriting partner, and a quick tour of his co-writing credits reveals that he was deeply a part of the Heartbreaker sound. Without Campbell, we probably wouldn't have "Here Comes My Girl," "Refugee," "You Got Lucky Babe," "Runnin' Down a Dream," "Love is a Long Road," and others.

Campbell's close-knit collective of musicians and fellow travelers he pieced together delicately in the waning years of his previous band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, last released in 2024 the excellent Vagabonds, Virgins and Misfits. Each release represented a leap forward that drew heavily from the massive archives of unheard music the prolific guitarist had composed during near daily writing sessions for decades.

Harder and more driving than much of the Heartbreakers' later material, the songs balanced Campbell's love of '60s blues rock with his surprising facility with tender character portraits, love songs and ballads. The quiet Campbell settled uneasily into the role of front man, singer and songwriter. 

His latest, Mission of Mercy, once again explores and expands the sound and style that Campbell helped pioneer. A collection of beautifully played and recorded guitar-driven rockers and reflections, the album finds Campbell loosening his grip on the boogie with forays into bongos, jazzbos and even strings.

The hard-charging Knobs have settled and solidified into the current lineup with a notable addition: Steve Ferrone, the swinging and meticulous Brighton-born drummer who kept a steady beat for the Heartbreakers' last 20-plus years, is now a permanent fixture behind the kit. Chris Holt, a dexterous multi-instrumentalist and singer who moonlights in scrappy country rock upstarts The Eagles, provides second guitar, keys and pitch-perfect harmonies. And bassist Lance Morrison-who Campbell calls "our secret weapon"-keeps his thrumming, melodic low end in a gorilla glue lock with Ferrone.

"I've got a great band," Campbell says. "I'm very lucky. This record has a little bit of everything. I want to show some growth and take some chances."

 

1. No Regrets

2. Let Me Back in My Dream

3. My Mama Told Me

4. I Remember

5. More Than Gold (feat. Morgane Stapleton)

6. Mission if Mercy

7. Bongo Mania (feat. Kate Pierson)

8. Wrecking Ball

9. Done to Me

10. Armageddon

11. Vicious Hangover

12. Vagrant

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