Wreckless Abandon

Wreckless Abandon
Studio album by
ReleasedNovember 20, 2020 (2020-11-20)
StudioHocus Pocus Recorders, California, US
GenreRock
Length56:16
LanguageEnglish
LabelBMG
Producer
The Dirty Knobs chronology
Wreckless Abandon
(2020)
External Combustion
(2022)

“I never really had a solo record in mind. I have a lot of songs, and I would always give them to Tom [Petty]. If I was fortunate, he would write to the good ones. But I ended up piling up so many pieces of music that he couldn’t possibly ever write to all of them. That’s when I started just writing to them myself for fun, just to see what they would sound like.”

Mike Campbell on songwriting and recording the debut Dirty Knobs album

Wreckless Abandon is the debut album by American rock band The Dirty Knobs. Released by BMG Rights Management in 2021, the album has received positive reviews from critics. The album was largely recorded live to tape in frontman Mike Campbell's home studio and include compositions that he had written over the course of almost 20 years with the band. The album also features Campbell's former bandmate Benmont Tench and the recording process helped Campbell grieve the 2017 death of longtime collaborator Tom Petty. The Dirty Knobs had been Campbell's side project between Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch work and became his primary focus after Petty's death, leading to this recording and Campbell's first attempts to find a unique voice as a songwriter and performer.