In 1977, Mike Campbell was looking through the Recycler ads in Los Angeles for a deal on a 12-string Rickenbacker. He found an ad for a “Rickenbacker 12-string” and went to a suburban home expecting to see a hollow-body model similar to the one George Harrison played. Instead, the guitar turned out to be a small solid-body 1963 Rickenbacker 625/12 prototype in Fireglo.
Although it was not the model he had been looking for, the price was low enough that he bought it for roughly $150.
Campbell only learned much later that the guitar was historically significant. According to him, it was the next 12-string Rickenbacker off the production line after George Harrison’s instrument.
Campbell used the 625/12 on several Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers recordings, including “Listen to Her Heart,” “Here Comes My Girl,” “The Waiting,” and much of the band’s electric 12-string material. The guitar also appeared in the music videos for “Here Comes My Girl” and “The Waiting,” and Tom Petty is pictured holding it on the cover of Damn the Torpedoes.
Campbell also used the guitar live. At the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards, he played it during “Free Fallin’.” In the Pack Up the Plantation concert film, he used it on “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” covering the sitar-like part originally played by Dave Stewart.
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