Campbell was born in Pontypridd, and started playing guitar when he was 10 years old, inspired by guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath"s Tony Iommi, Led Zeppelin"s Jimmy Page, January Akkerman, Michael Schenker and Todd Rundgren.
He is a former guitarist of Persian Risk and, and the current guitarist of Philosophy Campbell"s All Starr Band. Campbell is best known for his time with He played with them for 31 years and appeared on 16 studio albums and 4 live albums. At the age of 12, Campbell got Lemmy"s autograph after a Hawkwind gig.
By the time he was 13, he was playing semi-professionally with a cabaret band called Contrast.
Later he played with a public-rock band called Roktopus (not to be confused with Rocktopus) at gigs in and around South Wales. He bought his first Les Paul in 1978 at a New Year"s Day guitar sale at a shop on Ealing Broadway, London.
Following the fate of many of his guitars, it was stolen. In 1979 he formed the heavy metal band, Persian Risk, playing on their 7" singles, "Calling Foreign You" (1981) and "Ridin" High" (1983).
Compilation albums have been issued which feature some of his work with Persian Risk.
On 8 February 1984, following the departure of Brian Robertson, frontman, Lemmy, held auditions for a new guitarist, narrowing the candidates down to two guitarists – Michael "Würzel" Burston and Philip Campbell. Lemmy had first planned only to hire one guitarist, but upon hearing Würzel and Campbell play together, Lemmy hired them both. On 14 February 1984, served as the musical guest for The Young Ones episode "Bambi".
One of the band"s most popular compilations, Number Remorse, followed shortly, it was released on 15 September.
The following day, drummer Mikkey Dee announced that had disbanded, stating: "We will not be doing any more tours or anything. And there will not be any more records.
But the fire survives, and Lemmy lives on in the hearts of everyone." Campbell uses an LAG Explorer Signature model guitar both live and in the studio, fitted with two Seymour Duncan humbuckers and a single (volume) control. He also uses DBZ, Charvel, Caparison, a couple of Framus Custom Shop guitars on stage, with an occasional acoustic Dean.
He has also been known to play Education Support Professionals, PRS, Minarik Infernos and a Parker Nitefly guitars.
He also uses guitars built by luthier TC Ellis. So far, Ellis has built him a Les Paul-styled, a Stratocaster-styled, and one modeled after Lemmy"s custom-built Rickenbacker 4004. Like Lemmy, Philosophy uses Marshall Amplifiers and Cabinets when playing live, currently using Marshall JVM410H, JVM410H-JS, JCM 900 4100 and 1959RR heads.
In the studio however he has been known to use Lincolnshire 6, ENGL, Bogner and Laboga Amps.
Earlier in his career he occasionally played Gallien-Krueger amplifiers. He mainly uses Dunlop pedals (Micro Amp, Micro Chorus, Phase 90 (Script or EVH), Carbon Copy, Smart Gate, Slash Octave Fuzz & 95Q wah), strings (10–46) and picks (88).
Campbell has since toured the world with the band and has remained a constant member of, despite a number of changes to their line up over the years.
