Rehearse Until You Hate It: Waddy Wachtel on the Session Guitarist’s Life (Episode 56)

Everything you do is an audition.

Some guests tell you about their credits. Waddy Wachtel tells you what it felt like to earn them. In Episode 56 of The Career Musician, Nomad sits down with one of his personal heroes: the session guitarist, touring guitarist, producer and songwriter whose list runs from the Everly Brothers and Linda Ronstadt to Keith Richards and Stevie Nicks, and who now plays with his old friends in The Immediate Family.

If you want to know what a session guitarist career actually looks like from the inside, the fear, the yeses, the rehearsals and the business, this is the conversation. Here is what Waddy handed us.

The phone stops ringing for everybody

Waddy moved to LA in 1968. Decades and a legendary catalog later, he still gets the same feeling he had after his first week of record dates. A session went well, he came home, and the phone wasn't ringing. I'll never work again. Then it rang. Another session. Then another.

Even in the fat years, coming off months on the road with Linda, two weeks at home without a call would scare him to death. He once asked a friend who became a plastic surgeon if it was the same in medicine. The answer: absolutely. A patient leaves and doesn't call back, and he thinks he will never work again.

The cure isn't confidence. It is the next call, and the one after that. Work begets work. And part of surviving the dry spells is learning how to take a no.

"You got to get used to the word no, that it's not a final thing. It's just an opinion."

Waddy Wachtel, 12:07

When Waddy and his girlfriend were shopping a record deal, a label said they liked the songs but not his voice. He was crushed at first. Then he decided that was just one guy. Maybe someone else would like it.

Serve the song, then find the space

Nomad asked for the golden rule of the studio, especially for younger players coming up in a world of home rigs and laptops. Waddy didn't hesitate. The song you are about to play is all that matters, and what you do supports that melody and those words. People don't listen like musicians listen. They hear the words first.

"Shut up and listen to the song... Counterpoint is our life. That's the basic life of an accompanist."

Waddy Wachtel, 25:03

Keep your ears open, be ready for comments flying at you, don't be too wordy, and pay attention to that singer. Nomad's version: eyes and ears wide open, mouth shut.

Waddy's approach on records is to look for the space where the vocal stops and put a little ear catch there. His first session for Peter Asher was on his friend J.D. Souther's record. Peter had his own circle of guys and wasn't sold. Waddy always kept his guitar and volume pedal in the car, set up, heard one simple steel-style lick after the first melody, and played it. Peter's reaction: what's that? That is how the door opened. Everything you do is an audition, even the one lick you play on a date you weren't expected to be on.

Give them your heart when the red light goes on

When Waddy got to town, sessions were more about paper. He kept hearing don't go for solos, just keep playing rhythm, don't change your sound. But he would hear the solo coming in his head, so he played it. People stopped him a couple of times. Then they started saying, man, that's really good.

The players he came up with were the same way. Every time the red light went on, they gave you their heart and what they heard, not just what was expected. With Peter Asher, that became the job: here's the song, you guys figure out what to do, and hurry up and do it.

It helped that Peter cut the lead vocal live with the band. On "Blue Bayou," that is Linda singing live, the steel solo live, Waddy on acoustic with his J-200. When the singer hits the peak, that's the take, and the whole band plays more attentively because of it. He felt the same thing on a Bob Seger album, where Seger went into the booth at 10 or 11 in the morning and sang like he was in the middle of an arena show. You better play good.

Rehearse until you hate the songs

To Waddy, MD is just the new word for bandleader, and he has always seen himself in that role. In the studio you watch what you say. On stage, the spontaneity is going to happen, so the band has to be ready to produce it the right way.

His rule: rehearse until you can't stand the songs anymore, so when you get on stage you will play them right because you know them backwards and forwards. That is Reliability beats virtuosity in practice.

Then the trap. Night one is killer. Night two, everybody walks out thinking we got this, and the band stinks.

"No one ever has it covered. You got to go out like it's the first show every time."

Waddy Wachtel, 32:45

He laughed about the flip side, too. With Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos, the band's first gig was its debut on Saturday Night Live, after running through the songs the night before. Later, after days of rehearsal with a new bass player, Waddy finally called it: it's three chords, let him find his own way through it. Know the room you're in.

Get an accountant before you need one

As a session player getting calls, Waddy didn't need a manager. Nobody manages sessions for you. But as the touring started, everybody told him he needed a business manager or he was going to spend it all. They were right, and he got that information early.

When the offers started piling up, he asked Peter Asher to manage him, and Peter did for a while. Today the band has management, and Waddy individually has the business manager he has been with for a long time, who filters a lot of his calls. Know what isn't your area of expertise and hire it out. Make Music Your Business.

Say yes, then figure it out

When Nomad asked how he decides when to turn down work, Waddy said a musician saying no is very rare. Usually it just means you're not available. Even a date you don't want to do, with a guy you don't like, you say yes.

"You never know if someone could be walking by that studio at that moment and hear something you do and stick their head in and go, who's that playing guitar?"

Waddy Wachtel, 43:36

His first gig with Linda Ronstadt came when her bass player got sick and Waddy got a call asking if he could play bass for two shows the next day. He didn't know the songs. He said yes, and in his words, he faked it. Another night, worn out after a full day of sessions, he stopped at Record One in the Valley for a drink and got pulled into a session one guitar short. He didn't want to play on anything. He listened, played eighth notes all the way through, and the song was "Bette Davis Eyes." He told the room it was a smash before they even heard the playback.

The flip side of saying yes is being hard to replace. When Waddy couldn't make one year of Adam Sandler's annual Christmas party band, he suggested other players. Sandler said no: if you can't do it, I'm not doing it.

The takeaway

Waddy has been doing this since 1968, and he still feels the fear when the phone goes quiet. He still says yes, still listens to the song first, and still tells the band they stunk on night two when they did. There is no plan B, he says, and you don't retire from this business. You play until you can't.

The sessions he talks about were won by saying yes and showing up ready. If you are working on that part of your game, grab the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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