Waddy Wachtel album were titled Ronin. Released on the Mercury label, the record never charted. In 1984 he played on Steve Perry's (Journey) solo album Street Talk. He has appeared on hundreds of albums with many different artists and bands. Production credits include albums by Stevie Nicks, Keith Richards, Jackson Browne, Bryan Ferry, The Church, Sand Rubies, George Thorogood and the Destroyers and Warren Zevon. Wachtel co-wrote several songs with Zevon including "Werewolves of London". He also co-wrote the Warren Zevon song "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" from the album "Mr. Bad Example". He performed and co-produced the first
Warren Zevon Sick" and an austere version of Steve Winwood's 1980s hit "Back in the High Life Again". With record sale brisk and music critics giving Zevon his best notices since "Excitable Boy", "Life'll Kill Ya" is seen as his second comeback. He followed with the album "My Ride's Here" (2002), with its morbid prescience of things to come; the album included "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)" (co-written by Mitch Albom, the author of "Tuesdays with Morrie", and featuring Paul Shaffer, the "Late Night" band, and a spoken vocal from TV host David Letterman) and the ballad "Genius" (later used as the