“Tom would say, ‘Play your guitar with a car key.’ It was very experimental”: Little Feat's Fred Tackett recalls Tom Waits' left-field approach to guitar playing – and his one-of-a-kind studio sessions

Little Feat guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Fred Tackett has played with a who's who of the music industry – recording with the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimmy Webb, Paul Anka, Joan Baez, and Cher. Among his many anecdotes on left-field (and not so left-field) recording sessions, one in particular stands out: his experience recording Swordfishtrombones with Tom Waits.

“That was very, very cool because Tom was very experimental,” he says in a new Guitar World interview. “Some of the stuff was really kind of angular, with odd guitar licks that I’d play over and over and over throughout the whole song. He actually had that written out.

“I would change a note here and there, but basically, I’d do the same note over and over. But other times, Tom would say, ‘Play your guitar with a car key.’ It was very experimental, which was kind of fun. He was always coming up with ideas. It was very inspiring.”

Not all his sessions were as experimental, however. In direct contrast to his work with Waits, recording Bob Seger's heartland rock, tugging-at-the-heartstrings style ballad, Like a Rock, was much more straightforward.

“Bob pretty much had definite ideas of what he wanted you to play,” he recalls. “It was pretty simple, and he was into playing, you know, pop music. He was definitely more non-experimental. Each person basically played rhythm through and chugged through it.”

Recently, Joe Bonamassa paid tribute to another Little Feat legend – Lowell George – by taking a deep dive into his “fantastic slide style.”

Guitar World's full interview with Fred Tackett will be published in the coming weeks.