Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The Killers pay tribute to Warren Zevon with Waddy Wachtel

Posted On November 9, 2025November 9, 2025

Warren Zevon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday in Los Angeles by his good friend David Letterman, followed by a performance in tribute by The Killers.

During his speech, Letterman praised Zevon as a “classic rock and roll” figure before launching into a comedic yet earnest breakdown of Zevon’s most notable songwriting categories. 

The Killers then performed Zevon’s ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’ with Waddy Wachtel in tribute, who performed on all seven Warren records, and co-produced three. The Killers’ guitarist Dave Keunig also performed the song using the guitar that Zevon gave Letterman before his passing.

Zevon, like many of his fellow inductees, has been eligible for the prestigious recognition for longer than when he received it. Zevon hadn’t been nominated for induction until recently, and was already eligible for nine years when he died in 2003.

Zevon’s son, Jordan, previously commented on the induction and his father’s position, saying that while he “respected the choices”, he also thought his father’s induction “wouldn’t happen” because “there were so many boxes they were trying to check”.

Famously, Zevon was someone who often hid away from the spotlight and rarely made public appearances. He often kept to himself and experienced periods of intense self-isolation. Addressing his father’s demeanour, Jordan also spoke about the misconception that he wouldn’t have cared about his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recognition.

“There’s this misconception that dad wouldn’t have cared,” he said. “I think maybe, to be blunt, the later records didn’t sell a million copies, that didn’t mean he hated the industry.”

He went on, “It just meant he was on the fringes because he wasn’t Britney Spears. But he wouldn’t have been, like, ‘Who cares about that?’ It’d be like, ‘Hey, Johnny, hey, Ariel, guess what?’ It would have been, ‘It’s a big deal.’ It was his business. He wanted to be good at it. You want to win, you know, best plumber of the year!”

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