We were lucky to catch up with Rich Waryan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rich, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

That’s a very good question. Who is my hero? In terms of people who have influenced my journey, I’d say it would be Joey DeFrancesco. Why that is, is because he was a child prodigy on the Hammond Organ and most definitely revived interest in the instrument through his contributions and talent in American Jazz music. He was at the time the youngest artist to be signed to an exclusive record deal with Columbia Records at age 16. Sadly, we lost joey on August 25 2022 to a heart attack at age 51. I met Joey in 2006 when he came to Minneapolis to perform, and a custom made organ he was touring with was in need of emergency repair. We hit it off right away, and that night at the concert, he took me aside and asked me if I would be willing to go on the road with him as his Tour Bus driver, Tour Manager and Organ Tech. Of course I said yes, and I went on the road with him the following week. We traveled the whole country over the course of 4 years. Joey’s influence over me as a mentor was that he set the bar very high with regard to not only the approach, but also the quality and potential of my work. It became the case that any given repair job I did nation wide came with the question: “Would Joey play this and be happy with it?” Unless the answer was an immediate “YES” I knew I needed to make it a YES even if he never saw it or played it. I bring the highest level of exceptional service to all of my jobs and clients, whether you’re an enthusiast who never performs, or that you’re in the highest level of your career as an internationally known artist.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My interest in the Hammond Organ goes way back to childhood. I had an interest in playing music and learning how to play guitar starting at age 5. Not only did the church my family attended have a Hammond organ, but my Dads youngest brother was a trained organ player that took lessons from a very esteemed local organ teacher here in Minnesota. As such, every family holiday and get together at my Grandparents’ house throughout my childhood involved me sitting right next to him on the organ bench at the family organ in their living room. I just loved the sound of organ music being played well. Jump ahead to my early teenage years, where I started listening to Pink Floyd, Traffic, Jimmy Smith, and the like. Then, my teenage classmates and I formed a rock band with me on the electric bass. Eventually, I saw someone playing a rock show live with a Hammond organ and knew I just had to have one. I was 16 at the time. Now that I owned one, I had to learn everything there was to learn about this marvelous instrument. Years of touring and fixing my own instrument, and also everyone else’s’ instruments led me to get a job as a repair technician at a music store in Tucson, AZ. I moved back to Minneapolis in 2004, and quickly found my way into the Hammond organ and Leslie Speaker repair world. That’s when I started custom building Hammond organs for touring musicians. I’ve built these instruments for clients worldwide, with some very big name artists in my client list. As far as what I pride myself on, is that I do not take shortcuts. I do everything to factory specifications. I use Mil-Spec components whenever possible to insure reliability. I treat everyone the same, and never compromise quality, integrity and attention to detail. There are so many examples of work that I see that is performed in what I call the “just good enough” manner, and I despise that people get away with doing that. As such, I’ve earned a solid reputation of reliability, integrity and quality that the most discerning artists enjoy and appreciate. I was just in Hawaii on the island of Kauai for two weeks back in November building a custom made organ for one of my clients there. I’ve been going to Kauai since 2015 and have developed a client base there. I also have clients from Coast to Coast, and I was recently contacted by a new client that came in through the referral network, and will be soon flying out to Montana to overhaul three Hammond organs for that new client. As far as products/services/creative works that I provide, I am an authorized Hammond-Suzuki dealer for new Hammond product, and also hold dealerships with Trek II Products, Telefunken Elektroakustik, Electro-Harmonix and Meyer Sound.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

There are other aspects of my business that exist outside of the repair shop and custom built instrument zone. I wear many hats, and one of the other things I do in business is the role of the Stage Manager and Backline Tech (the person in charge of all of the rented musical equipment AKA backline) I’ve had some good mentors along the way, and when we do these multi-day music festivals, there are a ton of details, logistics, unexpected twists and turns and things of that nature. My management style is one of empowerment. We have teams, and departments, and skilled professionals that work together to pull these large scale events off smoothly. There are so many personalities in the mix, and you have to really juggle and tend to what is sometimes a vast array of details and logistics, and be ready for something to interfere or alter the course of what you’ve set out to do. What I’ve found to be valuable in that setting, is to lead and manage in such a way that no one is barking orders, no one is harsh to their team mate, and as the leader/manager, it is my job to foster a work environment where people feel that I trust them to do a good job, and allow themselves to take pride in their performance and hard work. It is a happy team when the team mates are all empowering each other to completely slay their role, and then sit back and bask in the outcome(s) of their skill and effort. This also makes people want to consistently become better in their roles, and that builds confidence, which then leads to even better performance in a very organic way.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Building a positive reputation is very important. For me, it has always been a matter of providing consistent results. A few famous people in the client list didn’t hurt either, but the reason I have these high level clients in the first place was that they observed my high skill level, attention to detail, and integrity. Some people base their business model on high profit, low commitment to quality, and not caring about repeat business. I have some clients that have been doing business with me for nearly 20 years exclusively because of this approach. They spread the word, and consequently I have to put very little effort in advertising and networking. My reputation does all of that for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mnorganservice.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/MinnesotaOrganService – also www.facebook.com/rawmusicendeavors

Image Credits
All photos Copyright RAW Music Endeavors, LLC 2024 All Rights Reserved