Adrian Smith of Smith/Kotzen

Interview by Ken Morton - Photo by Jack Lue And now presenting the one and only Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden infamy to discuss the Smith/Kotzen project also featuring Richie Kotzen from the Winery Dogs. First of all, how did the project of Smith/Kotzen come about, and how do you know Richie from? I bought a place and spent a bit of time of the West Coast in Los Angeles and got to know Richie a bit about 6 or 7 years ago. And what made you both decide that now was the time to do a project together? I’ve got a studio and we did some jamming – Richie and I. And we sort of discovered that we liked the same kind of music and we jammed Stevie Ray, Bad Company and Free, Humble Pie and all that stuff. My wife, who kind of manages me, suggested that we get together and do some writing and see what happens. We did and we just hit it off. We wrote 2-3 songs for the first time in just a few days, and it worked out well.

You recorded the album before the pandemic on the Turks & Caicos Islands – which I had to look up where that actually is. (Laughs) What was the experience like recording at the location and tell me a little about Turks & Caicos. We had a lot of the songs prepared in digital form, and we just went there – and these days you could take the studio anywhere if you’ve got a laptop and some good microphones and some good monitors – and some guitars and amps that you could put out where you like. So, we thought it would be nice to go there with the wives, get a bit of sunshine, and finish up the album there. It’s great – I’ve been going to the Turks for the past ten years. I love it there – it’s one of my favorite places in the world. It’s the best of both worlds – get a bit of work done and get some sun too. You recently released a new single called Scars. Tell me the inspiration behind that song. It was probably the third song we wrote. When we would write, we would just sit in the studio – we’d both have our guitars plugged in – we’d both have vocals mics – and I think I just started noodling around with those chords and came up with those first couple of lines – “sometimes I feel like a helpless child alone in the night” – and then Richie came up with the chorus of Scars. The lyrics are just about life experience – stuff that happens to you – and Scars is typical of that – the things that happen in your life affect the way you live your life. I think that everyone can kind of relate to that.

Taking My Chances. Tell me a little about the inspiration for that song. We thought we would put it out as the first song because we thought it was pretty representative of what we were doing. It was an up-tempo track and it’s quite catchy. We’re both singing and we’re both playing guitar in it, so it’s very representative of the album. People we curious about who was doing what, so we thought it would be a good first one to put out.

You and Richie actually brought musicians from your own bands to play on the album. Nicko McBrain of Iron Maiden plays drums on Solar Flair. What was it like working with Nicko on an album outside of Iron Maiden? We had the song Solar Flair and I think Richie suggested it would be nice to get Nicko on a track or two. And we thought that would be a perfect one for him. But we didn’t actually play together. In these days, we were in another part of the world, so we had to send the track to him, and he’d go into studio and put his drums on it and sent us the music back. I’ve done stuff with Nicko outside of the band before. I love the stuff that he did before he was in Maiden – you know like the Pat Travers band. So, we wanted to get him on at least one song and he really did a great job on it. Richie’s drummer Tal Bergman is also on the album. Were you familiar with Tal’s work prior to working with him on Smith/Kotzen? Yeah, I knew Tal a little bit and I really liked his work. I bumped into him on the road a few times. Obviously, Richie recommended him very highly. Having said that, Richie played drums on most of the album to be honest. But Tal is amazing as well. It was great having him a couple of songs. It was great that you both had a band member each come in and help out on the drums. Yeah, it’s great to involve friends, but that said, we wanted to keep it sort of between the two of us and see our vision through. With the drumming – it was just the way we write – sometimes I would play guitar in the studio and Richie would be playing drums and we’d put a track down like that. It was originally intended to be a sort of demo, but the drums tracks Richie did were good, so we thought “well, we’ll keep them.”

Would you and Richie like to do any shows in support of Smith/Kotzen? We’d love to. In fact, we planned to do some shows in America and in Europe, but of course the pandemic (ended) all that unfortunately. Although we’re still looking to do shows in the future around the record, because we’re really proud of the album and we’d like to take it out on the road and play it for people. These songs would be quite fun to play onstage. Have you seen any of Richie’s bands live, and if so, what did you think? Oh yeah, I love what he does. I’ve seen him a couple of times in London and I saw him at the Baked Potato in L.A. – he was playing this little club gig. He’s amazing live – he’s a great singer – a great player. What do you hope that the rest of 2021 brings for you, for

Smith/Kotzen, and for the music world in general? Well, I hope things get back to some sort of normality. With the vaccines now, hopefully gigs will be happening. A lot of technical crew are suffering – the technicians, the back line technicians, lighting – all these people associated with the bands are struggling. So, we need to get back to work like everybody else. Hopefully towards the end of 2021, things will get back to some sort of normality and we can get out there again. I think people need music and that’s why we decided to release the album now even when we can’t play, we put it out. I think we need more rock music – it’s the classic rock music which we all love and grew up listening to. It doesn’t make itself and someone has got to produce new rock music – and that’s one of my motivations for making the album. I’ve always wanted to make a hard rock album with a splash of blues in it – so hopefully people appreciate that. And do you have any messages for Iron Maiden fans who are curious about Smith/Kotzen and what your project is all about? Yeah, it’s influenced by the music I grew up with. When I was 15, I got the rock and roll bug. I was listening to the British band Free – later on Bad Company, Humble Pie – all that sort of stuff when I was a kid. And this is sort of a manifestation of that. I just felt the need to do that in the last few years. I like a lot of blues music and it’s something I’ve been wanting to get out of my system for a while. So, the videos are out there, and the songs are out there for people to check out. The main thing it’s done with is for the love of the music – that’s why I did it totally. And I think that Richie is probably the same. It’s the music we grew up listening to, and I think it’s just like a tribute to that with our own twist on it.

Smith/Kotzen is now available via BMG Records!

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