GLORY ROAD
IRON MAIDEN’S ADRIAN SMITH TEAMS UP WITH RICHIE KOTZEN TO TAKE A BLUESY, HARD-ROCKING SIDE TRIP
IRON MAIDEN LEGEND Adrian Smith wasn’t looking to collaborate with another guitarist, but several years ago he and his wife, Nathalie, went to see Richie Kotzen perform in London, and what they saw impressed them. “Richie was terrific. Right away, I could sense that he and were on the same wavelength,” Smith recalls. “My wife thought so, too.
She started coaxing me — ‘You should get together and play with him.’”
As it turned out, Kotzen was a massive Iron Maiden fan, and he jumped at the chance to jam with one of his idols. “We played Bad Company, Deep Purple, Humble Pie, Johnny Winter, Free — stuff like that,” he remembers. “We bonded really quickly on classic hard rock and bluesrock, but what was really cool was when we started singing. We both realized our voices sounded really good together.”
For Smith, this was a major “aha” moment. Although he started in the business as a singer-guitarist and has demonstrated his vocal chops in short-lived side bands such as ASAP and Psycho Motel, his opportunities to sing in Iron Maiden have been few and far between. “I’ve always loved to sing, so it was really exciting to fall in with Richie,” he says “As guitarists and singers, we’re very equally matched.”
Before long, jams turned into songwriting sessions and, ultimately, the two headed to the Turks & Caicos Islands to record. Billing themselves as Smith/Kotzen, the duo has released their eponymous debut. It’s a tight album (nine songs that don’t wear out their welcome) that blends rugged hard rock (“Taking My Chances”), R&B-tinged groovers (“Some People”) and even a little blast of Nineties grunge (“You Don’t Know Me”) with boatloads of guitar shenanigans. “I think we make for a very interesting combination,” Smith says. “If you’re a fan of either of our work, I think you’ll really get into it. And if you happen to like both of us, then you should really love it.”
So… Smith/Kotzen. Why not Kotzen/Smith?
RICHIE KOTZEN: Uh-oh! You’re trying to pit us against each other out of the gate. [Laughs]
ADRIAN SMITH: It’s just the way it rolls off the tongue, I suppose. I mean, somebody had to go first. It’s no more [of a] contribution from me than [from] him.
KOTZEN: Frankly, when I tried to say Kotzen/Smith, it felt clunky. Smith/Kotzen sounds better. We toyed around with band names, but it’s hard to come up with something new. At one point, I thought about Adrian Rich because it sounded like a Nashville artist with a cowboy hat.
You guys seem to be on the same wavelength musically. Are there any real areas where you differ?
KOTZEN: Classic rock is the real common ground. On the other side of it, Adrian loves American blues, and I grew up listening to a lot of R&B — the Four Tops, the Spinners, stuff like that.
SMITH: We both like the same singers — Paul Rodgers, for sure — although Richie is a big fan of Terence Trent D’Arby. He studied the technical side of singing more than I have, but I’m getting there.
As guitarists, can you pinpoint areas where one guy is stronger than the other?
SMITH: Well, I suppose certainly my playing leans more to the melodic side of things, whereas Richie’s a bit more of a shredder. But he does have great feel and a sense of melody, so he’s got that going for him. I don’t know… It’s just our nuances and our chemistry. We kind of push each other in
different directions.
KOTZEN: I know people might think we’re all about the guitar all the time, but oftentimes that’s the last thing we’re thinking about. We don’t get together and say, “Check out this cool thing I can do.” We’ll usually say, “I’ve got an idea for a chorus” or “Listen to this melody.” That’s where we meet — as writers. But if we’re talking guitar, one major thing Adrian brings to the table is his sense of counterpoint. I’ll play something on the guitar, and he’ll immediately have an idea how to build it or take it to a new level. He has that skill from being in bands with two and three guitarists, whereas I hear things differently.
Because you’re usually a solo guitar guy.
KOTZEN: Exactly. I’m usually doing things alone, so that was a really great thing that Adrian brought to the table.
Can you break down your songwriting process?
SMITH: It’s a really interesting collaboration. I’ll play a riff and sing a verse, and Richie will be right there with the chorus. He’s got great range, so he’s good on choruses. But we’ll swap ideas; sometimes I’ll come up with middle eights. There were very few times when either of us got stumped.
KOTZEN: It’s nothing we really had to work out. People are always saying to me, “Oh, you’re like this guy. You ought to write with him.” So you give it a try and nothing clicks. When it does happen, though, it’s very organic — I hate that word [Laughs]. Right away we could tell we were compatible. The first song we came up with was “Running.” It happened very quickly and easily, and we thought, “Hey, this is pretty cool. Let’s see if we can do another one.”
“Taking My Chances” is an excellent example of the template you two established. Each guy gets to sing. You do a unison guitar solo, but then you both take solo spots.
SMITH: Exactly. That’s a great example of swapping vocal and guitar lines. Yeah, that’s the blueprint right there. There’s a little bit of a fusion section that Richie came up with. He’s got that whole fusionrock-jazz thing from playing with Stanley Clarke. We threw that in there.
KOTZEN: That happened without us even discussing it. But what was cool was,
Adrian started playing that riff, and I immediately jumped behind the drums. We jammed in my garage like two kids. I put on a click track so I could stay in time, and I recorded us. After four or five minutes, I went back in the control room and chopped up the performance and pulled out what I thought made sense for sections. Some of that stuff is actually on the master recording. There were times when it was us with two guitars; sometimes it was him on guitar
“[ADRIAN] IMMEDIATELY HAS AN IDEA HOW TO BUILD IT OR TAKE IT TO A NEW LEVEL. HE HAS THAT SKILL FROM BEING IN BANDS WITH TWO AND THREE GUITARISTS, WHEREAS I HEAR THINGS DIFFERENTLY” — RICHIE KOTZEN
and me on piano. That time was us bashing around like kids.
Both of you stretch out the solos on “Scars” and “You Don’t Know Me.” Was there even a moment when you said, “OK, let’s really give our guitar fans something here”?
SMITH: Not really. I think we were both aware that we didn’t want to overdo it.
KOTZEN: I guess I could say it presented us with a foundation for lots of guitar playing, but it wasn’t deliberate like, “Let’s really show people what we can do.” It was just what happened in the moment.
SMITH: Richie is more inclined to do that because that’s what he does in his shows. He’s a virtuoso and he’ll go off, and he can do that. I’m more of a team player. I do a solo for 16 bars and that’s it. It was fun to stretch out on “You Don’t Know Me.” Richie said, “Let’s do like a 3/4 thing at the end and solo over that.” It was the right time and the right place.
Was there any kind of trial and error in how you blended your guitar tones?
SMITH: I wouldn’t say so. We sort of adapted to each other. A lot of my guitars and gear were locked away in England, so I used some of Richie’s stuff. I imagine if you paired Ritchie Blackmore and Yngwie Malmsteen, it would be an explosion — they’d just go up against each other. But Richie and I blended quite easily. We had a laugh most days.
KOTZEN: I used the same signature Tele I’ve played for years. What was funny was, towards the end of the record I had a couple solos to do. Adrian’s guitars were all ready to go, so I asked him if I could use one. I picked up one of his signature Jacksons with a locking tremolo system and a Floyd Rose — something I haven’t used in ages. I started to play this thing, I’m grabbing the bar and I’m doing this and that. It was hysterical. I listened to it and thought, “This sounds like an 18-year-old Richie Kotzen.” It took me back to how I sounded before I started playing Telecasters.
Once bands get hit the road again, do you think you two will tour?
KOTZEN: We made this record thinking that we’d be touring right now. Then COVID hit and now nobody can tour. It’s tricky — he’s in Iron Maiden and I’ve got my solo thing going. Touring is an open question, and nobody knows when that’ll happen.
SMITH: We’re in the same boat as a lot of people, so we don’t know when we could tour. I wouldn’t rule it out in the future, though. I think we’d both love to do it.