“Me, Richie, Taylor Hawkins and Rob Trujillo were having drinks and I said: ‘Come and have a look at my music room’”: How Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen formed a budding musical partnership
A childhood Iron Maiden “fanatic” and one of the band’s legendary guitarists might seem like an unlikely duo, but Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen have found perfect harmony in their musical project, Smith/Kotzen.
Kotzen’s love for Iron Maiden runs deep. As a 12-year-old, his wardrobe consisted of two essential T-shirts: one featuring Black Sabbath’s Grim Reaper holding a crystal ball, and the other showcasing the iconic cover art from Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast.
READ MORE: “That riff is kind of awkward. But I love the song”: Adrian Smith names one of his favourite Iron Maiden tracks
“I was a Maiden fanatic,” Kotzen says in a new interview with Classic Rock. “When I’d wake up for school, I’d put that record on and get dressed. It would be [solemnly intoning the intro to TNOTB’s title track] ‘Woe to you, oh earth and sea…’ echoing around the house. Luckily my parents were cool with it. So this whole thing with Adrian, sometimes I gotta smack myself around the back of the head to realise I’m not dreaming.”
That ‘whole thing’ is Smith/Kotzen, the collaborative project between Kotzen and Smith that has now produced two albums, including the new Black Light/White Noise.
On paper, they may seem an odd pairing – Smith, 68, is a London-born veteran of one of the biggest metal bands of all time, while Kotzen, 12 years his junior, was a teenage guitar prodigy who made a name for himself as a shredder in the late ‘80s. But musically, they’re in sync.
“Having two guitarists could go horribly wrong,” says Smith, “but it’s about chemistry and personality.”
The duo’s partnership formed almost by accident. Kotzen was at Hollywood’s Sunset Marquis hotel a decade ago when he was introduced to a woman who turned out to be Smith’s wife, Nathalie. Soon after, he found himself invited to one of the couple’s gatherings.
“Most of my friends are musicians,” Smith explains. “The first party, there was Richie, Taylor Hawkins, and Rob Trujillo from Metallica, having a few drinks and talking. I said: ‘Come and have a look at my music room.’ So we went in there and just started playing – Bad Company, Stevie Ray Vaughan…”
Eventually, it was Nathalie who saw the potential for something bigger.
“Adrian’s wife was the one,” says Kotzen. “She said: ‘You guys need to get together and try to write a few songs.’ And that’s what we did. And the people we played them for liked them. They said keep going. So we did.”
Many of those early songs ended up on their 2021 self-titled debut album and the follow-up EP Better Days. Though neither musician went into the project with grand ambitions.
“Expectations are a bad thing,” Kotzen says. “When you do something with the attitude ‘I expect to get this out of it’, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. I wanted nothing from it, but now it exists, and I like the fact people get to hear it.”
Listen to the tracks Black Light and White Noise below.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
