Richie Kotzen teams with Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith for new blues-rock LP
The album will arrive in March.
Image: Kotzen / Smith via YouTube
Richie Kotzen, former guitarist of Mr Big and Poison and current frontman of The Winery Dogs, has teamed up with long-time Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith for a new album entitled Smith/Kotzen.
The nine-song record was recorded in February 2020, with every song co-written by Smith and Kotzen. The pair traded off guitar, bass and vocal duties across the recording process, while drums were shared between Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain, Tal Bergman and Kotzen. The album’s sound, if the first single is anything to go by, is a departure from the heavy metal of Iron Maiden and Poison, instead leaning towards the hard-rock and blues-rock sound of Kotzen’s solo material.
Smith said of the album’s inception in a statement: “Richie and I started working together a couple of years ago. We’d been jamming as we’d been friends for a few years before that. We both share a love for classic rock and bluesy rock so we decided to get together and start writing some songs and it went from there.
“Pretty much everything on the album is handled between Richie and myself including the production. We had developed a really strong idea of how we wanted it to sound and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. There’s a lot of cool songs on there that we are really happy with.”
Kotzen added: “We had a very fluid process in writing. Sometimes Adrian would send me a riff and I would immediately hear some kind of melody or a vocal idea. And sometimes it was the other way around so it was a kind of circular motion. We’d get together whenever we could and throw some ideas around and it just evolved, which was great because there was no pressure and nothing other than just a natural course and I think the record really speaks for that.”
The collaboration will arrive on all platforms on 26 March 2021, and the pair have released a video for the LP’s first single, Taking My Chances. Take a look below.
You can preorder the record here. For more music news, click here.