From the outside, the Smith/Kotzen project is all about fun, friendship and family. With their new album, Black Light / White Noise, set to hit the shelves in one week, Adrian Smith joined MetalTalk Editor Steve Ritchie for a virtual biscuit. Adrian confirmed the partnership with Richie Kotzen is about “fun as much as anything else.”
“That’s the original reason we got together,” Adrian says. “You’re always hoping that it’s gonna produce something. Richie and I met each other quite a few years ago. I lived part-time in Los Angeles, and he lived close by. There’s a big community of musicians out there, and we ended up jamming a couple of nights. My wife actually said to me, why don’t you guys try and write something? That’s how it started. The first thing we did was the song called Running and we’ve never looked back. We just hit it off.”
The way that people have embraced the Smith/Kotzen partnership is impressive. The debut album brought real excitement for the Spring 2022 UK tour. Now, with Black Light / White Noise, there is a buzz in the air and a wonderful momentum building. I ask Adrian if that is something he can feel, too.
“Oh yeah,” he smiles. “You always have high hopes for your music, and I think this new album has… I mean, I love the first album we did. I think this new album is a bit rockier, but it’s still got our philosophy of taking stuff that inspired us over the years. With me, it’s ’70s, heavy bluesy kind of rock and trying to take it to another level. Crafting it into songs that people can enjoy. Swapping vocals, harmonizing, swapping guitar lines, I think no one’s really doing that at the moment. I think we’re finding our niche, and people can relate to it.”
When you look back at the London show in 2022, this was the last date of the tour. Islington was buzzing that night before the fret brothers had even started playing a note.
MetalTalk described the Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen pairing that night as a kind of alchemy, turning base metals into gold. Adrian smiles at this. With such an exquisite four-piece on stage, it must be an absolute joy to play live.
“It is,” Adrian Smith says. “It’s great with Julia Lage, who is an amazing musician and also Richie’s wife, and Bruno Valverde. It was a great, great touring lineup. We would love to do that again. Bruno played on two or three songs on the album and Julia plays on five. It’s not a band as such, it’s me and Richie. But it was definitely great to play with Julia and Bruno. They really glued the whole thing together.”
Their critically acclaimed debut album lit a fuse under the backside of classic rock. Now, Black Light / White Noise is ready to roll, and Brian Boyle says it “exudes passion and experience and is baked with tunes so hot the album should come attached with oven gloves.”
Black Light, released as a single, is a great example of how Smith/Kotzen use melody so well. Adrians opening riff and the phrasing of his lyric almost has a Phil Lynott pace to it. “Yeah, definitely,” Adrian says. “I mean, big influence, big hero of mine. I absolutely love Thin Lizzy.
“We finished that song as another version and kept playing it back. I just wasn’t happy with it. We stripped the whole thing down. We kept just the bridge and the drum track and we completely rewrote the song. It ended up being Black Light. Once we got the concept of the title Black Light, then it all came together. I came up with that riff, and that phrasing is very Thin Lizzy. But like I say, we take those influences and then blend them around.”
Listening to the song, when it runs from Adrians opening vocal, Richie takes a higher pitch. That must be a really interesting dynamic to work with when writing together as a pair. “Absolutely,” Adrian says. “I’m pretty good at taking an idea and setting up the vibe of the song. Richie takes it to another level. He has more range than I have as a singer. He’s been doing it longer. A lot of experience, well he’s done 15 or 20 solo albums [smiles].
“It gives us a very broad canvas to work on with the range of our voices and the difference in our guitar playing. But it somehow works together.”
The video for Black Light is worth watching. Has Adrian removed all the black light paint off his arms from the video shoot? “You know what, that stuff was there for weeks,” he laughs. “I kept seeing it every time a light shone on it. But it was worth it. It was good fun to do the video.”
The partner on the track White Noise is hugely melodic, maybe picking up where Smith/Kotzen left off after the debut album. There are some very well-thought-out lyrics there. The guitar interplay between Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen in the middle is something that they both obviously love, but it is an integral part of the song. This is not a shred fest. It is important, but it is still about the song.
“Absolutely,” Adrian smiles. “We’re trying to craft songs here. Things that hopefully will resonate with people. At the same time, within the structure of the song, we can weave guitar work in there. I love Hendrix and all that, but some of my favourite songs by Hendrix were the shorter ones like Purple Haze, Hey Joe, and Voodoo Child. He really managed to encapsulate the essence of what he was about in that 3-3.5 minutes.
“I’ve always liked that. I think it’s an art form to do that. None of our songs are longer. I think the longest song on the album is the last one, Beyond The Pale. We don’t get too indulgent on the tracks, but there’s still a lot of guitar work going on.”
Of course Adrian Smith is right. As guitarists, he and Richie have to have some fun. In Muddy Water, they have an awesome opening to the album. There is maybe a Gary Moore style riff there, with great guitars. As an opening statement, this is a song that is all about the vocals.
Adrian gives Muddy Water some gusto. “That’s the first thing we did for the second album,” Adrian says. “Richie had that song 80% finished. When he played it to me, it knocked me out. I said, well, we’ve definitely got to do that one.
“But we sat down and finished it off. I thought, well, if this is the standard of the album, it’s gonna be a really good album, so everything’s got to be as good as this. Musically, it’s a very clever song. It kind of rocks nicely, and it’s a perfect opening song.”
I love Life Unchained as well. This is a full-on rocker with a real spontaneous feeling. I love the way the bass is rolling around, but I have yet to check the notes to see who is playing that. “Richie plays a lot of bass on this,” Adrian says. “It’s Richie’s home studio, so quite often I’ll go home for the day, and he’ll come back down after dinner and put a drum track down or put a bass track down. Quite often, we’ll keep it, you know. So it might be him playing on that. He plays bass like Billy Sheehan. A talented bugger, you know.”
The first half of Black Light / White Noise was written in the early part of 2023. “We came back together in the early part of last year and did the next six songs,” Adrian says. “At that point, I thought we needed a real rocker, so I brought in that riff. Richie came up with the Life Unchained concept.”
Wraith is a classy modern blues song. I ask if there is a Stevie Ray Vaughan inspiration in there. “Well, I love Stevie Ray,” Adrian says. “Wow. But yeah, I wanted to do like a rolling kind of song. That kind of rolling beat, because we had not done that before, and that’s one of my favourite kinds of feels. I had that riff and then came up with the horror movie lyrics. You know, the clock just struck midnight and all that.
“Richie said, what about if we call it Wraith? I think the first thing I said is what’s a Wraith? We had to look it up in the dictionary. Quite often, when we’re writing, we’ll just be playing and singing together because there’s only me and him in the studio. There’s no producer or band or anything. We are both scat singing. Nonsense stuff. He probably started singing Wraith because it sounded good. But we didn’t know what it meant so we looked it up. A vision of your own death? OK, that sounds pretty good. With the horror movie lyrics I had, that fitted them together.”
The album was recorded at The House Studios in LA. Did Adrian miss the tranquillity of the Turks and Caicos Islands, where they recorded the first album, or was the beauty of the Blue Sea a distraction?
“It can be a bit distracting,” Adrian laughs. “With Iron Maiden, we did a lot of albums in the Bahamas, and it can be distracting. Once you’re in the studio and you close the door, you could be anywhere really. The music transports your mind, then. Your only limit is your imagination.”
So that I can add a plug of MetalTalk’s coverage of the Adrian Smith book, I ask if he has introduced Richie to the joys of fishing. “When we were in the Turks he did come down a few times,” Adrian laughs, “but he didn’t have a go. I think he understands why I do it.
“That’s a guy who has hobbies. When he’s at home, he does a lot of building work in his house. He loves construction. He’s always on chainsaws and all that. I said mate, that’s the wrong combination. Chainsaws and guitars… But you know, that’s what he likes to do.”
For me, the live version of Hate and Love from the Better Days… And Nights is goosebump-inducing, especially when watching the YouTube video. With Adrian Smith, Richie Kotzen, Julia Lage and Bruno Valverde on stage, it is so wonderful to see the live film to remind you of when we actually saw that.
You imagine Adrian Smith must be desperate to get out on the road again. “Absolutely,” Adrian says. “It’s such fun. You play in smaller places, but you know, it’s a great vibe. We’re looking at the first quarter in 2026, hopefully, to get out and play some dates in Europe. I would love to play this new stuff live. I think it will really translate well to the stage.”
Of course, when they tour next, they will have to drop songs from the old set. That’s a nice problem to have. “Well, on the last tour, we played every single song we’ve written, including B-sides and extra tracks. We played a song called Rise Again, which started out life as a Mike Portnoy drum track.
“Richie said, look, Mike sent me this. Have a listen to it and see if you can come up with something. So, I came up with the idea for Rise Again. It’s a real off-the-wall sort of Frank Zappa type thing. I never thought in a million years it would work live, but it worked great. It’s so quirky. So you never know what’s gonna come to the fore, live. But yeah, it will be great to play these songs live.”
There would be massive interest in a live album. Is that something the boys have thought about? “Well, yeah,” Adrian says. “We actually did an acoustic show recently at the Grammy Museum. It’s only a few songs and it wasn’t properly recorded. It was only recorded using a couple of mics. We might do something with that.
“But yeah, oh, definitely live. Because the live stuff we did, I love the video, and stuff turned out really well.”
For now, we have Black Light / White Noise to look forward to. We love it at MetalTalk, and it proves that the pairing of Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen will have that staying power.
“We’re gonna try and get out in ’26,” Adrian Smith says. “We really appreciated the support we got for the first album. It’s encouraging to know we’ve got an audience out there, and we’re just desperate to play live.
“I hope you enjoy the new album because I think it’s the best one we’ve done yet.”
Smith/Kotzen – Black Light / White Noise will be released on 4 April 2025 via BMG. Pre-orders are available from here.
