Smith/Kotzen, the duo of Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith and Winery Dogs guitarist Richie Kotzen, will release their self-titled debut LP on March 26.
The nine-track album will be available in digital form, in addition to a digipack CD; 12″ black vinyl with embossed sleeve; and limited-edition, 12″, red-and-black smoke-colored vinyl.
You can see the album’s track listing below.
Smith and Kotzen share lead vocals throughout the project, described in a press release as a hybrid of “blues, hard rock, traditional R&B and more.” They cowrote and produced the album, trading off on guitar and bass.
Smith/Kotzen features drumming guest spots from Iron Maiden’s Nicko McBrain on “Solar Fire” and Kotzen’s longtime friend and tour mate Tal Bergman on “You Don’t Know Me,” “I Wanna Stay” and “Til Tomorrow.” Kotzen plays drums on the other five tracks, including the recently issued single “Taking My Chances.”
“Richie and I started working together a couple of years ago,” Smith said in a statement. “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.”
“We had a very fluid process in writing,” added Kotzen. “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 round, 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.”
Smith/Kotzen, ’Smith/Kotzen’ Track Listing
1. “Taking My Chances”
2. “Running”
3. “Scars”
4. “Some People”
5. “Glory Road”
6. “Solar Fire”
7. “You Don’t Know Me”
8. “I Wanna Stay”
9. “‘Til Tomorrow”