Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen announce debut Smith/Kotzen album

After teasing the project last year, Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen have announced the self-titled debut album from their new Smith/Kotzen band.

The Iron Maiden and Winery Dogs men will be unleashing their first full-length together on March 26 via BMG, with Adrian explaining how the musicians ended up joining forces: “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.”

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Richie adds, “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 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.”

Adrian and Richie recorded and produced Smith/Kotzen on the Turks and Caicos islands in February last year, with Kevin 'Caveman' Shirley mixing the whole thing. Pre-order it here, and watch their new video for album opener Taking My Chances below:

The full Smith/Kotzen tracklist is as follows:

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

Catch Adrian live with Iron Maiden at the following dates this year:

June

5 Basel, Switzerland – Jakobshalle
7 Zagreb, Croatia – Zagreb Arena
9 Budapest, Hungary – Groupama Arena
11 Warsaw, Poland – Narodowy
13 Bremen, Germany – Bürgerweide
15 Prague, Czech Republic – Sinobo Stadium
16 Wiener Neustadt, Austria – Stadium Open Air
19 Barcelona, Spain – Olympic Stadium
21 Lisbon, Portugal – Estadio Nacional
24 Bologna, Italy – Sonic Park
26 Stuttgart, Germany – Mercedes-Benz Arena
27 Antwerp, Belgium – Antwerps Sportpaleis
30 Berlin, Germany – Waldbühne

July

3 Gothenburg, Sweden – Ullevi Stadium
6 Frankfurt, Germany – Deutsche Bank Park
8 Cologne, Germany – RheinEnergieStadion
10 Arnhem, Holland – GelreDome
11 Paris, France – La Defense Arena

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