Smith/Kotzen’s self-titled debut album was my album of the year in 2021. Its strong seventies-styled hard rock songwriting, as well as the fantastic singing and guitar playing by both Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen made it clear that the project was something completely different than a commissioned supergroup. Neither was it a one-off, as ‘Black Light/White Noise’ picks up right where the debut left off.

Despite Smith/Kotzen being an established project by now, the duo did not feel any added pressure for writing and recording ‘Black Light/White Noise’. “We didn’t put ourselves in that position”, Kotzen emphasizes. “What I mean by that is that when you feel pressure, it’s usually related to a deadline, and expectations surrounding the deadline. If you can eliminate that, there’s no pressure, and you can do your best work.

The way to eliminate that is taking everything at face value. What are we doing today? Well, I have an idea for a song, let me play it for you. Hey, I like it, let’s try and finish it together, and start writing. So it gets to the point where one day in this process, with this sort of approach, you sit back and say: you know what? We’ve got five, six, maybe seven songs here that we really love. Let’s see if we can finish writing a few more, and then discuss releasing an album.

I operate that way all the time when I work. It’s a little bit of a luxury to be able to do that, but it creates a situation where you don’t ever feel like there’s pressure. I don’t think in terms of: I’d like to try blah blah blah. In this process, we’d get together with the attitude of: I’ve got this idea, what do you think? Do you like it? Yeah, let’s work on it. Or: no, what else have you got?”

Songs in Development

“When I knew that Adrian was coming to town, I’d set aside a few ideas that I had. I always have songs in development. Little ideas. There’s a drum beat with a bass line, a guide vocal, and a scratch guitar. I always have these little folders on my computer with ideas, unfinished songs, songs that are almost finished, stuff like that. And then, on the other side of the coin, Adrian did the same thing.

So the first day, we have a sit-down, and we play this ideas. And Adrian will go: I like this, that’s not for me, I like that one. And maybe, if I’m lucky, there’s three things there that he really likes. Same thing with Adrian. He’ll play me some stuff: love that idea, I’m not feeling this, we need something like that.

So now, suddenly, we have six or seven of these ideas, and we’ll focus: let’s start with this song A, and see where it goes. Then we take it as far as we can in that moment. And if we hit a rock, we’ll put it away. Maybe we go come. The next day, we decide whether we want to continue or start working on something new. It’s really that easy. Smooth. Again, it ties back to the first thing I said, when you’re not really under a lot of high pressure, you can do your best work.”\

An Open Format

Kotzen is mostly known for bands and projects in which he is the only guitarist. Smith/Kotzen did not require a lot of changes, however. “I didn’t necessarily have to change my sound, but you change the approach”, he explains. “Where you say: alright, this song is incomplete, it needs something extra, let’s see what Adrian has to say. And then he’ll come up with something. Again, everything that I say, it works both ways. Adrian might say: I don’t feel anything on this track, and he asks me if I have any ideas, and I’ll come in to finish it.

We have a bit more of an open format. If I’m working alone, everything kind of happens very quickly, almost instinctively. Like when you pick up a glass of water and take a drink. You’re not thinking: how am I going to fill the glass? Where am I going to get the water from? Which hand am I going to use? It’s very instinctive. In the solo world, that’s kind of how it happens. Everything’s very quick, instinctive, and before you know it, you’ve got a song.

In this world, you might say: I’d like to have some water, but I’m not sure where I’m going to get the water from, do you have any ideas where we should get the water? Let’s go downstairs and use the sink there, and see if it tastes any different. That’s kind of the attitude that we use when we’re working together. Very free, very open, no pressure, it’ll be whatever it is. If it works: great. If it doesn’t: let’s scrap it, what else have you got?”

A Round-Robin Approach

“We’ve adopted the approach that I use on my solo albums, which really comes down to everything being set up all the time. So the drums are set up and miked, the guitar rig is set up and miked, the vocal chain is there, the bass chain is there… If there’s a keyboard, it’s there and ready to go. And what this does: it allows you to work in this kind of round-robin approach.

If you working on a song on Tuesday, you do a basic drum pass, next Tuesday rolls around, and you think: you know what? That drum fill going into the second chorus bothers me. I go down, hop behind the drums, punch it in, and boom! It’s fixed. It’s just a great way of working. And then at the end of the day, before you know it, you’ve got a finished album. I really love it.

That’s not to say that there are no other ways to work, because there are. For all I know, for the next record, maybe we want to do something different. Maybe we write the songs, we demo them crudely and poorly, and then we give them to Bruno Valverde (drummer) and Julia Lage (bassist and Kotzen’s wife), and say: learn the drum parts, learn the bass line, we’re going down to The Record Plant to record the album in two weeks.

But the last two records, we did the way we did, and we love them. We love the way they sound. And if it’s not broke, why try to fix it?”

All the Chops in the World

Valverde and Lage round out the live line-up for Smith/Kotzen. However, Kotzen plays bass and drums on many of the songs. “I believe Julia plays bass on half the record”, Kotzen recalls. “And Bruno’s on two songs. My friend Kyle Hughes plays drums on a song, and then I play the rest of it. It’s kind of messy, because on the music videos, you see Bruno playing the drums, but what you’re hearing is me. I was joking with Bruno: I’m going to ruin your career! But he actually said I was playing a couple of pretty cool things that he wouldn’t have thought of.”

However, Valverde doesn’t have to fear for his place in Angra’s drum stool. “Nah, I don’t have the chops for that”, Kotzen laughs. “If I was going to join someone’s band, I could play in Bad Company. I’m more of a Simon Kirke type guy. I don’t have the Angra chops. That’s a whole other level of footwork. I admire it, it’s beautiful, but there’s no way I could do that, haha!

Sometimes feel is the important thing. Sometimes you have all the chops in the world, but you don’t have the feel. You would be surprised how many times that happens, on many instruments. They’ve got all the chops you could want, but then they play a simple part, and the feel is weird. It doesn’t make you get up out of your seat. That’s the thing. You hear something, you want a reaction. It has to feel good.

That’s why sometimes, I end up playing drums on a lot of my stuff, because I can make it feel the way I want it to feel. A great example is my song ‘Insomnia’, from my last album ‘Nomad’. There’s a certain way that the track feels, and I went in, I played it, listened to it, and thought: no one’s going to play this any better than what I just did. And so I’m going to keep it.

On the other side of the coin, there’s a song on that record called ‘These Doors’. Kyle played it, and it feels great! He played it better than I could play it, so we kept his performance. It’s a very simple thing, going back to that stupid expression, something about it being broken and being fixed.”

Back and Forth

Between them, Smith and Kotzen have an impressive collection of instruments and equipment. Kotzen feely admits to both of them giving in to the temptation of using each other’s stuff. “Adrian used my amp”, he says. “There’s some stuff he did at home, and I don’t know what he has at home. But eighty percent of what you hear, it’s my own Marshall1959HW head, a hand-wired Plexi kind of Marshall.

There’s a couple of songs where I did guitar solos on his guitar. Simply because we were going back and forth with one song that needed a solo, and I would say: whatever, just give me a guitar, I need to do a solo, haha! There’s one or two solos where I use his Jackson San Dimas, though that might have been on the first album. I generally use my Strat and my Tele for the recordings.

I don’t think we ever get in each other’s way. The only thing that ever happens is that somebody might have an idea that the other person doesn’t want to pursue. That’s the worst thing that could ever happen, and that’s normal, because we’re two different people. Other than that, it’s all pretty smooth.”

A Certain Response

In the guitar community, Kotzen’s right-hand technique using only his fingers is universally praised. “The truth is, I do both”, he emphasize. “And I always have. What I think has happened is that I got into this thing where I play live with just the fingers. I didn’t play live with a pick for many years. On the records, I go back and forth. It’s fifty-fifty. Now, on the lest tour, there was a song that I did called ‘On the Table’, where I used a pick. Because I wanted that sound. That’s what it comes down to: what do you want to sound like?

Playing with my fingers does require a certain response out of an amp. The reason why I stuck to playing through this Marshall – and I can actually do it with a Fender Twin too, if I had to – is that these amps have a very percussive snap. When you’re a fingerstyle player, you need that percussive snappiness. I really depend on that for my expression.

I found that if I play through an amp with a lot of gain, it limits my ability to be expressive with dynamics. Not everybody cares about that. There are a lot of players that take the guitar, and the volume knob is always on ten. But if you’re a guy like me, you’re very up and down with your dynamics as a player. Probably because I sing. And I also use dynamics to express myself during a solo.

In order to do that effectively, I need an amplifier that has a response like the Marshall, where it has a wide, broad range of dynamics. A lot of headroom, is the word I guess I’m looking for. When you get into some of these higher-gain amplifiers, they’re great for holding a note and letting it ring. They’re great for playing a real quick legato passage. But when it comes to all the other stuff, which I do way more of, it doesn’t work.

So that’s why after years of experimenting, trying this and trying that, I thought: you know, I’m not going to try and reinvent the wheel. They got it right back in 1958. And that’s what I’m going to stick to.”

Making Someone Else’s Idea Feel Good

“On the first Smith/Kotzen record, there’s a song called ‘Glory Road’, and there’s some phrasing in the chorus that Adrian wrote that I had to figure out how to sing. The words didn’t really fit with the way I sang, so I changed some of the words, and massaged them this way or that way. When you’re collaborating, you find yourself in a position where you have to make someone else’s idea feel good.

You have to feel it in a way where you feel like you own it, as opposed to: eh, I’m singing this, but I don’t believe what I’m singing, it doesn’t feel right. If it feels that way to a singer, the audience will pick up on it, and it’s going to be a fail. Just by the nature of the fact that Adrian may hear something, and I may like it, that leads you to a unique position, where you’ve got something coming out of the speakers that ordinarily wouldn’t be.

He and I like to yin and yang. I’m mister spontaneity: fuck it, we’ll do it live, let’s see what happens. Adrian is more of the mind of: wait a minute, let’s figure it out, let’s come up with something here. When those two approaches meet, you’ve got something interesting. Suddenly, I’m going: give me a minute, let me come up with something here. And Adrian goes: no, let me just go for it, and see what happens. It’s kind of fun. I take a little bit of a page out of his book, and he takes a page out of mine, and we come up with something that neither one of us would have done on our own.”

A Natural Choice

“There’s more thought put into the division of the vocal parts. You’ve got to figure out who’s going to sing what, as well as who’s going to play what solo. That involves some thought and some planning. Typically, if I write a lyric passage, I’ll sing it. But then again, not always. There’s songs like ‘Glory Road’ on the first record, where Adrian wrote some lyrics that I sing. And then vice versa, in ‘Outlaw’, there’s some lyrics that I wrote that he sings.

I guess you always look for a method to the madness, but there are exceptions to every rule. It really is a case-by-case issue. The obvious one is vocal range. I tend to sing higher up the scale, and Adrian has a different range. So certain things sing better for him, other things sing better for me. That becomes more of an obvious, natural choice.

The solos are a little less obvious. That’s a little more like: hey, let me take the outro on this, I’m really feeling it. Okay, no problem, go for it. And then otherwise: I’ve got a great idea for a melody here, let me try something. That sort of stuff. We just work together, like anybody would.”

Heat and Hunger

“My goal was always to be a solo act. I was never a young guy that wanted to be a guy in a band. I wanted to be a solo act. So my mentors, my people that I looked at and thought: oh, I’d like to be like that person… It was Prince, it was David Bowie, it was Bruce Springsteen, it was George Benson. Guys that had a guitar in their hands, but they were singing too.

I feel like now, at my age, I’ve done enough in my musical journey to establish myself, and create the truth on the outside for people to see, that I don’t feel like I have to prove anything that way. Google me. You see me singing my songs, playing the guitar. That’s me being me.

Maybe when I was younger, coming out of the Shrapnel Records scene, there might have been an element of frustration. Because I have more to offer than shredding on the guitar. So you have a different kind of attitude, and you have a certain kind of heat and hunger.

Having established publicly what it is that I actually do, and having that been accepted, I feel complete. And therefore, I can exist now in a multitude of situations. I can exist in Smith/Kotzen, sharing fifty percent of the guitar and vocal duties, I could exist in a band where I’m just playing the guitar and only singing once in a while, I could exist in a band where I only sing and don’t even play the guitar. I have a lot more flexibility now, because I’ve already shown myself the way I want to be seen.”

Inhibit the Creative Process

There are no live plans for Smith/Kotzen at the moment, but Kotzen assures that he would like to tour behind ‘Black Light/White Noise’. The live situation plays no role in writing and arranging the songs, though. “I never thought like that”, he emphasizes. “Never do I go into the studio and think about: I’m recording something, but what is it going to be live? Who cares? You may never play it live. You may die before you have the opportunity to do so.

I never, ever, ever think in terms of: what about live? Because that will kill, crush, destroy, and inhibit the creative process in that moment. Instead, when I finish a record, I’ll try to make it as good  as it can be, make every choice artistically on what’s going to sound the best coming out of the speakers. And then six months, a year later, when the time comes to play it live, I’ll worry about it then.”

An edited version of this interview appeared in Gitarist 409 (April 2025)