“You do these things and the only real barometer you have is how you feel about it as the songwriter. Then it gets to the point where you feel like you’re well represented, and you put it out into the world,” states vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Richie Kotzen, talking about Black Light / White Noise, the new album from Smith/Kotzen – his collaboration with Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith, available now via BMG.
Looking at the tracklisting for Black Light / White Noise, prior to hearing the album for the first time, the opening track “Muddy Water” sparked the thought, is that song going to be bluesy, inspired by the legendary Muddy Waters? Not quite, but an awesome song, nonetheless. “Yeah, the song is really kind of about troublemakers,” begins Kotzen. “They call them muckrakers. There’s a line in the song that says, ‘Stir that muddy water.’ Although, I like the idea that you thought that because it certainly piqued your curiosity, and that’s a good thing. But the song is not about a specific person, it’s about the concept of someone just sort of muckraking, making trouble, that sort of thing.”
The second song on the album, “White Noise”, which Smith/Kotzen filmed a video for, contains the lyric, ‘I’m gonna drink my Jack, bring back my poise.’ Richie, are you a Jack Daniel’s aficionado? “I was, but I don’t drink any more. But when I did drink, Jack Daniel’s was always on the rider. It’s funny, when we did that song, I wrote that chorus, melody, and lyric; the riff came from Adrian, and there was something else living there originally. It all got changed, but the riff remained. So, I came up with that melody and the lyrics in that part of the song. It was kind of out of improvisation – ‘Can you hear me through the white noise? I want to drink my Jack, bring back my poise.’ It came out as an improv, and I thought, wow! Where did that come from? I like that! It basically says, I want to be left the fuck alone and not have to hear all this nonsense all the time. ‘They want to close my spirit, kill my joy, drink my Jack, bring back my poise.’ Somehow that just came out of me, and it worked. So, we kept it. But it really came out of nowhere.”
Richie reveals when he stopped drinking. “It’s more than a year. I’ve always been one of those people that would kind of go on and off; but when I was on, I was pretty on. After a while, you reach a certain age, I think it had to do with my age (Kotzen is 55). The recovery time, it just becomes less enjoyable. The desire to feel not sick is stronger than the desire to drink. I just got tired of waking up sick, tired of the whole thing. It didn’t appeal to me. It’s nothing I even think about anymore thankfully. I just don’t do it. And I don’t miss it. I don’t care either way, it’s really strange. It’s just something I don’t do. I don’t ride a motorcycle either, and it’s too late for me to start. There’s a lot of things that I just don’t do, and I don’t think about, and drinking is one of them.”
“Darkside” is an interesting song as it has an almost Celtic-like beginning to it, and contains the line, “I know I’m getting older, but I’m far from being weak. I’ve always been a soldier, but now I’m in the shadow of defeat.” Another musing upon age. “Yeah, that’s my lyric. The actual song though, ‘I’m on the dark side of the street’, that chorus is Adrian’s. Adrian came in with that chorus and that verse which you described. Then I contributed the pre-chorus and the bridge, something about being in Mexico and running from a ghost. But it’s a great example of how we collaborate. Someone will bring something in that’s in pieces, and then the other guy seems to be able to bring it to a point where it’s complete. Both these songs are great examples of that, where somebody brings something in and it just kind of comes together. It’s like, what one guy doesn’t think of, the other one does. I mean, I love the vibe we have and I’m so thankful that we were able to continue on and do another album together.”
Richie’s wife, Julia Lage from Vixen, plays bass on five songs on Black Light / White Noise, and Kotzen plays bass on the other five. Why didn’t she track all ten? “Well because there was nothing that needed to be replaced. It’s a very simple thing that happens when we’re writing and recording. You get to a point where a song – a good example of what I’m about to say is a song like ‘Black Light’. Despite the fact that there’s Julia and Bruno (Valverde of Angra) in the video, the reality is I’m playing the bass on ‘Black Light’, and I’m playing the drums on ‘Black Light’. Not the case with every song. But on that particular composition, the way that song was written and recorded and created, it got to a point where it sounded complete. So, to have someone come in and replay a bass part, or retrack the drums would be nonsensical. Because as you listen to it coming out of the speakers, the composition sounds finished.”
“On the other side of the coin is a song like ‘Darkside’, which came into the fold a bit later in the process. From the beginning, we tracked that song to a basic drum beat, a loop. So, once we had the form laid out, we adjusted that loop and re-programmed it. We wrote out the drum parts, but we knew that we wanted a real drummer to play them. I, personally, wasn’t in the mood. So, we sent it over to Bruno to lay drums down. And then the same thing happened with the bass guitar. It’s like, okay, there’s a guide bass on here. It’s kind of spelling out the changes and inferring a few things here and there. But let’s have Julia play on it. Those things again come together very organically. But it kind of comes out of a thing – if it’s not broke, why try to fix it?”
“So, in certain instances, whatever it was that I played worked for Adrian and I; and obviously we’re the guys making the decisions. And then for some of the other stuff, we thought, let’s give this to someone else to have a shot. And it worked out well. The funny part of all this, people like to talk about it. If I didn’t tell you and there was no credits listed on the album, nobody would know who was doing what. It just comes into play. Oh, there’s credits here. Who did this? Who did that? To me, it’s wonderful that we have Julia on there, and Bruno did a great job. And, actually, my friend Kyle (Hughes) played on a couple songs too. But the objective is not to figure out who can play what, but to get what Adrian and I are envisioning to come out of the speakers. That’s the real goal.”
Putting the icing on the cake so to speak is Jay Ruston – who Richie’s worked with on both The Winery Dogs and his solo material – providing the top tier mix. “Yeah, he’s really easy to work with. I kind of get the stuff to a certain point, and I can add some guidance and an idea of what we want it to sound like. Then he can take it to that point where it sounds like a finished record, and he did a great job! Like you said, I’ve worked with him in the past. He did really outstanding work for The Winery Dogs and he mixed my Nomad album, my solo album that I put out in September (2024).”
Kevin “Caveman” Shirley (Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Dream Theater) did a great job on the first Smith/Kotzen record, but Richie and Adrian chose not to use him the second time around. “It just comes down to timing, and who’s where doing what at what time. The ship has to keep sailing, so there’s nothing wrong with exploiting other people’s talents in different situations. The first record, I was extremely happy with what Kevin did. Really, the reality is on that record, we didn’t even realize – at one point in the beginning, we didn’t even know we were making a record – we were just recording songs and getting our ideas down. Then somewhere along the line, we thought, this could be a record. So, Kevin had a hard job to take, what really were quickly recorded tracks, and make it into something that sounded like an album, and he did a fantastic job. Both guys are super talented, and both of them did great work for us.”
When Adrian spoke to BraveWords about “Wraith”, he admitted that initially, he didn’t know what that word meant and had to look it up. Same holds true here. Wraith means a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen shortly before or after their death. Richie reflects upon what inspired him to write about that topic. “Well, you know, it’s this thing where you write so many songs… the other day I was looking around inside my ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) account – you register a song when you write it, if you’re going to release it. I think there was like 450 or something. The better part of 400 songs that I wrote or co-wrote that have been placed here or there. So, the question sometimes, what do you write about? I’ve always had this attitude that I don’t write unless the song needs to be written. So, there’s a lot of waiting. Even though there’s a lot of records I’ve released, there’s a lot of down time waiting for inspiration. Then once you get on something, it just kind of comes out. I don’t really know specifically what was in my head when I came up with the concept of writing a song around the word wraith, but it happened. I knew what the word meant. How or why, I’m not sure. That has to do I suppose with reading.”
Iron Maiden has a huge tour coming up that’s running May to August, obviously there will be rehearsals prior. Smith/Kotzen did one show this year at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on March 5th. Apart from that, there really isn’t a lot of opportunity for S/K to get on the road and perform the songs from Black Light / White Noise live. “Not this year,” confirms Richie. “I think that we will be looking at next year to show the band live, for the reasons that you just said. It’s fine. The idea of playing this music live is very exciting to both Adrian and I. Of course, Julia is a fantastic studio bass player, but live on stage, she takes things to another level! You can go and look at the live stuff we did back in 2021/2022, whenever it was. There’s a few live videos. I always joke and say, she plays the songs better than we play them, and we wrote them. The performance element, you really can’t take your eyes off her. And the same thing with Bruno. He’s such a powerful drummer, and he brings a lot to the table when we take the stage. For me, the drummer, you need someone that is solid. A singing guitar player, we tend to move around. Your focus shifts from the guitar to the voice. You need someone inside there that can just keep that together, and you know and trust at the time is always going to be where it’s supposed to be. Bruno is so solid. Obviously, if we can get out there again, we’d love to have Julia and Bruno as the rhythm section. Plus, they’re Brazilian. It’s like we’ve got the Brazilian Mafia behind us, so it’s really great.”
Kotzen updates his plans as a solo artist for the timeline from May to August, while Smith is on the road with Maiden. “I’ve got two local shows booked. One at The Whisky, which is on the 24th of May. The night before, we’re down in San Juan Capistrano (at The Coach House Concert Hall). So, it’s two shows, and then we fly to Japan to do three nights (at Club Quattro). These Southern California shows, I’m kind of looking at those as warm-up shows to get us ready for what’s next, which is Japan. Then, I’m building a solo tour for the fall. We did one last year, it was a lot of fun. It was a big success for me and my trio. I love playing in that format, so I’m looking forward to going out again. Also, the idea would be to play some more songs off my last solo record, because the solo record came out while I was on tour. So, the timing was a little off kilter. Now, the record’s been out for quite some time, people are familiar with the songs, so I can pull in some more of that material. I think it’ll be a great tour. Keep an eye on my website for the dates and where I’m going to be.”
Returning to Black Light / White Noise, the best lyric on the album can be found in the song “Heavy Weather”, and that is, “Stung by the bee but you got no honey.” Talk about a Steven Tyler-ism, it’s beautiful. “These little phrases, they come out of who knows where. Adrian’s really good with the phrases. We just kind of throw stuff back and forth. As we’re talking, I take notes. Then you put things together. So much of it though, it’s very interesting, because so much of it is, how does it sing? And how does it sing for that singer? And that can kind of tie-in to what you write, when you’re writing lyrics for yourself. Somebody might write something very clever with a really cute rhyme scheme, but when you sing it, it falls flat. A lot of this has a lot to do with, how does it sound and how does it feel when it comes out of the singer’s mouth and hits with the drums and the guitars? I think a lot of folks don’t even realize, that’s part of what makes a lyric in a song pop. So, sometimes when we’re writing – this is a very interesting perspective. A lot of times you’re writing a song and you don’t have the lyrics, but you still have the creative juice and the idea, and you want to keep the ball rolling. So, I’ll get on the microphone, and I’ll start singing random sounds that sound like words but they’re not; it almost would sound like a foreign language. You listen back, and every now and then, you hear something that sounds like a phrase in English, and you write it down. Then it’s like, ok, that phrase made sense. How can I make this all make sense? In that mode, sometimes the lyrics just kind of write themselves, and they come right out of it.”
“There were two examples in Smith/Kotzen, one on the first record, and one on the second. On the second record, on the new one, the song ‘Heavy Weather’, that you mentioned, that song was one that I brought in halfway. I had the form, I had drums, bass, guitar, and I had me improvising vocals. And in that chorus, I was just mumbling whatever I was singing, and Adrian said, ‘It sounds like you said heavy weather.’ I’m like, ‘Really, where?’ He goes, ‘Right here, listen.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Then I looked at him and said, ‘When would you use the phrase, heavy weather, in a sentence?’ Then we started talking and it was like, well, it could refer to life circumstance, like you’re facing the heavy weather. You know – tough times, hard times. Then we kept going and it was like, what if you had a situation where you’ve got a kid who’s born into a family where he’s got it pretty easy, but he still has a bit of attitude that’s maybe unwarranted. You sit him down and say, ‘Hey, you know what. You’ve got to come out of this. You never faced the heavy weather the way I have. You haven’t been through this, the problems that I’ve gone through. You don’t really know how good you have it.’ So, that became the basic structure of writing the lyrics. It’s a very interesting thing that happens.”
It was absolute disbelief when Adrian told BraveWords that Smith/Kotzen weren’t sure about putting “Beyond The Pale” on the album. Talk about just mind-blowing! That song has such an emotional guitar solo. “Well… it was written and recorded, and then it sat with everything else. You have to realize, when we do this, we’ve got pockets of time that we’re together. It’s usually around the holidays when Adrian will come to Malibu. So, we block out a few months to do some writing and recording. There were two separate sessions, over the course of a year, that we got together. You compile all this stuff, and life goes on, you do other things. He went and listened to it, and reminded me, and said, ‘This is something we really should consider keeping.’ So, we kept it, and we didn’t really alter it. Sometimes you live with something, and you go back – it’s good, but I want to change this, that, or the other. With this one, that’s pretty much the first impression.”
“I remember doing the guitar solo, and I remember wanting a very specific sound out of my guitar. It required the Stratocaster, and it’s directly into this Marshall amp which is a hand-wired 100 watt head, and I used the middle pickup on my Strat. So, when my solo comes in – I think I play first. I’m using that setting, but there’s two other components at play. I’m playing with my fingers on that song, not a guitar pic. And I’m using the tremolo arm to sort of manipulate the notes in a very specific way. So, the guitar almost sounds like there’s an effect on it. But the irony is that it’s completely direct. Not direct into the board, but directly into the amp, with a microphone on the amp. There’s no effects, nothing strange happening. It’s all coming down to the hands. I think that’s why, you’re the second person that pointed out to me that it was an emotional solo, cause you’re very connected. It’s a very true representation. It’s not shrouded in delay or reverb.”
Listening to Black Light / White Noise in proper running order, “Outlaw” comes before “Beyond The Pale”. Jesse James was America’s most notorious outlaw. The song contains the lyric, “I’m a nowhere man, I lay my horses down and I wave my mercy flag.” You might think that Richie is a big fan of cowboys and western movies. “Oddly, no. You know what’s really funny is, I’ve never been able to watch westerns. And I remember, my dad would always watch these westerns; it used to bum me out. I don’t know why it put me in a very depressed state of mind, watching a western for some reason. I must prefer movies that take place in New York City, like Goodfellas, that sort of stuff. I’ve never been a western guy, but hey, I wrote a song that conjures up those images, so there you go. Probably from seeing all those movies in my youth.”
(Photos courtesy of Piper Ferguson and John McMurtrie)
The post RICHIE KOTZEN Of SMITH/KOTZEN – “I Don’t Write Unless The Song Needs To Be Written” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
Continue reading...
Looking at the tracklisting for Black Light / White Noise, prior to hearing the album for the first time, the opening track “Muddy Water” sparked the thought, is that song going to be bluesy, inspired by the legendary Muddy Waters? Not quite, but an awesome song, nonetheless. “Yeah, the song is really kind of about troublemakers,” begins Kotzen. “They call them muckrakers. There’s a line in the song that says, ‘Stir that muddy water.’ Although, I like the idea that you thought that because it certainly piqued your curiosity, and that’s a good thing. But the song is not about a specific person, it’s about the concept of someone just sort of muckraking, making trouble, that sort of thing.”
The second song on the album, “White Noise”, which Smith/Kotzen filmed a video for, contains the lyric, ‘I’m gonna drink my Jack, bring back my poise.’ Richie, are you a Jack Daniel’s aficionado? “I was, but I don’t drink any more. But when I did drink, Jack Daniel’s was always on the rider. It’s funny, when we did that song, I wrote that chorus, melody, and lyric; the riff came from Adrian, and there was something else living there originally. It all got changed, but the riff remained. So, I came up with that melody and the lyrics in that part of the song. It was kind of out of improvisation – ‘Can you hear me through the white noise? I want to drink my Jack, bring back my poise.’ It came out as an improv, and I thought, wow! Where did that come from? I like that! It basically says, I want to be left the fuck alone and not have to hear all this nonsense all the time. ‘They want to close my spirit, kill my joy, drink my Jack, bring back my poise.’ Somehow that just came out of me, and it worked. So, we kept it. But it really came out of nowhere.”
Richie reveals when he stopped drinking. “It’s more than a year. I’ve always been one of those people that would kind of go on and off; but when I was on, I was pretty on. After a while, you reach a certain age, I think it had to do with my age (Kotzen is 55). The recovery time, it just becomes less enjoyable. The desire to feel not sick is stronger than the desire to drink. I just got tired of waking up sick, tired of the whole thing. It didn’t appeal to me. It’s nothing I even think about anymore thankfully. I just don’t do it. And I don’t miss it. I don’t care either way, it’s really strange. It’s just something I don’t do. I don’t ride a motorcycle either, and it’s too late for me to start. There’s a lot of things that I just don’t do, and I don’t think about, and drinking is one of them.”
“Darkside” is an interesting song as it has an almost Celtic-like beginning to it, and contains the line, “I know I’m getting older, but I’m far from being weak. I’ve always been a soldier, but now I’m in the shadow of defeat.” Another musing upon age. “Yeah, that’s my lyric. The actual song though, ‘I’m on the dark side of the street’, that chorus is Adrian’s. Adrian came in with that chorus and that verse which you described. Then I contributed the pre-chorus and the bridge, something about being in Mexico and running from a ghost. But it’s a great example of how we collaborate. Someone will bring something in that’s in pieces, and then the other guy seems to be able to bring it to a point where it’s complete. Both these songs are great examples of that, where somebody brings something in and it just kind of comes together. It’s like, what one guy doesn’t think of, the other one does. I mean, I love the vibe we have and I’m so thankful that we were able to continue on and do another album together.”
Richie’s wife, Julia Lage from Vixen, plays bass on five songs on Black Light / White Noise, and Kotzen plays bass on the other five. Why didn’t she track all ten? “Well because there was nothing that needed to be replaced. It’s a very simple thing that happens when we’re writing and recording. You get to a point where a song – a good example of what I’m about to say is a song like ‘Black Light’. Despite the fact that there’s Julia and Bruno (Valverde of Angra) in the video, the reality is I’m playing the bass on ‘Black Light’, and I’m playing the drums on ‘Black Light’. Not the case with every song. But on that particular composition, the way that song was written and recorded and created, it got to a point where it sounded complete. So, to have someone come in and replay a bass part, or retrack the drums would be nonsensical. Because as you listen to it coming out of the speakers, the composition sounds finished.”
“On the other side of the coin is a song like ‘Darkside’, which came into the fold a bit later in the process. From the beginning, we tracked that song to a basic drum beat, a loop. So, once we had the form laid out, we adjusted that loop and re-programmed it. We wrote out the drum parts, but we knew that we wanted a real drummer to play them. I, personally, wasn’t in the mood. So, we sent it over to Bruno to lay drums down. And then the same thing happened with the bass guitar. It’s like, okay, there’s a guide bass on here. It’s kind of spelling out the changes and inferring a few things here and there. But let’s have Julia play on it. Those things again come together very organically. But it kind of comes out of a thing – if it’s not broke, why try to fix it?”
“So, in certain instances, whatever it was that I played worked for Adrian and I; and obviously we’re the guys making the decisions. And then for some of the other stuff, we thought, let’s give this to someone else to have a shot. And it worked out well. The funny part of all this, people like to talk about it. If I didn’t tell you and there was no credits listed on the album, nobody would know who was doing what. It just comes into play. Oh, there’s credits here. Who did this? Who did that? To me, it’s wonderful that we have Julia on there, and Bruno did a great job. And, actually, my friend Kyle (Hughes) played on a couple songs too. But the objective is not to figure out who can play what, but to get what Adrian and I are envisioning to come out of the speakers. That’s the real goal.”
Putting the icing on the cake so to speak is Jay Ruston – who Richie’s worked with on both The Winery Dogs and his solo material – providing the top tier mix. “Yeah, he’s really easy to work with. I kind of get the stuff to a certain point, and I can add some guidance and an idea of what we want it to sound like. Then he can take it to that point where it sounds like a finished record, and he did a great job! Like you said, I’ve worked with him in the past. He did really outstanding work for The Winery Dogs and he mixed my Nomad album, my solo album that I put out in September (2024).”
Kevin “Caveman” Shirley (Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Dream Theater) did a great job on the first Smith/Kotzen record, but Richie and Adrian chose not to use him the second time around. “It just comes down to timing, and who’s where doing what at what time. The ship has to keep sailing, so there’s nothing wrong with exploiting other people’s talents in different situations. The first record, I was extremely happy with what Kevin did. Really, the reality is on that record, we didn’t even realize – at one point in the beginning, we didn’t even know we were making a record – we were just recording songs and getting our ideas down. Then somewhere along the line, we thought, this could be a record. So, Kevin had a hard job to take, what really were quickly recorded tracks, and make it into something that sounded like an album, and he did a fantastic job. Both guys are super talented, and both of them did great work for us.”
When Adrian spoke to BraveWords about “Wraith”, he admitted that initially, he didn’t know what that word meant and had to look it up. Same holds true here. Wraith means a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen shortly before or after their death. Richie reflects upon what inspired him to write about that topic. “Well, you know, it’s this thing where you write so many songs… the other day I was looking around inside my ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) account – you register a song when you write it, if you’re going to release it. I think there was like 450 or something. The better part of 400 songs that I wrote or co-wrote that have been placed here or there. So, the question sometimes, what do you write about? I’ve always had this attitude that I don’t write unless the song needs to be written. So, there’s a lot of waiting. Even though there’s a lot of records I’ve released, there’s a lot of down time waiting for inspiration. Then once you get on something, it just kind of comes out. I don’t really know specifically what was in my head when I came up with the concept of writing a song around the word wraith, but it happened. I knew what the word meant. How or why, I’m not sure. That has to do I suppose with reading.”
Iron Maiden has a huge tour coming up that’s running May to August, obviously there will be rehearsals prior. Smith/Kotzen did one show this year at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on March 5th. Apart from that, there really isn’t a lot of opportunity for S/K to get on the road and perform the songs from Black Light / White Noise live. “Not this year,” confirms Richie. “I think that we will be looking at next year to show the band live, for the reasons that you just said. It’s fine. The idea of playing this music live is very exciting to both Adrian and I. Of course, Julia is a fantastic studio bass player, but live on stage, she takes things to another level! You can go and look at the live stuff we did back in 2021/2022, whenever it was. There’s a few live videos. I always joke and say, she plays the songs better than we play them, and we wrote them. The performance element, you really can’t take your eyes off her. And the same thing with Bruno. He’s such a powerful drummer, and he brings a lot to the table when we take the stage. For me, the drummer, you need someone that is solid. A singing guitar player, we tend to move around. Your focus shifts from the guitar to the voice. You need someone inside there that can just keep that together, and you know and trust at the time is always going to be where it’s supposed to be. Bruno is so solid. Obviously, if we can get out there again, we’d love to have Julia and Bruno as the rhythm section. Plus, they’re Brazilian. It’s like we’ve got the Brazilian Mafia behind us, so it’s really great.”
Kotzen updates his plans as a solo artist for the timeline from May to August, while Smith is on the road with Maiden. “I’ve got two local shows booked. One at The Whisky, which is on the 24th of May. The night before, we’re down in San Juan Capistrano (at The Coach House Concert Hall). So, it’s two shows, and then we fly to Japan to do three nights (at Club Quattro). These Southern California shows, I’m kind of looking at those as warm-up shows to get us ready for what’s next, which is Japan. Then, I’m building a solo tour for the fall. We did one last year, it was a lot of fun. It was a big success for me and my trio. I love playing in that format, so I’m looking forward to going out again. Also, the idea would be to play some more songs off my last solo record, because the solo record came out while I was on tour. So, the timing was a little off kilter. Now, the record’s been out for quite some time, people are familiar with the songs, so I can pull in some more of that material. I think it’ll be a great tour. Keep an eye on my website for the dates and where I’m going to be.”
Returning to Black Light / White Noise, the best lyric on the album can be found in the song “Heavy Weather”, and that is, “Stung by the bee but you got no honey.” Talk about a Steven Tyler-ism, it’s beautiful. “These little phrases, they come out of who knows where. Adrian’s really good with the phrases. We just kind of throw stuff back and forth. As we’re talking, I take notes. Then you put things together. So much of it though, it’s very interesting, because so much of it is, how does it sing? And how does it sing for that singer? And that can kind of tie-in to what you write, when you’re writing lyrics for yourself. Somebody might write something very clever with a really cute rhyme scheme, but when you sing it, it falls flat. A lot of this has a lot to do with, how does it sound and how does it feel when it comes out of the singer’s mouth and hits with the drums and the guitars? I think a lot of folks don’t even realize, that’s part of what makes a lyric in a song pop. So, sometimes when we’re writing – this is a very interesting perspective. A lot of times you’re writing a song and you don’t have the lyrics, but you still have the creative juice and the idea, and you want to keep the ball rolling. So, I’ll get on the microphone, and I’ll start singing random sounds that sound like words but they’re not; it almost would sound like a foreign language. You listen back, and every now and then, you hear something that sounds like a phrase in English, and you write it down. Then it’s like, ok, that phrase made sense. How can I make this all make sense? In that mode, sometimes the lyrics just kind of write themselves, and they come right out of it.”
“There were two examples in Smith/Kotzen, one on the first record, and one on the second. On the second record, on the new one, the song ‘Heavy Weather’, that you mentioned, that song was one that I brought in halfway. I had the form, I had drums, bass, guitar, and I had me improvising vocals. And in that chorus, I was just mumbling whatever I was singing, and Adrian said, ‘It sounds like you said heavy weather.’ I’m like, ‘Really, where?’ He goes, ‘Right here, listen.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Then I looked at him and said, ‘When would you use the phrase, heavy weather, in a sentence?’ Then we started talking and it was like, well, it could refer to life circumstance, like you’re facing the heavy weather. You know – tough times, hard times. Then we kept going and it was like, what if you had a situation where you’ve got a kid who’s born into a family where he’s got it pretty easy, but he still has a bit of attitude that’s maybe unwarranted. You sit him down and say, ‘Hey, you know what. You’ve got to come out of this. You never faced the heavy weather the way I have. You haven’t been through this, the problems that I’ve gone through. You don’t really know how good you have it.’ So, that became the basic structure of writing the lyrics. It’s a very interesting thing that happens.”
It was absolute disbelief when Adrian told BraveWords that Smith/Kotzen weren’t sure about putting “Beyond The Pale” on the album. Talk about just mind-blowing! That song has such an emotional guitar solo. “Well… it was written and recorded, and then it sat with everything else. You have to realize, when we do this, we’ve got pockets of time that we’re together. It’s usually around the holidays when Adrian will come to Malibu. So, we block out a few months to do some writing and recording. There were two separate sessions, over the course of a year, that we got together. You compile all this stuff, and life goes on, you do other things. He went and listened to it, and reminded me, and said, ‘This is something we really should consider keeping.’ So, we kept it, and we didn’t really alter it. Sometimes you live with something, and you go back – it’s good, but I want to change this, that, or the other. With this one, that’s pretty much the first impression.”
“I remember doing the guitar solo, and I remember wanting a very specific sound out of my guitar. It required the Stratocaster, and it’s directly into this Marshall amp which is a hand-wired 100 watt head, and I used the middle pickup on my Strat. So, when my solo comes in – I think I play first. I’m using that setting, but there’s two other components at play. I’m playing with my fingers on that song, not a guitar pic. And I’m using the tremolo arm to sort of manipulate the notes in a very specific way. So, the guitar almost sounds like there’s an effect on it. But the irony is that it’s completely direct. Not direct into the board, but directly into the amp, with a microphone on the amp. There’s no effects, nothing strange happening. It’s all coming down to the hands. I think that’s why, you’re the second person that pointed out to me that it was an emotional solo, cause you’re very connected. It’s a very true representation. It’s not shrouded in delay or reverb.”
Listening to Black Light / White Noise in proper running order, “Outlaw” comes before “Beyond The Pale”. Jesse James was America’s most notorious outlaw. The song contains the lyric, “I’m a nowhere man, I lay my horses down and I wave my mercy flag.” You might think that Richie is a big fan of cowboys and western movies. “Oddly, no. You know what’s really funny is, I’ve never been able to watch westerns. And I remember, my dad would always watch these westerns; it used to bum me out. I don’t know why it put me in a very depressed state of mind, watching a western for some reason. I must prefer movies that take place in New York City, like Goodfellas, that sort of stuff. I’ve never been a western guy, but hey, I wrote a song that conjures up those images, so there you go. Probably from seeing all those movies in my youth.”
(Photos courtesy of Piper Ferguson and John McMurtrie)
The post RICHIE KOTZEN Of SMITH/KOTZEN – “I Don’t Write Unless The Song Needs To Be Written” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
Continue reading...
