Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith + Richie Kotzen Unveil Collaborative Album Details, Debut ‘Taking My Chances’ Video

Iron Maiden's Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen (The Winery Dogs, ex-Mr. Big, ex-Poison) have officially unveiled their collaborative debut album, aptly titled Smith/Kotzen. The nine-song record will arrive on March 26 and the music video for the opening track, "Taking My Chances," has just premiered.

The guitar duo both live nearby in Los Angeles and recorded and produced the new album together at Turks and Caicos Islands in February of last year, while Kevin "Caveman" Shirley (Iron Maiden, Rush, The Black Crowes, Dream Theater) handled the mixing duties.

Smith/Kotzen also features the work of three different drummers. Smith's Maiden bandmate Nicko McBrain guests on "Solar Fire," longtime friend and touring partner Tal Bergman played on "You Don't Know Me," "'Til Tomorrow" and "I Wanna Stay" and Kotzen handled the remaining tracks himself.

"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," began Smith when reflecting on how the project was initiated.

"Pretty much everything on the album is handled between Richie and myself including the production," the Maiden guitarist went on. "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," beamed 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."

Watch the music video for "Taking My Chances" directly below and view the album art and track listing further down the page. To pre-order Smith/Kotzen, out March 26 through BMG, head here.

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"