Richie Kotzen Teams With Mike Portnoy on New Song ‘Raise the Cain’

It's not a full Winery Dogs revival, but singer/guitarist Richie Kotzen teased earlier this week a new song would be coming and now he's revealed that his Winery Dogs bandmate, drummer Mike Portnoy, also had a hand in the new song "Raise the Cain."

Speaking via his Facebook page, Kotzen explained, "So after releasing a 50 song original album at the start of 2020 I had absolutely no intention of releasing any more new music at any point this year. At least after doing some touring to support the '50 for 50' release… Well, That didn’t happen … LOL. Suddenly I found myself like all of us locked up wondering what now?"

Kotzen says he found himself inspired during the pandemic downtime with some new music ideas and one of those came from a phone conversation with Portnoy. "The nucleus of this song came out of a phone conversation I had with my fellow Winery Dog bandmate Mike Portnoy at the start of our Covid quarantine," said the singer. "He mentioned his drums were miked up and that he had been doing some recording. I said ‘hey Mike, I’ve got an idea for you if you’re up for it … Take 4 or 5 different tempos and different grooves and lay down a few song forms. Pretend I’m jamming with you and record as if it were a song. Once you get them sorted send them off to me and I’ll see if I can edit some of your beats and possibly write them into songs."

Kotzen reveals, "I ended up writing the riff to Mike’s 7/8 drum groove which then lead me down the road to completing a song which is ‘Raise the Cain.' Initially I thought of sitting on the track to include on a full length album down the road but then reality sank back in. Why bother? Why bother sitting on a finished track and letting it sit on a hard drive until who knows when? No good reason to do that so here we are with yet another RK single release featuring some badass drumming from Master Mike Portnoy. I hope you all dig it!"

Check out the lyrics for the song and the lyric video for the track below:

Richie Kotzen, "Raise the Cain" Lyrics

Far from wise
Let him blow
Hear his rhyme
He is Pinocchio
They slow our drive
Like Pinot Grigio
No sober minds
Leave our innocence to die

I wanna hear your voice raise the cain
I wanna hear your voice raise the cain tonight

In with the new
Out with the old
We say unite
But nature divides
So where do you go when you’re out of hope?
These broken lives
Leave our innocence to die

I wanna hear your voice raise the cain
I wanna hear your voice raise the cain tonight

I wanna hear your voice raise the cain
I wanna hear your voice raise the cain for life
I believe in us that’s why I’m raising the cain
I believe in life we’re raising our cain

The Winery Dogs, which also includes bassist Billy Sheehan, last released an album with 2017's Dog Years. Though they announced plans to take a break in 2017, they reunited briefly for some tour dates last year.