Iron Maiden prefers to record their albums in a setting similar to a live show, Adrian Smith explained.
Of course, there’s no right or wrong way to do an album. It just comes down to what you want to achieve. Recording albums live and keeping overdubs to a minimum is something that helps artists create a very organic sound, reminiscent of the golden days of classic metal. Be it Iron Maiden or his Smith/Kotzen project, like the new album “Black Light/white noise,” Adrian always prefers his music not to be too much “in the grid,” so to speak, making it feel more natural.
We were fortunate enough to sit down with Adrian Smith and discuss his work and career. While there are some similarities in the approach to how Maiden and Smith/Kotzen make music, Smith pointed out some of the main differences in the creative process.
“Well, the recording process and the writing process are very different, with Iron Maiden and Richie. When I go into studio with Maiden, there’s usually 25 people in the studio. You got the band, we play live in studio. It’s all set up live. You have a producer and two assistants, there’s the people that work at the studio, there’s a road crew.”
“Richie and I just work at a studio, just the two of us. We produce everything, we engineer everything. So, it’s very different, and it’s a very organic kind of a thing.”
“We swap ideas. We sit down with guitars. It’s pretty straightforward. Somebody comes in with an idea, we develop that idea as we go along, and we sort of sing, we write, and we record as we go along, and we build something up until we’re happy with it. So, it’s quite different, really, the process.”
How does the recording process compare to both bands, too?
“Well, like I said, Iron Maiden record live. Richie and I, we build it more. Having said that, the production is very… We don’t stack a lot of guitars and stuff. I mean, it’s basically two guitars, bass, and drums, with overdubbed vocals and leads. So it’s pretty straightforward, really. And like I said, the songwriting, I’ll bring an idea in, or Richie brings something in, and we’ll just build it bit by bit until we’re happy.”
“I think our blueprint with SK is, for me, I grew up listening to ’70s kind of rock, y’know, early ’70s: Depp purple, black sabbath, bad company, free. I love all that stuff. And to me, it’s timeless, like the blues or even folk music. It’s a storytelling music, and you sort of use that to start telling the story, but then you got to take it somewhere else, and that’s where we try to do something different. Like, a melody is timeless. A good melody for a chorus. And combine those things. Plus, we’ve got two of us singing, and it just creates a different texture and some something different, which is trying to do so different with that classic rock genre.”
You just mentioned early ’70s rock being an influence, and I could detect a few bits that reminded me of Robin Trower circa “Bridge of Sighs”. Was that an influence?
“Not directly. But yeah, I love Robin Trower. “Bridge of sighs” is classic. But not specifically that, but certainly, music of that era, because it was very straightforward, from the heart, very honest, very unprocessed, very organic. And that’s what we’re trying to do, Richie and I. Because we both grew up listening that sort of music.”
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