In a recent interview on The Eddie Trunk Podcast , Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen joined forces to discuss their partnership as Smith/Kotzen and their self-titled album, released in March . Nando Machado from Wikimetal interviewed Kotzen about the project. Check out the full interview.
In the new interview, Smith spoke a bit about the time he took on lead vocals to record the song "Reach Out," a B-side track from Iron Maiden 's 1986 Somewhere in Time
According to the guitarist, the band was on a six-month hiatus for the first time in their career, during which he and drummer Nicko McBrain frequently met in the studio just to jam. From this informal jam session, the two musicians ended up forming a band called The Entire Population of Hackney , which included some friends.
The idea of making a song as a B-side for Iron Maiden came from Steve Harris , as Smith recounts: “We played a show at the Marquee, played in some clubs, and I was doing vocals at the time. After that, we went on to do Somewhere in Time and we needed some B-sides, so Steve Harris suggested, 'Why don't you do a bit of what you've been doing with Hackney?'”
According to Smith, “Reach Out” was written by Dave Colwell , the guitarist who was part of Hackney, and whom he called a “great songwriter.” “It wasn’t exactly a surprise,” Adrian added. “Steve’s idea was as far removed from Maiden as possible, but I kind of said, ‘Okay, let’s go for it.’” At the time, Bruce Dickinson took over backing vocals so Smith could shine. (Recall:)
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