IRON MAIDEN’s ADRIAN SMITH Alludes To His Rumored Collaboration With RICHIE KOTZEN: ‘He Is A Really Good Singer’ And ‘A Great Guitar Player’

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In a new interview with Music Radar, IRON MAIDEN guitarist Adrian Smith confirmed that he recently collaborated with "another artist" on a new project. "He is a really good singer, a great guitar player, and I can't name it at the moment," Adrian said. "It's not coming out just yet and I don't want to reveal too much. But I have done an album." Although Smith did not offer any details about his new project, he was almost certainly referring to a much-rumored collaboration with THE WINERY DOGS guitarist/vocalist Richie Kotzen, who had posted several photos of the two of them hanging out together in recent months. Kotzen alluded to his project with Smith during a February 2020 interview with the "Another FN Podcast". At the time, he said: "I don't like talking about things until they're finished, but if you look at the photographs [on my Instagram] and who I'm with, and that sort of thing, you could assume that there may be a collaboration in the works." He added: "It's very surreal, because it's a band that I grew up with; it was one of my favorite bands forever, and one of my first hard rock concerts. So it's very surreal. Very cool. [I'm] very excited." Smith is currently promoting his memoir, "Monsters Of River & Rock", which was released on September 3 via Virgin Books. This past February, Kotzen released his 22nd solo album, "50 For 50", via his own custom label, Headroom-Inc. The three-disc collection is just what the title implies: a collection of 50 previously unreleased compositions produced, performed and written by Kotzen in honor of his birthday. It's the follow-up to his critically acclaimed "Salting Earth" album, which came out in April 2017 via Headroom-Inc.