Iron Man Adrian Smith makes his own Silver and Gold

By Lori Smerilson Faces Rocks Magazine, July/August

The acronym "a.s.a.p." is certainly a familiar one in today's society. So is the name Adrian Smith, at least in the hard rock music society. What is surprisingly unfamiliar about Silver and Gold, the former Iron Maiden guitarist's Enigma debut LP as A.S.a.P. is the unique and versatile performance that differs from his previous world renown sound.

"Our music is straight ahead rock- melodic, but with a hard edge," Smith explains in his thick English accent. Furthermore, he says making this record as Adrian Smith and Project (that is guitarists Dave Colwell and Andy Barnett, bassist Robin Clayton, drummer Zak Starkey and keyboardist Richard Young) let him experience new and diverse aspects of the music industry. "There was a lot of experimentation." he says. "Maiden had done so many albums, but this was a new thing to me. I was much more involved in the day to day running of the project, not only in the studio musically, but business-wise as well. So that was a bit of an eye opener because I had never done that before in Maiden.

Of course the most obvious skill that Smith utilized on this record that he didn't with Maiden are his lead vocals. "I sang before I joined Iron Maiden," he divulges. "I sang in bars for years with other bands. I've always sang and played guitar though. I've never been a straight, stand- up vocalist. When I joined Iron Maiden I kind of sidelined that a bit and concentrated on guitar playing. Now, I'm sort of picking up where I left off really I suppose."

He also picked up formal singing lessons a couple of years ago which were quite an experience for the blond Brit musician. "They were a bit of a joke because you're standing around a piano with this guy and singing scales. I felt like a complete idiot at first, but he kind of helped a little bit. I just thought I'd give it a go, broaden my range."

Ironically enough, Smith had experienced a similar situation shortly after picking up a guitar. "Yeah, it was a bit like the singing lessons," he recalls. "Me and Dave (Murray) used to go to the same guitar teacher and we'd go in there trying to play rock'n'roll and this guy would be teaching us `Twinkle, Twinkle Lit'le Star' and we had to play that. We were going `yeah, not quite what we want to do,' but it teaches some sort of discipline, the basics."

Prior to those lessons Smith's same ex-axe-mate was the reason why he picked up a guitar to begin with. "I grew up with Dave actually," says Smith from NE London. "We just lived a few streets away from each other. Around the age of 15 or 16 when you're thinking about what you want to do with the rest of your life, I remember listening to bands like Deep Purple and Free and that really made me want to get into music seriously and play guitar and stuff. Around that time Dave was playing guitar. Everyone's playing now, but then it was more rare. I'm talking about a long time ago," he laughs. "It was like `Dave's got an electric guitar!' So, we used to go to his house and he had a spare one lying around so I sort of took up from there and learned a bit off him. He'd already been playing about a year. That's where I started."

Smith also credits his career choice to his own Irish mother who plays the fiddle (violin), his dad who plays the ukulele and harmonica, and his brother who plays flamenco style guitar. And then there was his drummer's dad, a fellow named Ringo who had a band with some mates . . . "When I was growing up, the Beatles were really happening in England," Smith recalls. "Everyone had Beatle wigs and stuff like that. Yeah, I'll admit to that, I had one. That was sort of my early influence."

Now, having played in bands from age 17 on in England's club circuit, Smith feels he's come to terms with how he wants to assert his capabilities with A.S.a.P. "When you're growing up you copy people or you try to copy people and through your mistakes you stumble onto your own style. I think that's definitely my case. I'm not an out and out 24- hours-a-day practicing guitarist. I appreciate technical players, but I'm into others like singing and songwriting as well."

This is basically why A.S.a.P. was formed last January, apparently only as a time filler initially. "Andy and Dave are two of my oldest friends," Smith notes. "I had a year off with Iron Maiden so I decided to go into the studio with some friends. I knew their work and I liked their work. The rest of the guys were in fact a band on their own called Ran, and we just hooked up.

"We wrote together pretty well," he continues, "myself, Andy, Dave and a little bit with Dick. We all knew each other so it went pretty smooth. Well, we had our moments, but overall it was pretty smooth! I didn't really have anything solid in mind. We had the songs written so we just put them down and tried to make them as good as we could. We spent a lot of time arranging and writing songs. I think that has a large bearing on the overall end product, you know? Get it right from the start and not try to tidy it up as you go. That was the idea we had."

Even though Smith shared songwriting responsibilities with his bandmates for brand new songs like "Down the Wire" and "Misunderstood," he wrote "Silver and Gold" and "The Lion" some five years ago. "I never really took much interest in lyrics before," he admits, "but this time, having to sing them and sound convincing on an album, I took a lot of time out to make sure people would feel what the songs are about. For instance, `Lion' is an old story about someone picking up a hitchhiker. A guy picks up a girl, drops her home and then goes back the next day the home is all broken down- she was a ghost and all that sort of thing."

Smith & Project also utilized this type of clever creativity for their album cover and video. "We kind of sat down and said, `what would be a good idea for the album? How could we make it different, you know, sleeve- wise?' I think my manager Rob hit on the idea of calling it Silver and Gold. Originally it was supposed to be like a girl and the Goldfinger kind of feel, you know the film Goldfinger? The James Bond film? the girl with the body paint?

"So, we explored that a little bit and got in touch with Spencer Rowl. He's a fashion photographer and he kind of took it one step further and we got the whole feel. Then we did a video for `Silver and Gold,' which I think is in the process of being banned from MTV at the moment because we have bits of the album cover, the naked girl that I must say is very, very tasteful. you can't see anything specific. It's kind of an artsy shot. We hope MTV will play it. Smith also hopes to have a second A.S.a.P. album released possibly before he tours extensively.

As a veteran musician, he expresses his enthusiasm for playing tin the States, claiming that it's easier to tour here than in Europe.

"Europe's like a nightmare," he says. "You're going through like 12 different countries, you've got pockets full of change you don't know what to do with, you eat different food everyday, you feel really messed up. Over here, it's easy. You get on the highway and go." Smith's obvious admiration for U.S. radio and clubs (apparently, England is still rather underground) will hopefully pay off as his record makes its bid for success on these shores. But why wait? Silver and Gold should be added to every trued fan's collection A.S.A.P.

Credits: http://www.oocities.org/~tkause/ftp-directory-maiden/interviews/Silver_And_Gold_interviews.txt

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