Hi Adrian! What inspired the title “Black Light / White Noise” (reviewed here)?
– There are two songs on there with those titles, and I just thought it was great and Richie liked it, so we went with that. It’s interesting. It’s got the contrast of black and white.
The track “White Noise” absolutely burns, especially that heavy riff that I believe you came up with?
– That was probably the second song Rich and I worked on for the project. I had that riff around for a couple of years. It was called something else. I had an idea for the verse and, as often happens, I take that into Richie. He didn’t like the lyrics side, they were kind of cheesy. It was about the guy coming over and finding his wife with another man, you know, not very original. So we went back and forth a bit about the lyrics and came up with the title “White Noise”, which I thought was a great strong title. It’s how modern life has kind of become infected with social media, people are getting addicted to their phones and swamped with news 24/7. I was really happy with how it turned out.
I read that “Black Light” was a song that very nearly didn’t make it onto the album until a late night session. What happened there?
– That’s right. Richie had an idea for a song, we developed it, we finished it. I’m listening to it and we both look to each other, I mean I simply didn’t like it. Richie thought it was alright, but I thought “No, it’s not. I don’t think it’s good enough.” So, we stripped it down, came up with a different kind of verse idea. I came up with that guitar riff at the beginning. And then we came up with “Black Light”, which is very strong title and we changed the chorus. The only bit we kept was the bridge.
There are a lot of brilliant guitar sections on the album, and yet the strength of the songs and melodies really stand out. Is that more important to you – the songwriting – rather than a great solo?
– The most important thing is the song. I guess what we’re we doing is taking the spirit of something I grew up with, like, you know, Free and Bad Company, and then we try and take it to another level. Put a chorus that people can remember and make an actual song out of it. Obviously, I grew up listening to guitar players. Thin Lizzy’s two guitar players trading off each other, I’ve always loved that. There’s lots of different elements. I don’t think anyone’s quite doing what we’re doing, you know, the trading of the vocals and the guitar lines. It’s all within the framework of a song, which is very important. I mean, you can jam forever, but you’re going to have a point to it.
Do you have a preferred guitarist for Thin Lizzy?
– Scott (Gorham) is a good friend. What a great guy and a massive inspiration. I sent him one of my guitars as a thank you.
Why did you choose “Muddy Water” as an album opener?
– When Richie and I got together in the early part of 2023, that was the first thing we worked on. Richie had that song pretty much written. I helped him out with the lyrics a little. It was a great song and I thought it was a natural sort of album opener.
How did you meet originally and end up writing together?
– I moved part time to Los Angeles about 15 years ago. My wife’s mother lives here and her brother, so we got family. There is a great music community here. All the great things about the West Coast of America. My wife told me of the Richie’s music. She said, “Have you seen this guy?” Then I just bumped into him in town, and we became friends and jammed a little bit at my house. I’ve got a music room and just jammed about. My missus said to me, “Why don’t you guys what together, you know, and see what happens.” So we did that and the rest is history.
How does this collaboration differ from your work with Iron Maiden and others?
– It’s a very different process. I mean, recording wise and writing wise, with Maiden we go to the studio, set the band up as we would pretty much play as we do on stage and record live. Learn the song on the spot, sometimes you don’t even know it properly, we just go for it and record it, and then patch it up a little bit. But Richie and I will sit down in the studio, no producer, no engineers, nobody, just the two of us who have been focusing on the music and just build it, bit by bit. It’s a completely different process but there’s no distractions. It’s very focused on the song.
Are there any plans to tour this music with Richie at some point? I know you’re very busy this year but maybe in the future.
– Yeah, well you said it, I’m going out with Maiden in the summer, I’m looking forward to that. Richie is going out on his own tour, I think, in the early part of 2026. We need to pencil in some stuff to do, because I really want to get out and play this stuff live because I think it’s great. We actually have played together recently. We had an acoustic show the other night, a special show at the Grammy Museum here in Los Angeles because Richie and I were both in town, so he agreed to it. It’s really a last minute thing, so we did that and it went really well. So who knows maybe we could do some acoustic stuff in the future. We played three new songs.
I really enjoyed hearing you sing on this record, especially on the closing track. You are the full package. Have you ever thought about making another solo record?
– I did back in 1989. Work with Well the first time I was I was made, and I did, I was I think it was the first one in the bands do so on. As a matter of fact, when I was 15 years old, I met up with Dave Murray from Maiden. We were friends as kids. We wanted to make a band. I said I’ll be a singer, I mean that’s what I did from for the age of 15 up. I was a singer and guitarist, you know. I learnt the guitarist. I was fronting a band for about seven or eight years, playing all the pubs and clubs in England. I kind of put it to one side when I joined Maiden. “Silver and Gold” (1989), which I listened to the other day and it stands up and holds the test of time well, but it was very different to what Maiden were doing. It was almost like an AOR album and got a bit overlooked, which was a bit disappointing and it led to me actually leaving Maiden the first time. I’ve recorded a lot that I haven’t released as well. So it’s in my blood, you know, it feels very natural for me.
The stuff you have recorded, would you ever consider releasing?
– Maybe, maybe, but I also like having another singer to trade off of. I mean, I’ve done shows on my own singing, and it’s a big load to carry. It’s tough singing a whole show and playing solos. I like having someone to harmonise with and to swap ideas with. But it’s very difficult doing stuff on your own, because there’s no one to bounce off. You do something and look around, and there’s no one there to say, “well, that was good” or “you should do that again” or “you could do it better”.
You can’t feed off their energy.
– Exactly. So, collaboration can be a great thing and I think that’s what we got.
You are back in Norway with Iron Maiden very soon, in early June. What memories do you have of Norway with Maiden? Have you been fishing here?
– I think it must have been about 10 years ago, we had a couple of days off, so I went a bit further north and fished, some salmon fishing. I can’t remember the name of the river. Beautiful place, I can’t remember the name but Norway is always a beautiful country.
Maybe you’ll get some time to do that when you’re back in June at Trondheim Rocks. Thank you so much for your time, Adrian, and congratulations on album of the year so far.
– Thank you very much! A pleasure. Bye bye.
Tekst: Anne-Marie Forker
Originally published in Norway Rock Magazine #1/2025
