Adrian Smith - Michael Kiske (+ Kai Hansen) collaboration (1996)

Forostar

Forostar

Ancient Mariner
I am not sure if everyone has heard (of) Adrian Smith's contribution to Michael Kiske's first solo record, Instant Clarity (1996). This marked Adrian's return to the professional music business (on CD at least), and not long after that his first Psycho Motel album came out. Adrian's last release before this was the A.S.a.P record (1989).

For Instant Clarity Adrian co-wrote (and played on) two songs. Kai Hansen (Gamma Ray, ex-Helloween) co-wrote one of them and like Adrian, also played on both. Pretty cool combo, if you ask me! These two songs are imho the best ones of the whole album.

Links to hear the songs on YouTube:

"The Calling" (Kiske, Adrian Smith) -> From time: 2.32 you can see 5 pictures of H, Kai and Kiske. Quite rare I guess. Long hair!
"New Horizons" (Smith, Kiske, Kai Hansen)
 
Yeah, they're by far the best on the album.  That would've been quite the supergroup if they kept it going, but Kiske doesn't like metal  :(
 
Actually, songs are nothing special. I heard from every reviewer that they're best on the record, therefore i won't bother myself with it.
 
Nice eh, your hero worked with one of your favourite singers. ;)

I never bought the album, but I quite like these tracks myself.
 
awesome topic Foro  :ok:

I didn't know that at all! -tell me; was there any tour for supporting this album ?
 
Not that I know of.

edit:

I searched some connections between H and Kiske and found this:

Interview with Kiske (April, 2007):

Do you tend to sing loud or at a conversational level?

People always say that I am loud, but I'm trying not to.Cause if you are too loud, you easily do something wrong. Once I sang a little bit higher in front of Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden) in his house in England to show him that I don't really sing that loud, but he said: Sounds pretty loud to me, my dear! Also the sound engineer from Iron Maiden who also mixed Helloween for a few tours said,that it is a pleasure to mix me, because my voice is so clear that always easily stays on top. I don't think I sing too loud, but I guess the voice carries, if you know what I mean? The voice gets naturally louder, the more you sing, but you should never force it to be loud.

and this interview with Kiske, probably from 1995 or 1996:

How did Kiske get the solo record contract? There was gossip a time ago that Michael has made a lucrative deal with the Japanese.

"First, the deal on the Helloween track rolled on. JVC had not only one with the band, but every single musician was under contract with them. Plus, they were hot for my stuff as well. After some to and fro I tried to contact Brian May from some work together. Unfortunately, he was too busy with the production of old Queen things. Someday I had the idea to do something with Adrian Smith, because I admired him very much both as Iron Maiden guitarist and songwriter. So we jammed together and it worked out form the start. He's writing some songs with me now and will be heard on the record. As well as Kai, by the way - some things became clear to us at the Helloween-story already, we have told each other entire books. But don't think I'll join Gamma Ray now."

....

Will that project be named after Michael Kiske - an who will be playing on it?

"Hmm, maybe there will be a bandname for the whole thing, we'll see. The drummer is relatively unknown and the brother of my girlfriend, by the way. On bass we take maybe the one from Adrian's band. And the guitar parts are shared between Adrian and Kai."

What is to be expected in the soundtechnical terms?

"I don't want to fix it much. The songs I wrote together with Adrian Smith are somewhere between Maiden and Helloween, logically. It will not be only heavy metal on this album. I just love variety - Queen were always the thing for me. They always made everything, and cool! Today's mentality goes into the direction of doing one and the same record several times - only in a different packaging each time. But I don't do something for monocellulars. It's possible that there will be some poppy stuff, too. But don't panic! I don't have any musical inspirations now to do something totally new which you wouldn't recognize anymore."
 
Looks like he intended to have Adrian and Kai as guitarists for the whole record. Pity it didn't happen...
 
Forostar said:
I am not sure if everyone has heard (of) Adrian Smith's contribution to Michael Kiske's first solo record, Instant Clarity (1996). This marked Adrian's return to the professional music business (on CD at least), and not long after that his first Psycho Motel album came out. Adrian's last release before this was the A.S.a.P record (1989).

For Instant Clarity Adrian co-wrote (and played on) two songs. Kai Hansen (Gamma Ray, ex-Helloween) co-wrote one of them and like Adrian, also played on both. Pretty cool combo, if you ask me! These two songs are imho the best ones of the whole album.

Links to hear the songs on YouTube:

"The Calling" (Kiske, Adrian Smith) -> From time: 2.32 you can see 5 pictures of H, Kai and Kiske. Quite rare I guess. Long hair!
"New Horizons" (Smith, Kiske, Kai Hansen)
Click to expand...
Actually adrian appears on the track “hunted“ as well. he plays the solo but no writing credits
 
Thank you, primalrockrebel67, I wasn't aware of it. If others want to hear it (in case they hadn't yet):
It starts at 3:05.
 
I remember getting the album back in the day (time flies!) just to hear the songs Adrian co-wrote and being pleasantly surprised with some of the other tunes. Interesting album. :)
 
I'm much more into those three songs than into the rest of the stuff he got involved to, both as a solo artist or a simple contributor. Kiske is a great singer, which helps.
 
I know this is a very old thread, but I came across it because I was looking for any info on the Kiske/Hansen/Smith collaboration.

I have to say, hearing the sounds of Kai and Smith's guitars together is really awesome. And with Kiske singing, it's a wonder why it wasn't more popular. It's too bad these three didn't form a band at that time, but I guess Kiske was too into soft rock at that point. But a band with those three, especially at that time, could have been huge.
 
NotePad said:
I know this is a very old thread, but I came across it because I was looking for any info on the Kiske/Hansen/Smith collaboration.

I have to say, hearing the sounds of Kai and Smith's guitars together is really awesome. And with Kiske singing, it's a wonder why it wasn't more popular. It's too bad these three didn't form a band at that time, but I guess Kiske was too into soft rock at that point. But a band with those three, especially at that time, could have been huge.
Click to expand...

Adrian was busy with Psycho Motel around that time (and shortly after that with Bruce) and Kai Hansen had plenty on his plate with Gamma Ray. I guess it was always meant to be a collaboration as guests that could raise Kiske's album visibility/commercial appeal.
 
But at the time it seems like it would have been a natural move for Kiske and Adrian at least to form a band. I think that could have been huge, don't you?
 
Kiske didn't want to play live during that time either, he was fed up with the whole metal scene from the end of the Chameleon album and tour to around 2001-2002, when he started to do some guest spots and the Supared album
 
''The Calling'' and especially ''New Horizons'' are good songs.

Great collaboration between Adrian, Kai and Kiske. Would have been great if they recorded a full album together.

Here's what Adrian says about the songs and Kiske:

credits: here

"I met Michael for the first time when I was still in Iron Maiden, we had a concert with Helloween in Spain and Portugal, we didn't talk so much in that moment but we share the same management office, we saw sometimes each other for example at the wedding party of our manager. I thought he was very energetic and earnest. As vocalist he can sing on key, steady technically. I suggested him to compose together. I have a few days-off for several months at that time. I may be able to contribute in the album. We talked on the phone and then he came to my house. I have my studio at home. We started to write and it worked nice from the beginning. It was delightful because if we were not compatible everything will be difficult. I was surprised when he played for me first, he played Wagner for me! When we were talked which direction we would go through, he said: "listen to this", and he played something at full volume, it was a Wagner Opera, he said: "I want to sing anything like this", so I thought that it will be certainly unique. He thought in using some stuff of Wagner and Elvis Presley... we didn't have a close idea for what kind of songs we would make, but I had one. It became 'The Calling'. I played many ideas for him with some tracks he said: "too normal", he expresses his opinion frankly in every moment. It's his good point, this songs will be releases on his solo album so he must do it how he likes. I think that kind of hard rock fits with his voice. I feel happy the song ended in the album and I'm proud of this work. For 'New Horizons' I flew to Hamburg. We tried to write songs but we got only two riffs which Michael said "too normal" so we did like a musical rally. I think this album has a huge variety of songs. Each song is different and it's nice. I think that 'New Horizons' is one of the ideas which we wrote then. I was sure that this would be good, I like it. I like a lot another song 'Hunted', it was not composed by me, but I played the guitar on it, also the solo with "wah-wah", we recorded not in a studio it was in a spooky farm house. It was in the middle of countryside in Germany, it was very cold, I think it was in February, we had to collect woods for fuel in the forest, and we had to warm ourselves at fire. There was a terrible messy but I enjoyed. Both are very powerful songs. I think this album is the best in whole Michael's career, he controlled everything and he said: "I don't care if it's a success or not, all I'll do is what I want to do" He is very artistic, he never take a look at the business side. But he leaves good music behind at last, so I collaborate with him. He has also a home studio and some good equipment. He understands how to work at studio and he is a great engineer. He can make good guitar sound and he recognizes what sound he wants to do. This is another of his good point, too."
 
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