Stuart Smith may be a name that many people are not familiar with however he is, quite simply, one of the best guitarists to come out of the UK over the past couple of decades. Influenced by the classics sounds of Richie Blackmore, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck he has released a couple of outstanding albums with his band heaven & Earth and worked with many of the most famous musicians in the rock scene. With a new DVD out, chronicling the making of the debut Heaven & Earth album HardRockHouse caught up with Stuart to find out more.

Hi Stuart, to kick things off, would care to introduce your self to  the readers of HardRockHouse.com?

SS - I was born in England in 1956, the son of an RAF jet fighter pilot and  was Classically trained on guitar from age 7. My first band that  turned professional was Sidewinder which toured England and Europe and  I went on to play with numerous other bands before moving to the  States in 1983 at the suggestion of  Ritchie Blackmore. Arriving in Long Island, I formed a band called Mirage which  just played the New York area before I briefly moved back to England in  1985.

In 1986 I moved permanently to Los Angeles where I joined the reformed Sweet with Steve Priest and went on to play with my own band Midnight whose name got changed, after many incarnations, to Heaven & Earth. In 1996 I formed the Aliens of Extraordinary Ability with Keith Emerson before recording the first Heaven & Earth album in 1997. Heaven & Earth released 2 albums before I formed my own record label, Black Star Records with long time drummer Richie Onori.

In 2004 we re-released the first Heaven & Earth album with 2 bonus tracks for release primarily in the States and we also signed Howard Leese, (Heart/Paul Rodgers) for a solo album which will be released later this year.

 We've also just released a "Making of Heaven & Earth" DVD about the making of the first CD which has interviews, live footage etc., with Howard Leese, Richie Sambora, Kelly Hansen, Keith Emerson, Joe Lynn Turner, Glenn Hughes, Bobby Kimball and many others and you can check it out on our main web page at  www.heavenandearthband.com

Stuart Smith

As a guitarist who influenced you as you were growing up and learning the instrument?

SS - The first band to turn me onto Rock & Roll was Deep Purple which I saw  when I was 14 years old. Obviously Ritchie Blackmore has been my main influence and teacher but my personal heroes and influences would also include, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Dave Gilmore, Eric Clapton, Albert King, Buddy Guy, Pink Floyd, Bryan Adams, Rainbow, Deep Purple, The Who, Aerosmith and many others.

Can you clear up some confusion for me please -  Are you the same Stuart Smith that tours with the Eagles as guitarist as several people have asked me the question since we posted the review of the DVD...

SS-  No, that's not me. He spells his name differently. It was funny because when he joined the Eagles, Don Henley announced it on MTV Europe and all of a sudden it was all over the internet that I'd joined the Eagles. You know, I never had so many friends and girls calling me up.

How did you meet up with and become friends with Ritchie Blackmore?

SS- After seeing Deep Purple the first time I attended a lot of their concerts. After one of them I was invited to a party the band were having and I first met Ritchie there. We got on very well and would meet up on many occasions when he came to England. When I moved out to Long Island in 1983 we spent a lot of time together as we had the same taste in music and many other interests in common.

Could tell us about the band Sidewinder and did you ever record any material?

SS - Sidewinder was my first band that turned professional and we were just  on the verge of breaking the band when the bass player Dave Birch and the drummer Paul Edwards broke the band up as they wanted to do a more punk kind of thing.  They called the band The Winders and very quickly vanished into obscurity.

I reformed Sidewinder in Birmingham with the surviving members of a band called Possessed which was involved in an horrific car accident in the 70's which killed most of the members. I recorded tracks with both line-ups.

I've heard that you toured as member of The Sweet, how did this come about and did you enjoy playing with them?

SS - When I first moved to Los Angeles I was introduced to Steve Priest by a friend called Mel Baister and we put the band together. It was a blast playing with the guys and a great experience.

Heaven & Earth grew from the band Aliens of Extraordinary Ability that features Keith Emerson. Was any material recorded and do you have any plans make anything available?

SS -The Aliens were an amazing band and we never recorded anything but we still get together from time to time to play at various events so you never know, we may get round to doing an album someday.

Whose idea was it to use different singers on your debut solo album?

SS -At the time I was offered the deal to record the album by Samsung, Richie Onori and I didn't have a full time band so I just called up my friends and asked them to sing various songs. I would have preferred a regular line up but in hindsight the album would probably not have got as much publicity as it did without all the names involved.

Looking back now do you have any particularly favourite tracks from that album?

SS -That's a difficult question to answer. I'm very proud of the whole album but I would have to say some of my favorites would be "Dreams of Desire" as I feel it's some of my best guitar playing I've ever done on record. "Don't Keep Me Waiting," "Heaven & Earth," "See That My Grave is Kept Clean," When A Blind Man Cries" and "Life on the Line" would also be amongst my favorites.

The Shadow of the Tyburn Tree, IMO is very much in the vein of Ritchie Blackmore's Blackmore's Night material. Would you agree and would you like to record a full album in this style?

SS -Yes, I would agree it's in the same vein. Ritchie Blackmore and I have always loved this style of music and used to play it together so it was natural for me to include some of it on the album. I don't see myself recording an albums worth of this style as I feel Ritchie has the market cornered in this style and I could never pull it off as well as he does. I'm sure I'll occasionally throw in the odd medieval sounding track here and there though just for fun.

The bands next album Windows to the World, features the vocals of Kelly Keeling. Why did you only have one vocalist and why did you decided upon Kelly Keeling?

SS - I've always preferred a band situation as opposed to a solo project which is why I dropped my name from the title. I'd run into Kelly over the years at various jam sessions in Los Angeles and he had a voice which fitted our style.

How would you categorize the differences between the Heaven & Earth album and Windows to the World album and are there any plans to re-issue this album as I've never heard it and found it impossible to find!

SS - I feel that the first Heaven & Earth album had a lot more of a blues feel to it whereas Windows to the World was more of a rock album. The next Heaven & Earth album will have a lot more of a Rock & Roll album and Yes, we will re-release Windows to the World at some stage.

Next up was the "Taste of Heaven" EP that featured Paul Shortino, however this was a short lived association, was this a deliberate move?

SS - We released the "Taste of Heaven" EP as we had an open air show to play to 40,000 people out here in Los Angeles and wanted to have something to sell which would introduce everybody to the band. We brought Paul Shortino in to play this show and a few others with us and although he has an incredible voice we felt he really wasn't making a real effort to be part of the band. He'd been in the band about 3 months and still hadn't learnt the songs. After we'd played a show at the House of Blues in Los Angeles and he turned up onstage with a music stand to sing the lyrics and still got them wrong it was just too much of an embarrassment for us so we had to part company with him. Also after he'd joined the band we were informed by him that he was managed by his wife and she turned out to be an absolute nightmare to work with as she was constantly blaming us for Paul's problems so thankfully we all went our separate ways.

That being the case, what is the current line up of the Heaven & Earth band?

Myself on guitar, Keith St. John on vocals, Richie Onori on drums and Joe Petro on bass.

Keith is obviously the feature vocalist on the new track on the DVD, "When the Stars Collide," how did you meet and have you heard the excellent Burning Rain CD's?

SS - Keith and I had ran into each other over the course of the years in Los Angeles and when we heard him sing we thought he'd be the ideal voice and frontman. I have heard some of the Burning Rain stuff and think it's incredible.

So how is working progress on the new album and when can we expect a release?

SS - We're in the process of writing now and should get round to recording the new album pretty soon so I think you can expect a new release later this year. I'm very happy with the new material and direction the bands taking. You can hear and see a new song being performed live at the Lake Havasu Rock Festival on our new DVD.

Talking of the DVD, whose idea was it to film the making of the album and are you happy with the way the DVD came out or are there any improvements/footage you would have liked to use?

SS - It was my idea to put together the "Making of Heaven & Earth" DVD. When Richie Sambora was in the studio I'd got him to play a track on
 Carmine Appice's "Guitar Zeus" album for him and while Richie was playing his parts Carmine had bought down a video photographer to film it. That gave me the idea to record as much of it as I could, really for posterity's sake but I'm glad I did now so we could put together this documentary. It's the first time I've done anything like this so I would have liked to have had better live footage to work with but overall I'm very happy with it.

Over the years uou've worked with some excellent musicians is there anyone you would still like to work with in the future?

SS - I've pretty much worked with everyone that I dreamed of as a kid but I'd love to work with either Jimmy Page or Roger Glover as a producer or do an album with someone like Jon Lord, Steven Tyler or even Christina Agulara as she has such an amazing voice.

In the UK Heaven & Earth played the Gods Festival in 99. What are your memories of the show and do you have a recording of the performance?

SS - It was pretty crazy as Frontiers, our record company at the time only flew Kelly Hansen and I out for the show and Richie Onori flew out under his own steam so we had to rehearse with new musicians for a couple of days before the event which didn't make things the most comfortable but it came off well. You know though I don't know weather it was recorded or not.

Do you actually get to play that much live in the US these days?

 SS - We play quite a bit and plan to do a few festivals out here this year.

So what's next for Stuart Smith?

SS - Right now I'm in the middle of doing all the promotion, interviews,  etc., for the DVD and writing for the next Heaven & Earth album. I'm also producing a girl singer called Tiffany Madadian and organizing a benefit concert for the Los Angeles Police Department Memorial Foundation, (Check out www.lapmf.org ) which we'll be playing at along with Paul Rodgers on June 13th at The Avalon in Hollywood. I'm also running our record company, Black Star Records and at some stage I'd like to get down to recording the new album as well.

And finally, the standard HardRockHouse question. Is there anything further you would like to mention that we haven't covered so far?

 No, I think you've covered it. Thank you.

Many thanks to Stuart for taking the time to speak with HardRockHouse. You can find out more about the band and their new DVD by visiting Stuart's website at www.heavenandearthband.com