{"id":69534,"date":"2021-09-25T14:47:26","date_gmt":"2021-09-25T19:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=69534"},"modified":"2021-09-30T04:33:19","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T09:33:19","slug":"interview-with-stuart-smith-of-heaven-and-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2021\/interview-with-stuart-smith-of-heaven-and-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuart Smith of Heaven & Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Alexandra Mrozowska
\u2014 Senior Columnist \u2014<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It would be difficult \u2013 and frightening \u2013 to imagine ourselves how the music industry would have functioned throughout 2020 and the first half of 2021 if it hadn\u2019t been for remote recording. Some artists utilized this way of working way beyond the pandemic, whereas others recognized it as necessary evil once it became virtually impossible to work together in person. Still, it\u2019s how the vast majority of 2020 and 2021 releases were made \u2013 including Heaven & Earth\u2019s new album V<\/em>. Once again, Hardrock Haven caught up with the group\u2019s mastermind Stuart Smith to discuss the creative process behind the album, pros and cons of working remotely with what is now an international band line-up, influences, the current situation with touring in the US and beyond \u2013 and much more…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hardrock Haven: The last time Heaven & Earth was interviewed for Hardrock Haven, was when Hard To Kill <\/em>came out via Quarto Valley Records. The upcoming album V <\/em>marks your switch to Frontiers Music SRL \u2013 or maybe even more of a return, actually, since I believe Windows To The World <\/em>were released on Frontiers as well back in the early 2000s. What are the reasons for switching back to Frontiers and are you happy with the decision?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Yeah. I think it sort of came to an end with Quarto Valley Records \u2013 the guy in charge was really a good guy, but he was just surrounded by a lot of people that were very incompetent, and it came to an end with that. And Frontiers offered us a deal, and we know they really know what they\u2019re doing when it comes to promoting this sort of music, so Lynn [Sorensen, Heaven & Earth\u2019s bassist and background singer] and I decided to go with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Some say that you don\u2019t need a record label backing that much these days because of many opportunities for artists to release their music independently. What\u2019s your opinion about that and why the label support still counts for Heaven & Earth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Well, if you\u2019ve got nothing else to do apart from just promote on social media and everything else, you can sort of make it work that way. But when you don\u2019t have the time to do that, as well as play and everything else… I did all of that \u2013 I did the managing, booking and playing with various bands and Heaven & Earth. And it just gets too much. So having the record company take that side of it [is a good solution]. Also, they have their physical distribution networks… And especially with Frontiers, they know what they\u2019re doing in this genre of music as it\u2019s all they do. So they\u2019re well-established and they do a lot more than you\u2019d probably do on your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Do you think there will come a time when any record label backing is completely obsolete, a thing  of a past really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: No, I think they\u2019ll always be there because there\u2019s always artists that need that. I mean, there\u2019s some people that have a whole team in place and maybe don\u2019t need the record label, but there will always be people who do, like myself. I mean, I don\u2019t have the time to concentrate on just promoting Heaven & Earth and play and create and tour as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Another important difference when it comes to Heaven & Earth A.D. 2021 is yet another line-up change in the band\u2019s camp. What do you think each new member of the band brought into V<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: I think Gianluca [Petralia, Heaven & Earth\u2019s lead singer] brings a more youthful sound to the band, and it\u2019s a bit more raw than it was before. And with George [Barabas], our keyboard player who\u2019s based in Hungary \u2013 he\u2019s added a lot of fire to it in his playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: So with this line-up change, Heaven & Earth have become an international band in the strict sense of the word…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Well, it certainly brought some challenges when it came to recording which Lynn had to deal with because we\u2019ve never got together with our keyboard player and our singer. So we\u2019d basically write the songs and we\u2019d send them to him and Lynn would have the unenviable task of putting it all together. But yeah, I think we got a much more European flavor to the band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Once it was clear there\u2019s going to be another line-up change in Heaven & Earth, have you considered switching back to an all-star line-up the first Heaven & Earth album had, or was maintaining a band situation a priority?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Lynn and I did discuss it. We did discuss the idea of something like having Steven Tyler sing a track, and all these various people. But the problem was that with the first album, some people thought we were would tour \u2013 or they wanted us to tour \u2013 with all the people involved in it. And I said, if you pay them like a million dollars a gig, you\u2019ll probably get them… You know, that wasn\u2019t sort of viable. We had to pick just one singer to go out and tour. And there\u2019s people always comparing… I think with Heaven & Earth, after the first album we\u2019ve established ourselves as a band. I dropped my name from the title [as it was previously named Heaven & Earth featuring Stuart Smith] so it was a band situation… We did throw around the idea of having lots of guests on it [the album] and everything, but we sort of really wanted a band which has a more cohesive sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: In what circumstances did the new band members join Heaven & Earth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: With Gianluca, somebody recommended I check out his videos on Instagram and I thought, \u201cOh, this guy\u2019s great.\u201d So we reached out to him and he was really excited \u2013 he knew of Heaven & Earth and was a big fan. And as far as George, our keyboard player, is concerned \u2013 I discovered him because, again, we\u2019re friends on Instagram and he had covered actually two tracks of Heaven & Earth… really hard ones. [One was] \u201cDreams Of Desire\u201d off the first one in which he covered the keyboard part, and off the last one that Lynn and I did \u2013 that was Hard To Kill <\/em>\u2013 he did a solo from a title track, \u201cHard To Kill.\u201d And he just blew us away! So we reached out to him and he was like a huge fan of the band \u2013 we were his favorite band… He couldn\u2019t believe it, and I think he didn\u2019t believe who I was at first (laughs). As I say, Lynn had to sort of deal with the fact that we were all in different countries, but I know working with George was just a breath of fresh air. He came up with a lot of interesting things. And of course, with Gianluca Lynn was just going back and forth as he\u2019s a singer as well \u2013 he was great at producing the two of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: You\u2019ve just mentioned the Instagram connections. Frequent line-up changes in the band\u2019s camp may be seen as disappointment for some fans \u2013 and it\u2019s social media indeed that it\u2019s the most visible at. How do you deal with the potential criticism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: I don\u2019t really pay attention to it. I mean, I\u2019m way past the stage where I pay attention when somebody says something negative \u2013 or something good. If someone says something good, it\u2019s nice, but that\u2019s it. I just do what I do as far as playing the guitar and the way I write [is concerned]. That\u2019s why I haven\u2019t really deviated from the style that I have had since I began playing music. And so, if people like it \u2013 great, but if they don\u2019t, that\u2019s fine as well. Obviously, you\u2019re gonna get a lot of people who say, \u201cWhere\u2019s the last singer…? I liked him!,\u201d but they don\u2019t have to deal with the personalities… and Lynn and I decided that there was people we did wanna deal with and people we didn\u2019t wanna deal with. So we move on and it also creates a fresh sound. Ideally, we would love a situation that all the players that we have would be there for every album. But the problem is, people who do music for a living have to survive by doing that. If you\u2019re not working \u2013 if you\u2019ve done an album and there\u2019s no tour \u2013 then they move on to other projects. That being said, the fans out there don\u2019t understand that side of it. Artists have to make a living and if we\u2019re not touring, they do something else and if that takes off, they go off with that. So until you actually have a breakthrough of some kind, which is very hard in this day and age for this sort of music we\u2019re playing, doing an album you\u2019re gonna have to find people that are available \u2013 and also the people that come up to the standard of musicianship you want. So we do what we do, and as I say \u2013 if fans like it, that\u2019s great. If they don\u2019t, that\u2019s great as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: That\u2019s it for the fans, but do you still read the reviews \u2013 are you interested in what reviewers want to say about the new Heaven & Earth album?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Yeah, obviously I read the reviews and people always make me aware of them and the record company\u2019s publicists make me aware of them. And all the reviews have been good (laughs), so… Obviously, with Frontiers we didn\u2019t have that sort of budget we had before, but with the time frame we had, by the time we got all the members, we were seriously up against the deadline for a contract. And Frontiers were good enough to give us an extension on that. But again, when we finally got the members, we had to write and create and everything else… So it was a challenge to get the thing finished on time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Speaking about that \u2013 Gianluca, the band\u2019s new singer, described the songwriting process as \u201cimpulsive,\u201d also indicating that it took as little as five months to complete the material. How do you think the pace influenced the process of making the album?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Well, it was a tough process for Lynn, because he was the one who was producing and recording it. Gianluca\u2019s right \u2013 it was very impulsive and I think it\u2019s good like that. You\u2019re basically up against the wall and you have to come up with things. I mean, it\u2019s a much more raw album than the previous albums, because it had to be. We had to sort of say, \u201cWell, we can\u2019t spend forever on this.\u201d And the process of writing was [that] I generally come up with a riff and myself, Lynn and Simon Wright [Heaven & Earth\u2019s drummer] were in my living room. Simon was on electronic drums and Lynn had his bass plugged into the computer, and I would have my amplifier in my office, and running a cable to it. So I would play a riff, and the guys would join in and we\u2019d just take it where it when. We\u2019d start jamming on the riff, and somebody would say, \u201cOh, they just go somewhere\u201d and we\u2019d follow it. And eventually, when a song is played twenty or thirty times, it takes a life of its own \u2013 it\u2019s developed. And then what we did is we went into the Total Access Studios in Redondo Beach with Wyn Davis and we replaced Simon\u2019s electronic drums with real drums. Then Lynn sent the tracks to Gianluca and George and had them put on their things. That went back a few times \u2013 back and forth \u2013 because Lynn and Gianluca, both being singers, they worked it out. Then Lynn sent it to me, and I\u2019d say, \u201cOh, let\u2019s change that, let\u2019s change that…\u201d So that was sort of the writing process. But a song like \u201cShip of Fools,\u201d I wrote it when I was about nineteen as a demo for an album. I\u2019ve always thought it was a good song, but it never got included [on the album]. But I thought it was good, so we kept the title and Gianluca wrote a whole new set of lyrics… the song, though, is pretty much the same as it was when I first wrote it at nineteen. Apart from that, with the rest of them we really came up with the new ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: With remote recording now more common than ever, do you think it will replace the traditional recording entirely?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Well, people have done it for quite a while. I mean, it\u2019s not the ideal situation, but when you have your singer in Italy and your keyboard player in Hungary, it\u2019s really the only way to go. There\u2019s a lot of people that do it \u2013 but it\u2019s not the ideal situation because one of the great things about this between Simon, Lynn and I, we have that sort of synergy between the musicians when you\u2019re looking each other in the eye and you just know \u2013 you get that communication. When you don\u2019t have the whole band there, you miss that side of it and it\u2019s not what we ideally would want. We\u2019d love to all be in the same place and have three or four months to really hash out the songs all together and then go to the studio and play them down, but with coronavirus and just not having the budget to fly everybody over, that\u2019s how we had to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Just a while ago we\u2019ve mentioned the first Heaven & Earth album full of different artists sharing their talents, and also follow-ups to it featured some notable guest performances. As far as I know, there are no guest musicians on V<\/em>, so that\u2019s yet another change… Was it prompted by the pandemic restrictions mostly, or perhaps it was more of a deliberate move, so as to move away from the all-star formula?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: You know \u2013 it\u2019s never really been a case of an all-star formula. It\u2019s just that every time Heaven & Earth would play acoustic guitars on a track, Howard Leese [ex-Heart, The Paul Rodgers Band, Bad Company] and I would sort of always play it together. Howard would come over, and I would give him the 12-string [guitar] \u2018cause when you\u2019re recording for five hours on a 12-string, it hurts \u2013 so I gave it to Howard to play and I\u2019d play the 6-string. But with this one, we\u2019ve had the pandemic. And again, on Dig <\/em>[2013] we had Richie Sambora [solo, ex-Bon Jovi]. As you know, Richie is my ex-brother-in-law, so we always remained good friends and he\u2019s just such an amazing addition to the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Absolutely!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: I mean, when we did \u201cMan & Machine\u201d [a track off Dig<\/em>]… He sort of made that talk box sound famous with Bon Jovi in \u201cLivin\u2019 On A Prayer\u201d and everything, so I just wanted him to come and play some talk box, but he also played some slide on this and the guitar… And he\u2019s just an amazing, connected musician. He really connects to the music so well. What\u2019s more, on Dig <\/em>we\u2019ve also had David Paich [ex-Toto] on \u201cI Don\u2019t Know What Love Is.\u201d You know, David\u2019s been a good friend for years, but I\u2019ve always loved his orchestration and so we\u2019ve just brought him in for that. Again, this time we didn\u2019t really need anybody else \u2013 a lot of that was down to the whole COVID situation. Everybody\u2019s older now and at risk and there really weren\u2019t vaccines available, so we\u2019ve just worked between ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Can you take us through the new album track by track and share stories behind the songs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Yeah. Let\u2019s see \u2013 the first one, \u201cDrive\u201d, was basically made when I put some new strings on the guitar and I was just stretching them out so that it wouldn\u2019t get out of tune \u2013 and Lynn and Simon started just playing this groove. And I just picked up the guitar and just did what came naturally, and that\u2019s how that song\u2019s developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second one, \u201cBeautiful\u201d, was actually a song we wrote when we had Joe Retta [a former Heaven & Earth singer] and we were planning writing tracks for another album \u2013 which would have been this album \u2013 and we thought that was a good song, so we just added it to the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever Dream Of Dying\u201d was a song that was originally written to try and get it included in a new Bond movie. I\u2019ve heard from someone in the Eon corporation that the title was going to be \u201cNever Dream Of Dying\u201d \u2013 they changed it into \u201cNo Time To Die.\u201d But we knew that if we got it, they\u2019d probably have someone fashionable singing it, like Lady Gaga or some nonsense like that. We knew that probably wouldn\u2019t be us \u2013 but at least we\u2019d have the track in the movie, which could\u2019ve sort of broken the band. Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t get picked \u2013 I don\u2019t know what they used \u2018cause the movie doesn\u2019t come out until the next month. It\u2019s a shame, you know, but I think that\u2019s one of the most interesting tracks on the album and a departure from what we normally do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShip Of Fools\u201d, as I explained earlier, was the one I wrote when I was nineteen and we\u2019ve just revamped it for the new album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With \u201cPoverty\u201d, I was driving through L.A. and I took the wrong turn and I got diverted through skid row. And I was just appalled at the amount of the homeless there \u2013 there was families, I mean, kids… they\u2019ve just lost their houses… I just thought, \u201cHow did we become so unfeeling about our fellow men?\u201d and that\u2019s really what inspired me to write that song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFlim Flam Man\u201d was a song written by somebody who was involved in the last record company. Basically, he got himself in there because the head of the record company had a lot of money which he ended up conning him out of. It was really written about him. But there\u2019s plenty of people like that in the music business, which is one of the reasons why things didn\u2019t pan out any further with Quarto Valley Records, with people that were sort of leeching onto Bruce Quarto [QVR President and Founder] to get a living and sort of badmouthing the rest of us… But you know, from the moment the music business began there were people that would just try to get what they can out of it without doing any real work to make a band successful \u2013 which they could have done if they actually did that as opposed to just trying to con money out of people. And \u201cflim flam man\u201d is a term that\u2019s used in England for someone who\u2019s a con merchant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne In A Million Men\u201d was written about a friend of mine called Taran Butler. He\u2019s probably one of the best shooters in the world and he teaches people like Keanu Reeves how to shoot for the John Wick movies and this kind of thing. And I was just so blown away of how good he was that we came up with a song about him called \u201cOne In A Million Men.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For \u201cLittle Black Dress\u201d, I saw some kind of slogan that said, \u201cEvery girl needs her little black dress\u201d. I thought, \u201cNo one\u2019s actually written a song about this,\u201d and I had that sort of slink kind of groove to it. And originally, I thought it\u2019d be great for Steven Tyler to sing if we did an all-star guest thing. So that\u2019s where it came from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBig Money Little Man\u201d \u2013 again, pretty self-explanatory. And again, [it\u2019s about] people in the music business like that… I\u2019m very happy with that track as far as the guitar solo goes. I think that\u2019s a bit of departure from what I normally do and it\u2019s something that I always wanted to do \u2013 very open, spacey, bluesy feeling at the beginning and then building it up and building it up…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRunning From The Shadows\u201d was the first song that we wrote, I think. I\u2019ve just had the riff and we had no idea what it\u2019s going to be about. We sent it to Gianluca, who came up with the lyrics for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing To Me\u201d was one of the last tracks that we wrote and again, we were sort of right up against the gun when we did this. The lyrics were sort of thrown together, but they work (laughs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with the final one, \u201cAt The End Of The Day\u201d, we thought that even though it\u2019s not a ballad, it\u2019s going to be a great way to close out the album \u2013 just to say \u201cgoodbye\u201d at the end of the album. And the words sort of reflect that; it\u2019s about life in general. You start off and then at the end of the day \u2013 at the end of your life \u2013 the curtains close and it\u2019s like a play; the curtain closes and the music starts to play. So, that was that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: As you\u2019ve mentioned a couple of times, \u201cShip Of Fools\u201d was a song from your vault of song ideas. How often does it happen for you to recycle such ideas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: That\u2019s happened a few times. I mean, on the Dig <\/em>album there was [a song called] \u201cI Don\u2019t Know What Love Is.\u201d I came up with that title \u2013 and I thought it was a great one \u2013 but I didn\u2019t have the music I thought was worthy of that title. I thought, \u201cIf we\u2019re gonna do this, it has to be amazing song,\u201d and then I came up with the music and that sort of worked from there. On the Hard To Kill <\/em>album, the actual title track \u201cHard To Kill\u201d was one that I wrote, again, when I was about nineteen. It was originally called \u201cFool\u2019s Gold\u201d and I wrote that with John Elstar who used to sing in one of my first bands. We wrote the one and I thought the riff was great, but we wanted to update the lyrics. That\u2019s how \u201cHard To Kill\u201d came about… So it\u2019s not sort of unusual \u2013 this happens \u2018cause you ideas that you think are good, but they just don\u2019t work at the time. And then when you\u2019re doing something, you go, \u201cOh, this would be really good.\u201d And generally what happens is that I sit at home watching TV and I have my electric guitar plugged in \u2013 or my acoustic \u2013 and I\u2019d just be playing along with the music on the TV \u2013 in a movie or something… Then I\u2019d go, \u201cOh, that\u2019s good,\u201d so I\u2019ll get my iPhone out and I\u2019ll record like a minute of me playing it. And then [it\u2019s for] when the band gets together \u2013 that\u2019s how we did this album \u2013 I\u2019d play them a riff and they go, \u201cMeh,\u201d I\u2019d play another one, \u201cYeah, so-so\u201d and I\u2019d play another one and they go, \u201cThat\u2019s great!\u201d So then I\u2019d start playing that riff, the rest can join in and that\u2019s how the song comes together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: You\u2019ve also mentioned the Bond movie inspiration in \u201cNever Dream Of Dying\u201d. So, how often does it happen for you as songwriters to draw inspiration from anything other than your own experience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Oh, a lot. That happens quite a lot. I mean, if I\u2019m reading a book, that might give me inspiration. And sometimes you get inspiration from life, like I said about \u201cPoverty\u201d when I was driving through skid row area. And for the first [Heaven & Earth] album, we did a song which actually we wrote originally for when I had Aliens Of Extraordinary Ability together with Keith Emerson \u2013 we wrote a song called \u201cThe Eyes Of Man.\u201d And that came about from watching a movie about a woman who was accused to be a witch \u2013 she wasn\u2019t, she was just a healer \u2013 and we talk about times when women were burnt at the stake because they were considered witches… Monty Python actually did a funny take on that (laughs). But when the judges are questioning the character, they say, \u201cYou\u2019re guilty in the eyes of God,\u201d and she says, \u201cNo, I\u2019m guilty in the eyes of man.\u201d I thought that was a very profound statement and that\u2019s where this title came from. So, movies and books and life in general \u2013 you take your influences from something that moves you, one way or the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: You\u2019ve been quoted as describing V<\/em> in terms of the \u201charder edge\u201d to it, and also you\u2019ve just mentioned you\u2019re happy how different some of the guitar parts were on the new album. So in spite of having your music targeted at the fans of Rainbow, Bad Company and so on, were your inspirations for it any different than before then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Obviously when you grow, you hear things that inspire you. You sort of take parts of that and try to make it your own. As I said, when we\u2019re writing a song, we play it twenty to thirty times just from when we initially start jamming it to when the song is completed and then Lynn said, \u201cWell, all right, we\u2019re going for a take.\u201d I knew that all we really were concerned about was getting the drums done. Lynn was going to replace his bass later on that evening when Simon went home \u2013 he replaced his bass and then he\u2019d have me redo the guitars, because I was in sort of a writing mode and was just playing whatever came to my head. But by the time we got round to recording it, I was pretty bored with just playing the rhythm parts, so I stuck a solo on there, just for the fun of it. And like I said, Simon went home at the end of the day and Lynn had me re-do the rhythm guitars and I said, \u201cAll right, I\u2019m ready to do a solo.\u201d And he said, \u201cNo, you\u2019re done.\u201d And I said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not done!\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cHave you listened to what you did…?\u201d Ninety per cent of the solos that I did on this were just the first take, they were just what came off the top of my head. And it\u2019s really better and more creative that way, because after you\u2019ve done a solo, after seven or six tries, you\u2019ve sort of lost the impetus. So the solos are the cleanest that I\u2019ve ever done, but I guess some of the more stylish and more exciting because of the fact that we were up against the time, but also because of the way Lynn worked. Because at first, I\u2019ve said to Lynn a couple of times, \u201cNo. no, I can do better,\u201d so he\u2019d give me another track and I couldn\u2019t. I couldn\u2019t do better than the thing that came off the top of my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Still, do you think it would have been possible to completely leave all your influences behind and do something that is drastically different from all the things people could expect from you, or associate you with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Well, the furthest away from anything we\u2019ve done before is \u201cNever Dream Of Dying.\u201d It\u2019s just very different from the usual style, but I\u2019m always happy to do it if the mood takes us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Speaking about associations, Heaven & Earth is a kind of brand now musically, and as there are more bands in the same vein, it\u2019s incredible that the \u201870s-flavored Hard Rock music is still there after so many years. What do you think is so special about it that makes it still popular \u2013 do you think it\u2019s only nostalgia factor, or maybe something more than that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: I think music runs in cycles. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really come back to the Rock thing properly. We\u2019re stuck in this Rap and rubbish like that, and Pop music which forced everything \u2013 every other style of music \u2013 into the background. So you\u2019ll always have the fanbase there, and then you have kids who grow up with their parents listening to [Rock]. But the music of the \u201870s… the musicianship was great, and the creativity… You didn\u2019t have Pro-Tools and all this, so once you went into the studio you had to be able to do it for real. You couldn\u2019t have a computer or Auto-Tune or anything \u2013 you had to get it right. So the musicianship level was a lot higher than it is today and also, I think, the songwriting. Now you\u2019ve got some singers singing one line throughout the whole song to a computer beat and that becomes a hit, which is \u2013 to my mind \u2013 ridiculous. But we have the kids whose parents were listening to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd, and things like that as these kids were growing up. And then, when they started to listen to outside music and probably got involved in playing some musical instrument, they go, \u201cWell, this is rubbish!\u201d And they start again listening to the early \u201870s style of music. So there\u2019s always an audience out there. Whether it would actually become big enough to be at the very top again, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s down to the younger generation, I think, somebody that can really come to the top. And record companies are like sheep. It was like when Alternative happened and there was Nirvana, all the record companies were desperate to sign up anyone who\u2019d tie a lumberjacket shirt around their waist and play badly and just shout at the top of their lungs, so… I would just say \u2013 \u201cAlternative to what…? To having talent?\u201d You know, the record companies would jump on that. So if you get some young band in their teens… I mean, look at Deep Purple\u2019s In Rock<\/em>. They did that in their twenties. In their twenties, they were playing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. You don\u2019t have musicians like that nowadays. So eventually, when one comes out \u2013 a band that\u2019s all virtuosos, someone like Deep Purple was \u2013 and it becomes successful, record companies then want to sign up every single band that sounds like that. So I live in hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Absolutely, let\u2019s keep our fingers crossed for the young to take over. So, Heaven & Earth\u2019s bassist Lynn has been quoted as saying in one of his interviews that \u201cthe emotional artistic expression of freedom with those expressions are infinitely greater with rock music than in classical.\u201d And as you\u2019ve both been classically trained, do you agree with Lynn and think indeed that after so many decades, there\u2019s still more place for freedom and individuality and perhaps even evolution in Rock than in the classical music sphere?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Oh yeah. I love the fact that Lynn and I were classically trained as it gives you the basic technique, so you don\u2019t have the limitations like someone who\u2019s just self-taught. And I think [in Rock] you\u2019re not bound by the restrictions of classical music \u2013 although I never was. When I was playing classical, I\u2019d play a piece of Bach music or something and at the end of the piece, I\u2019d do a bluesy ending to it. And the classical teacher would always say, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think Beethoven or Bach would have approved of that\u201d \u2013 but how do you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: And obviously we\u2019ve talked inspirations, but there\u2019s also the experience factor. Most Heaven & Earth fans know about your association with Ritchie Blackmore and Keith Emerson and your tenure in the Sweet, your bandmates\u2019 resumes being just as rich as yours. How do you think all you\u2019ve learnt along the way and all the influences of people you\u2019ve been working with translate into Heaven & Earth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Certainly my classical upbringing gave me my technique. When it comes to what turned me on to Rock… My father was a jet fighter pilot in Royal Air Force and one day one of my father\u2019s friends, another jet fighter pilot, said he had a spare ticket to a Rock concert and if I want to go. I was just a typical classical snob and I said, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t wanna hear Rock music,\u201d but dad said, \u201cGo on, give us some peace.\u201d So I went along to this concert and I was pretty bored all day \u2018cause I didn\u2019t get the artistic expression \u2013 for me, it was all about technique. So I was watching these guitarists right at the front and thinking \u2013 \u201cWell, I can do that!\u201d And probably I could \u2013 probably not with a feel [they had], but I knew how they were doing it. And then they announced the last act, which was Deep Purple, and suddenly this guy dressed in black comes running to the front just tearing off these amazing classical runs with so much emotion… That just blew my mind, and turned me on to Rock music. When I was nineteen, I met Ritchie and I was lucky enough to become best friends with him. We\u2019d go on holiday together and every Christmas I\u2019d fly out and spend that with him. Because I was so in aura of him \u2013 even when we were friends \u2013 as a musician, everything he said to me as far as the guitar playing [is concerned], I would take as Gospel because he\u2019s Ritchie Blackmore. I\u2019m still a fan, even though we\u2019re best friends, which is kind of weird (laughs) \u2013 having dinner and looking across the table and going, \u201cHoly shit, I have dinner with Ritchie Blackmore!\u201d And he was very patient with me. So with him, that was a huge influence on me because I grew up having posters on my wall of him. And then, playing with Keith Emerson of course was an amazing experience. He was such a talented [musician] and a great guy \u2013 we were good friends, so I really feel the loss… But we\u2019ve had a great musical relationship as well, so playing with him was just a great experience. And even the times with Sweet… I mean, when I first came to L.A. back in \u201986, [the Sweet original bassist] Steve Priest and I worked on getting Sweet back together back then. And then, we tried again in the early \u201890s, but it wasn\u2019t until 2005 that we got it together and it worked and people were interested in hearing it \u2013 maybe because of the nostalgia thing… It was a fun band. It wasn\u2019t as serious as the other [bands of the era]. Sweet was the borderline Pop music, but with pretty good musicians, so it was a lot of fun playing that material. And you bring your influences from everything you do, as I did from my classical training to playing with Ritchie Blackmore on acoustic guitars and jamming together and playing with Keith Emerson and Sweet… You take your influences from everything and it all comes together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: So what are your plans now? The album being out since a couple of months already, what\u2019s the future for Heaven & Earth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Well, we\u2019d like to tour. The problem with Heaven & Earth is, as far as America goes, it\u2019s virtually impossible to break a new band in America, because you have Live Nation controlling everything. And what they do is they put these tours together and they\u2019re killing the genre of Classic Rock. It\u2019s because there\u2019s no radio to keep it alive, because the Classic Rock radio plays the same two hundred songs rotated ad nauseam because some consultant told them that\u2019s what people of that age want to hear. That\u2019s utter rubbish. Everyone I\u2019ve spoken to would like to hear some new stuff, but they won\u2019t even play anything new by Aerosmith or the Stones, let alone us. And then you\u2019ve got Live Nation, which is the main culprit in this, because they put together these tours of Journey, Foreigner and Styx. Or Foreigner, Heart and Night Ranger. Once you\u2019ve got Foreigner and Heart on the bill, you don\u2019t need Night Ranger. And that\u2019s nothing against the guys in Night Ranger, it\u2019s just you don\u2019t need the third act of the same genre who already established themselves. If they had any brains, they\u2019d be seeding things for the future and maybe putting someone like Sons Of Apollo or us… There\u2019s plenty of bands out there doing what we do. And if they put us on opening up when we didn\u2019t have to pay 200 000 dollars to get on the tour \u2013 if they put a band like us, or someone like Sons Of Apollo \u2013 and we go out opening for these bands, by the time you do one tour or two tours you can move them up in a chain, to the second one of the bill and then, eventually, to the point of headlining. But it\u2019s all down to [playing] live \u2013 you can\u2019t make money selling albums now, so it\u2019s all down to live performances. But they don\u2019t do that. They just put the same old tired line-ups together, and eventually the people of these bands are gonna die off \u2013 retire \u2013 but they won\u2019t have seeded the ground for new bands to take their place. So that\u2019s a huge mismanagement \u2013 very short-sighted \u2013 on behalf of Live Nation. In Europe, we\u2019ve got a problem with COVID and we can\u2019t survive just going out there and playing clubs \u2018cause you\u2019ve got plane flights, hotels, road crew, road manager, band wages… you\u2019ve got all this money you\u2019ve got to lay out. And to survive, you have to have festivals \u2013 you have to play festivals on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then maybe take Monday off and play clubs the rest of the week to actually make it financially viable to do it at all. But now the problem is the festivals are opening up and then they\u2019re closing down again because of COVID. And when the promoters have to spend maybe a million dollar in advance money for the bands \u2013 you know, one or two million for the bands to headline the festival \u2013 and then the festival closes down, they have to pay the one third in advance and they lose that… they\u2019re reluctant to put that sort of commitment into festivals and now you\u2019ve got insurance on top of that and it\u2019s just becoming a nightmare. And the problem for us is that we don\u2019t know what the future brings \u2013 we\u2019ve had some festivals reach out to us and then they said, \u201cSorry, it\u2019s not happening now.\u201d So until the festivals are really back to what they used to be, when you had one every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we can\u2019t afford to come out to Europe. And for the reasons I\u2019ve stated before with Live Nation, we can\u2019t tour in the States. Well, unless we just wanna fly our singer over and fly our keyboard player over and get in a van and go… You know, we\u2019re all too old for sleeping in a van or motels. We need a decent hotel and so you can\u2019t afford to do that just playing clubs \u2013 and it\u2019s impossible to get on the big tour. So it\u2019s a grim situation until things go back to how they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Absolutely… So before we wrap it up, what do you think caused this situation within the US which is obviously a cradle of Rock music? What happened and when did it happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart Smith: Back in the day, the band would say, \u201cHey, we want this band [to open for us].\u201d Like we played in South America with Sweet [in 2011] \u2013 we opened up for Journey. And the promoter was a friend of mine, and I just called him up and said, \u201cHey, what tours have you got going out that we could go on?\u201d He said, \u201cWell look, I\u2019ve got Journey coming on. Let me talk to them.\u201d He talked to the manager, who wanted to talk to me, and we chatted for a while, I sent him Live in America <\/em>album [released in 2009]. And when the guys were rehearsing, he went, \u201cHey, how do you feel about Sweet opening up for you?\u201d And they said, \u201cGreat, we love the band!\u201d So that\u2019s all it took \u2013 but that was South America. Over here, if Journey said, \u201cHey, we want this band opening up,\u201d Live Nation who would handle the tour would reply, \u201cOh yeah \u2013 if they can pay ten thousand dollars a night, they can open up.\u201d So I don\u2019t know how it started, this whole \u201cpay-to-play\u201d thing… and these people who call themselves promoters and say, \u201cHey, I want you on this thing and you have to buy a hundred tickets and you\u2019ve got to sell them.\u201d I never did that. I\u2019ve always said, \u201cMy job is to play guitar. You\u2019re telling everyone you’re a promoter, so go on, promote it.\u201d They expect us to do the work and they got away with it. In England there was a place called The Marquee Club, which was a great place for Rock, and they started that. And all the musicians got together and said, \u201cHey, we\u2019re not playing here.\u201d So eventually they stopped that. But over here there\u2019s a much more mercenary attitude, where if you say, \u201cWell, I\u2019m not doing that,\u201d there will be twenty people behind you who\u2019d say, \u201cHey, I will.\u201d So Live Nation is basically a cold corporate entity and rightful stupidity because they\u2019re killing the genre that\u2019s making them the most money. Classic Rock bands far outsell Rap artists live at this kind of thing. But as I\u2019ve said, they\u2019re not seeding the ground for the new artists, so when these artists do retrire \u2013 which a lot of them are starting to do \u2013 or die off, there\u2019s gonna be no more Classic Rock because they haven\u2019t made it happen and they very easily could. But that\u2019s just my take on it. I mean, when it started happening or how it started happening, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s one of these slow things where they got bands to \u00a0sign contracts with them for a tour and they have to sort of go along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: And that\u2019s absolutely crazy. Well, we here at Hardrock Haven are keeping our fingers crossed for the touring situation to resolve \u2013 and for now, check out Heaven & Earth\u2019s V<\/em>!

Visit Heaven & Earth online: Official Site<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Instagram<\/a>

Heaven & Earth – \u201cDrive\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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