“Stuart Smith was born in York, England and was classically trained on guitar from the age of 7. He was mentored by Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and played with Steve Priest of Sweet in the late ’80s. Smith joined Keith Emerson’s band The Aliens of Extraordinary Ability, before forming his own band Heaven & Earth in 1997. In 1998 Smith released a critically acclaimed album called "Heaven & Earth featuring Stuart Smith" with guest appearances by Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi), Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), Joe Lynn Turner (Rainbow), Kelly Hansen (Hurricane/Foreigner), Carmine Appice (Rod Stewart/Jeff Beck/Vanilla Fudge), Bobby Kimball (Toto) and Priest. In 2004, the album won “Best Overall Album of the Year” at the Los Angeles All Access Music Awards and Stuart won the “Best Guitarist” award, a feat he repeated the following year. After touring with Heaven & Earth for a few years Smith put the band on hiatus in January this year to reform Sweet with former bandmate Steve Priest, taking longtime drummer Richie Onori along with him. Sweet have just completed a successful summer tour playing to over 200,000 people throughout Canada and the States and are currently working on a new album before resuming touring in the New Year.”
With the band Heaven & Earth on hiatus, award-winning guitarist Stuart Smith has found a “Sweeter” way to take his music career these days. AAM was lucky to catch up with Stuart. While he was flying somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, we got him to shed some light on a few unanswered questions for us.
AAM: So where can our readers find the talented Stuart Smith hanging out these days, and how did this all come about?
Stuart Smith: Most of the time I’m either in the air traveling, waiting ’round at airports, or packing for the next leg of the tour. It’s funny because when my old singer Kelly Hansen joined Foreigner, he’d always be complaining about how little time he had to himself and I’d be saying, “‘Oh waaaaaaah, I’m in Foreigner’ – Shut the hell up.” But now I know exactly how he feels and he’s having the last laugh when I complain saying, “Oh waaaaaaah, I’m in Sweet.”
It all started in January this year when I was really trying to decide what to do, as Heaven & Earth couldn’t get arrested over here and we weren’t quite big enough for anyone to pick us up and take us to Europe, when I got a call from Steve Priest asking me if I’d be interested in reforming Sweet again. We’d tried it together when I first came over to Los Angeles in 1986 but it was the wrong time for us. We tried again in 1994, which was going to be the original members of Steve Priest, Brian Connolly, and Mick Tucker, with myself on guitar. But then, sadly, Brian died, which took the wind out of all our sails. So we thought “third time lucky,” which it turned out to be.
AAM: How have your fans greeted the reformed SWEET on the road?
Stuart Smith: The response has been absolutely incredible, we couldn’t have wished for a better reception. We’ve been playing some great festivals around the States and Canada to anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people, and some of them we’ve either been headlining or going on before bands like Poison. The most amazing thing is that our audience consists of people between the ages 15 and 50 and at least half of them are teenagers – and they’re down the front and they know all the words to the songs, sometimes better than us! And not just to the major hits like “Ballroom Blitz,” “Fox on the Run,” and “Love is Like Oxygen,” but also some of the lesser known ones like “The Sixteens” or AC/DC.
AAM: Your recent tour took you overseas. How was it? Bump into anyone you know?
Stuart Smith: Yes, it’s been great out on the road. You meet a lot of new friends but also run into people you haven’t seen for years. In Canada I got to reconnect with Joan Jett whom I’d met in London years ago, and also got to hang with Sammy Hagar, whom I hadn’t seen since we played Calgary with Heaven & Earth back when Kelly Hansen was the singer.
AAM: AAM has followed your music career for several years now and it would have appeared you have made a full circle. So what is next? Any musical plans for the winter or holidays?
Stuart Smith: When we started off Sweet, I said I’d manage the band as I pretty much knew what I was doing in the music business. But after the whole thing took off it really became too much for me to deal with all the business and be the guitar player of the band. So we’ve taken on an old friend of mine, John Malta, who manages Pat Benatar, to handle the business side of things for us which frees me up to be more involved in the creative side.
We’ve taken a short break in the touring right now and are concentrating on writing and recording while John Malta sorts out a new agent for us and gets us booked for the New Year.
AAM: Is there a new album or DVD in the works?
Stuart Smith: Yes. We’ve just recorded a track for Cleopatra Records, who are doing a Beatles tribute album with people like Santana on it, which turned out great. It was really our first time in the studio together and we recorded a version of “I Saw Her Standing There” and were so knocked out with it that we decided to keep that one for ourselves and record another for them which turned out to be “Ticket to Ride.” Our last show at the Morongo Casino was recorded by Westwood One for a radio broadcast and we have ownership of the masters so we’ll be bringing out a live album soon. We cut a deal with K-Tel Records, who have videoed us in High Def playing the main hits which will be available for downloads as podcasts on iTunes very soon. We’re also writing tracks for a new Sweet album and are talking those to some record labels right now. As well as that we’ll be filming the complete show sometime next year and will release a “Sweet Live” DVD. So things are going to be pretty busy over the next year.
AAM: What are some of the things you like the best about being a musician and some of the worst?
Stuart Smith: The thing I like most is playing live for the fans. This version of Sweet, which consists of Steve Priest on bass, Joe Retta on vocals, Richie Onori on drums, Stevie Stewart on keyboards, and myself on guitar, is so exciting it’s dangerous. The musicianship is great and we have a very loose stage show, which means we experiment a lot. It’s like walking on a knife-edge each time we go on stage. I also like traveling to all the new places that I haven’t been to before and meeting some very cool people.
The things I don’t like are sitting around in airports for hours when a flight is delayed or cancelled, and disorganized tour routing where you have to get up at some ridiculous hour and travel all day just to get to the next gig. I always say that we play for free: What you pay for us is all the crap we have to deal with to get there.
AAM: Your Ultimate Goal?
Stuart Smith: The only problem Sweet has is that although the band has had over 10 international top ten hits, most people out there know the songs but don’t know who did them. We’ve had people hear us play “Love is Like Oxygen” and they come up to us afterwards and say, “Oh, we thought that song was by Electric Light Orchestra.” We’ve even had someone think that “Fox on the Run” was played by the Yardbirds. So our main goal next year is to get out there and educate everyone as to the songs Sweet has in its jukebox.
AAM: Any words for your fans, friends or music colleagues?
Stuart Smith: I’d like to thank All Access Magazine and all their readers for the continued support they’ve given me throughout my career, and hope we get to see everyone at Sweet shows during the coming year.
AAM would like to say “congratulations” to you, Stuart, not only on the success of your summer tour and reforming the band Sweet, but congrats to you for being one helluva guitarist! It has been an honor to follow your music career these past few years, and AAM wishes you continuous success.
