Jeff Waters, the leader, vocalist, guitarist and bassist of Canadian heavy metal icons Annihilator chats to the AU review and provides us with a pretty damn insightful interview. I won't waste any more of your time... just read ahead!

You just released a new Self titled album can you tell us about the album and how the recording process went?

Yeah well it pretty much the same way our singer Dave Padden and I have been making em for 7 or 8 years now, and the same way I did before I met him.

Just me in my studio with a drum machine over a period of a couple of months basically just writing 6 to 8 months of riffs, not giving a shit about songs or anything, basically just jamming with an imaginary drummer, just recording guitar riffs and then after the end of 6 weeks of doing this, I’ll just go back down to my studio have a coffee everyday and literally go through every riff and say "Yeah that’s really good and that one sucks", delete it and at the end of the day you're left with 100 good riffs. I just go through it and say that’s a good intro riff and that’s a good solo riff and that’s a good bridge or an outro and its almost like you categorize it then you play along with the guitar tracks and in my studio I’ve already got my sound done.

It's like I’m actually recording the album, then putting bass to it then maybe do some solo’s if I feel like it. Then I get Dave to do some vocals on it then bang - I’m done. I get the drummer to do his thing at the end of the recording. It’s kind of the way we’ve always done it and any artist - be it a painter or musician or whatever - you have your things you make or create or you have your songs or albums that are good and you have some that are not so good and you have some that are real fucking good and classic and some of them are kind of shitty so it’s like you have your ups and downs and you can’t predict them - you just don’t know.

I’m sure when AC/DC were making Back In Black, the biggest rock record in history and I think Maiden when they did Number of the Beast or Priest when they did Defenders of the Faith or Slayer Reign in Blood or Metallica Master Of Puppets, Justice for All ... these guys didn’t sit down and say "we're going to make this classic amazing album." They just did their thing and the pieces of the puzzle and the magic happened and look what they got. 

I think it’s the same with our new record because the press initially gave us a bit of a shock because when the CD was sent to the press we just got good reactions back and it’s kind of strange for us we’ve always had mixed reviews, because some press like their melodic style of songs and some like the heavy stuff and when we got the press reactions back we were like "wait a minute... ninety five percent of this is really good!". So yeah, I think we ended up getting lucky on this one, we didn’t do anything different - it’s the same formula, the same way we always do it, we never give a shit about whether the press, the labels or the fans like it, we really do it for ourselves and if we like it, we hope to hell you like the record too.

It always sounds like you’re the main songwriter and riff writer in Annihilator I was just wondering if the rest of the band contributes much creatively as well?

No, I mean because there really isn’t a band. Up until 8 years ago, the band has been a solo project. I hire guys to do the cycle of touring and the records, sometimes I hire a drummer for the studio then hire another guy for the tours, some tours we have two drummers for the cycle. In the last few years Dave Padden kind of evolved from the new next singer to being a partner in the band - so it’s almost kind of like fifty percent of a band. It’s kind of funny, in twenty years I get two members - it’s kind of like the Dave Padden / Jeff Waters solo project band.

You’re playing the Masters of Rock festival in July alongside some other massive names like Queensryche, Manowar and even Lordi ... are you excited about this festival?

Yeah we are we did that festival a few years ago. We released a DVD called, gee surprise, "Live from Masters Of Rock", we did that a few years ago it went well so they wanted us to come back. And don’t tell the promoter, but we’d probably play it for free it was that fun.

We just played a really nice festival called Hellfest in France too last Saturday - it was fantastic. Nevermore were there, Anvil was before them then later Slash came on then we came on then Alice Cooper came on to finish up - it was a really awesome festival. We just got back. Now we’re doing a month of festivals in July, it’s a good life to go to Europe and do these festivals and tours for twenty one years. It’s kind of like a carnival ride that never lets you get off - it's fantastic.

 Speaking of tours do you have any plans to come to Australia in the future?

I think we’ve planned that for the last twenty one years, we’ve been planning it but it’s more of a promoters need to make money and they bring the bands in and unless your bands selling big records and are going to draw a crowd, these promoters can’t just bring you over here if they’re going to lose money. Even though bands like us are begging to come to Australia - it would be crazy to not want to go to a place like that - but you know we try every year but usually it’s the same thing ‘hey you know bad climate, not enough sales, economy’ but I’m sure Australian’s have heard that for years but you’re getting a lot more bands Megadeth have come a few times a lot of bands coming down a lot of festivals I notice your also not the only country this happens to. There are a lot of places around the world that we and other bands can just not get to because we don’t sell enough records. But of course we definitely want to come down there. Melbourne was one of the nicest places I’ve ever been. 

In 2007 you collaborated with a lot of big name bands like Arch Enemy, nevermore, and Lamb of God what were they like to work with? And were there ever any ego clashes?

No, because sort of the idea I had with that was it happened at the very end of the record. A friend of mine, Corey Beaulieu (Trivium), who’s probably half my age, is a guy I met on tour, and I guess our personalities just clicked, because although he was a lot younger, he possibly knows more about metal than I do! And I’m a metal freak too, but he was right up there with my knowledge - he knew every W.A.S.P song, every Slayer lick, and it wasn’t just a kind of trendy thing where a kid says, "I wanna be cool and metal and jump on the train" - he actually knew everything about it. He was a real metal head.

So he was working on his new album and he called me and said ‘hey, if you’re not done on your album I’d love to come play a solo’ and I was like ‘really that’s kind of neat’ and the next day I remember eating breakfast and Michael Amott (Arch Enemy/Carcass) called from the road and I said ‘hey Mike you wanna play a solo’ and in the space of a week I had a few guys! So I thought, why don’t I just call every one of my friends, not the big stars I know, but just people that I know and get along with.

So there was never a clash because they're all my friends. I think if I had called up some real big powerful names it might have created a bit of suspicion with people like ‘I think Waters is getting desperate - maybe he needs to call in some big guns to save his arse or something.’ That could have been a clash of egos and it probably would have been expensive. You would probably have to pay these people a lot of money. With these guys they're really my friends.

The other thing is, I remember a lot of people at the label at the time were saying ‘Oh my god, how did you get that many people on your record? How much money did you have to pay everyone? What about record companies and managers they're not going to want the artist to play on your record for free.’ Every single one of those people came on the record and shook hands and said "yeah, I’d love to be on (it)." Nobody wanted anything. They all told the labels to be quiet and to let us have fun and they were absolutely amazing.

One of the artists you worked with was Lipps from Anvil, what do you think about their sudden rise to success?

Yeah it was kind of surprising for me because Lipps would come down here. His daughter plays hockey and he would come to my city to play hockey tournaments. He would come by to say hi and hang out and stuff and I knew the movie was going on he said something to me about ‘hey maybe I could get you in our movie Jeff because I know you’re a big Anvil fan.’ From the first three albums, the early days when they done "Hard n Heavy", "Metal on Metal" and "Forged in Fire" - three of my favorite albums. I didn’t know what he was talking about with this whole movie thing.

Last year when we were over in Europe I clicked on the movies and saw Anvil the story of or whatever it was and I was like ‘oh cool’. To me I guess the first three ones were the big ones for me but then I lost track of them. But (I still) respected them for continuing on (after) all these years. It’s good to see they're getting some attention for all the effort they’ve put in by sticking with it.

Speaking of Collaborations can we expect any guest solos at Masters of Rock?

Nar - we just did the Hellfest thing, and now that you’ve brought that up, the first thing that came to my mind was Jeff Loomis was there from Nevermore. We never even thought about playing a song! We hung out and talked after the show and before the show and the day before. Never even thought about it! Actually its funny I saw Michael Amott at Hellfest and you're right hey, Lipps was there as well, we should have talked to you before we went to Hellfest!

A lot of people regard you as one of the best metal guitarists. There’s even a book that ranks you number three! What advice to you have to aspiring young guitarists? How to get good? What to practice?

I really appreciate being on a list and being rated like that because any publicity I can get is good publicity. At the same time it’s like you do this because you love it - not to be ranked or loved or whatever - you do it because you love playing. That’s the one thing I notice from being around twenty one years and playing with a lot of really big acts and small acts and new acts.

It’s just like when you see the occasional person with their ego. Their music and their albums or their playing is great or their drumming is great, and they act like they’re very special. Really it’s silly because there are so many great guitar players and drummers and bands, albums and songs, there’s so many good ones out there and its like gimme a break! There’s thousands of great guitar players in the world. Anyone that thinks they're high up on lists or important or special - it’s kind of stupid and kind of contrary to the heavy metal theme which I have been brought up on.

It’s more of a family. You like Metallica, you like Slayer, you like Exodus, it’s all a family, heavy metal and thrash metal is all unique, like a bond or family. So when you get people with all that ego and a really silly view about themselves that they're all important, it’s kind of amusing, and a lot of the time these people don’t really last.

As far as advice, I can give some advice from experience which is good experience, and that is if you want to actually play in a band and make it last, and do it for a living and not just as a hobby which is fun, and I mean if you want to just have fun - have fun. But if you want to play guitar and make a career out of it you’ve got to do a couple of things: you’ve got to stay clean. If you see yourself getting out of control you’ve gotta stop it with booze or drugs or whatever. You’ve gotta keep your brains clear because it’s about taking care of business. It’s not like the 80’s where you could make money from being a drug addict because you were selling a million records. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Now you only sell a few records and you have to manage your business or you’re done.

As far as guitar playing goes, a lot of kids and I were guilty of this for a little while too. A lot of kids think you need to learn how to shred and learn to play fast and learn scales and modes and all this crap and really that’s just the bonus - the icing on the cake. The real deal is you need to learn how to write songs and you need to learn how to play rhythm guitar, because the best albums and songs in the world are not solos, they're rhythms, and a lot of people just want to shred on guitar. I kind of have the opinion that you need to learn how to play rhythm first and you need to learn how to write songs and then you can decide if you want to be a great lead player or not, that’s the last thing in the world people need. You know Slayer, Van Halen, Metallica, the songs and the rhythms are good and the solos are put on top at the very end.

While I’m on the advice trip, don’t listen to one or two of your favorite bands and guitar players, because when you start writing songs they will be exactly like the artists. People will be like ‘yeah they sound like Metallica and Pantera’. If you can spread out and listen to thirty bands which is kind of like what Annihilator does, you can hear in my music that we're not influenced by just Slayer and Metallica, we're influenced by Slayer, Metallica, Exodus, Anthrax, Anvil, Exciter, Scorpions, AC/DC, Van Halen, KISS, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Destruction, Kreator, Voivod - you name it it’s all in there. That’s why you will catch glimpses of our influences in different riffs, but if I only listened to two or three bands we would be nothing more than a rip-off and we wouldn’t last more than one or two records right?

I’m sure you would agree a lot of the new bands coming out now kind of sound like rip off versions of older bands, are there any new bands out there you like?

It’s tough because you say ripping off and I understand that concept because there are bands that do that. I think what a lot of them do is get obsessed and focus on a couple of bands they really like and there’s sort of a trend that’s been happening lately for people to go back to the early Metallica albums and listen to it, and that’s actually really good, because kids are going back to the really good music that started it all.

With the rip off stuff, I bet a lot of it isn’t intentional, because the bands that are doing that are playing only what they know how to play. The trend side of it, since metal has come back in the last five years or so, all the labels are jumping back on metal again there was a time when none of the labels were signing metal. Metal just almost disappeared for a long time in the 90’s, and now its become more of a trend and people are like 'wow, metal's popular now, and guitar playing and lead guitar playing is back' - so of course a lot of labels want to sign twenty year old kids that stand up and say they're metal and they look apart and wear Slayer shirts. And they copy the early promo photos of those bands. Some of them are actually genuine, honest and real and some are just fabricated, fake, dishonest people. Either way it’s actually good - whether it’s a young band that are totally corporate or fake or whatever, legitimate or not legitimate - any time a band goes out and promotes this kind of music is absolutely fantastic for bands that are mid-level and have been struggling and fighting and loving the stuff for years and years; and that’s bands like Exodus, Testament, Annihilator, Nevermore.

Bands like that have been around have never had the big success of the Metallicas, the Slayers, the Megadeths. Us mid-level bands are really enjoying this trend that’s happening now because our profile with festivals and tour opportunities are just going up and up and through the roof now, because of these young bands coming out and playing metal.

Hear music and learn more about the band at

http://www.annihilatormetal.com/