Annihilator

Great themes to write some angry songs.

Interview with Jeff Waters of Annihilator in April 2007 by Vera

‘Metal’ is the next fabulous Annihilator attack on the planet. Jeff Waters, the man who wrote so many thrash anthems and metal classics in his life invited a diverse selection of musical friends to relish the record. He will tour Europe for the first time since long in company of American popular band Trivium and he is always a fine talking guy. He was a bit late on schedule, but as he is an eloquent talker, I soon had a decent amount of stuff to make this article. Let’s focus on the mastermind of Annihilator: Jeff Waters!

We talked when the previous record ‘Schizoid Deluxe’ was about to release. So let’s start around that period. Are you a bit satisfied about how people got into that record?

Actually that was a very difficult time for me. 2004 and 2005 were really tough years. I have always had good relations with record companies. Annihilator was signed to Roadrunner in the early years and that was a very good relationship. And then we went on to Music For Nations in England and that was a great deal, good people! And then we went to SPV, around the year 2000 or so and that was another good one. But then around 2001 I signed a deal with a manager from Germany and he got me into a lot of bad deals. One was a record deal with AFM, one was a publishing deal, another was the merchandise deal. As well as the management deal. So I was in four bad deals and it took time before I realized it. Even after being so many years in the business, I realized I made a very big mistake. I ended up spending 2005 mainly on quarrels – when we did ‘Schizo Deluxe’ – that was my last record for AFM, it wasn’t supposed to be but I got out of the record deal. It was a lot of work and fighting, lawyers, money. A lot of bad times followed just to get out of that. I was very lucky, because most musicians cannot get out of these bad deals. But I fought and fought and fought and one year later I got out, I got rid of all four of those deals in about two years. I did not tell anything to people or fans, but it was very obvious to a lot of people that I got into bad deals. While I was going through this, one of the great things for me was that it gave me a lot of fuel, live ammunition, a lot of ideas to write lyrics and music. It gave me fire, anger, pressure… when you get disappointed in someone you trusted. Those are great themes to write some angry songs. So while I was going through these difficult times I was writing the music and the lyrics for the new ‘Metal’ album. The times that are difficult in your life are the best times to write songs. And now I have great deals again and that’s important because for instance, we haven’t been touring that much over the last three or four years and that’s been because we had these bad deals and we weren’t able to tour. It is almost like a brand new start of the career right now.

Yes, because a long tour is coming up… (08/04 till 03/06)

It is just the first of a lot of good touring we are going to do. We are lucky enough to have Corey from Trivium made a strong case and go to his band members and touring agency, saying “We want to bring Annihilator with us”. That was really cool of him to do that, because obviously we have been around for a long time and we do pretty well in some countries in Europe. But they’re taking us through the first three weeks of the tour, we get to go and play the U.K. and Trivium are a very big band there. Annihilator is not a big band; we are a smaller band there. It is a very good opportunity for us to play in front of a new crowd.

Annihilator as a kind of support band… it felt strange to me…

Yeah, it really comes down a lot of times to what’s popular today and what’s selling records. And Trivium are selling more records than Annihilator, so to me it is very simple. When some people ask me why Annihilator is support act, I just tell them Trivium sells more records. It is simple as that.

There are so many guests on the album. How did you come to the idea to invite so many people?

Originally there was no idea. Me and my singer Dave Padden had pretty much finished almost all of the CD, including solos. There was only one song left to sing and to write lyrics for. But what happened was, we’ve almost done the record and I talked to a couple of guys. Mike Amott from Arch Enemy and Corey from Trivium. We were just talking about what their band was doing and what Annihilator was doing. One of them, I don’t remember which one, said “If you still have time, what about playing a solo on your record?” and I thought: “Oh okay, sure…” It would be a honour for me to have either Mike or Corey on my record. Later that day I asked the other one and I ended up having two great musicians wanted to play on my record. And then I remember that night sitting down at the dinner table, writing down a list of favourite musicians I would have on my record. Not all the big stars or names I could get on my record, cause I could have asked some super names of metal or pop, but I preferred to ask people who like Annihilator and maybe I once had a small influence on some of the music they are playing. So I kept my very short list to people I knew, like Alexi Laiho. I spent my whole career, eleven CDs, telling everybody in the press and the fans that I love Priest and Maiden and Metallica and Slayer and Angus of AC/DC and it is funny, because now there are some people telling how Waters and Annihilator were a bit of an influence. I didn’t realize that until last year when a lot of musicians contacted me and said: “hey Jeff, we like your music”. It was pretty cool. It put a big smile on my face.

Did they all come down to your studio or did you send files?

It was about three different groups. One with their own little home studios, like Jeff Loomis (Nevermore). They recorded it there and sent it to me. And then others, like Angela from Arch Enemy and Corey from Trivium, went into a real studio in their city to record. And the other ones came to my studio, like Lips from Anvil and Mike Amott.

Was there a difference in working with people from the old school metal school and the younger ones?

No, because the people you see on the record, are all from different types of metal bands. Different ages, there’s a girl singing, everything different. Danko is into rock. You would think with all these differences, there would be very different experiences, but we are all in it for the music and it feels like a family. When you find people that are now into metal and they really believe in metal, they love it and it is their life – there’s not a lot of people like that – it is a very small group. Now on the internet it is great, I just send a message to Mike Amott and ask what he’s doing. Technology is great because you can be friends with these people who are on the same wavelength as you are, while you are in a different part of the world. Remember it was a very big deal back in the eighties when you could use a fax machine. Metal is a small community and communication is important. I have noticed it is a big trend for bands in the UK and the States to call themselves “metal”. It was not cool to do since the nineties, but now a lot of bands call themselves metal. That’s one of the many reasons I made my CD title that simple and direct. One of the reasons was trying to make a statement. It would get a lot of attention with that kind of title. People would see on the internet when they looked up the history of my band that I have put out twelve heavy metal records. It is not my first metal record, you know. It is not that I have done eleven commercial records and now I made a metal record because it is the new hype. The other reason for that title is as follows. Back in the nineties, when everybody was looking for a website address for their band, www.annihilator.com was taken, so I could not use it. I thought, maybe I put a word at the end of the name and since we played all kinds of metal, www.annihilatormetal.com became our website in the nineties. That was another good reason. And then of course when you have all those metal guests from different metal bands, it is a perfect title for this record (laughs).

Yet there is some diversity on the record, as always…

Obviously, the one with Danko Jones and Angela Gossow singing is different from the other songs, but there are no ballads or instrumentals, but still I think there are quite a few styles and changes. Definitely. Sometimes I do that, I put a ballad or an instrumental on the record, but this time I did not. But there is still enough diversity, because the guests came in at the end of the recordings. The guests just made it sound better. Except the song with Danko Jones, because he wrote that one, he wrote the lyrics.

That’s also the first videoclip, isn’t it?

We are thinking of doing a video for that.

The line-up in the studio is different from the one you will go on tour with…

It was pretty much from the beginning of the band. I would play all the guitars and the bass myself, write most of the songs, I would have a singer and I would hire a drummer. That’s kind of how we do most of all the records. After that was finished, then I would look for the rest of the band that could go on tour. And that would change all the time, simply because I just hire them for the tours. Sometimes they would not be available for the next tour or they would have a job at home they could not leave or they would have joined another band. There are always different reasons, but Annihilator is a sort of solo project but it is also a band when we go on tour. For example, when I did the ‘Metal’ record, it was just me and Dave Padden, the singer and then it was time to decide who was going to be the drummer this time. I asked a few drummers. I asked Joey from Slipknot. He was busy working on the Ministry tour. So I called up my friend Mike Mangini again and there we go. That’s for the records and to play live we look for people who can go on tour. Mike could not go on tour because he is a teacher in the Music College in Boston. It is a strange way to do it, but that’s the way I’ve always done it. It is very different from being in a band.

Can you tell a bit more about the people who will hit the road?

Dave Padden and I both sing and play guitar on the tour. Then we have a bass player from Ottawa, his name is Brian Daemon. He is a young kid and he is a total thrash maniac, he loves thrash metal. The energy is very high with this kid, it is incredible to watch him play. The drummer is from Germany. His name is Alex Landenburg. He is a German kid, twenty seven years old and he is one of Mike Mangini’s students.

Can you tell something about the special edition?

SPV had an idea that I thought was very cool. Not so much for our hardcore fans that we had the whole time, it is more to invite the new fans to listen to the older stuff as well. I did not want to put any bonus tracks on this CD because I thought, when you have twelve guest musicians, that’s enough of a bonus (laughs). That’s why we put some older Annihilator songs on the bonus disc, so new kids can hear some of the cool Annihilator songs. And there is a trailer from the DVD ‘Ten Years In Hell’.

Time was up after this question, next journalist was waiting. I wished Jeff a fantastic tour and fun on the road in Europe.


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