Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke with Jeff Waters guitarist/vocalist of legendary Canadian Thrash Metal band ANNIHILATOR.

Watch interview here:

When asked about the release date and the musical direction of their new album the follow-up to Suicide Society
“I am guessing late October 2017 is going to be the release date that is what we have been talking about with the label. I’ll have the album finished before the summer Canadian tour. I just finished my first song on vocals this afternoon should come out in October 2017, if everything works fine should go out on a huge tour of Europe afterwards. New record started out writing and recording it right after the 70,000 tons Metal Cruise that we did in February 2017 and it was off three days writing. For the vocals, initially the only plan I had was ok you got to stop doing singing the Hetfield, Mustiane, Ozzy singing style cause I had too much of that style of singing on the last record. It was too much of a fan boy. It was like 65% fan boy, 35% Waters, so now I sort of leveled it off to 75% me. I wanted to do this new record and try to put more importance on the vocals but not with layering with four voices and fixing the shitty notes. I meant more like one track get back to what I did on albums like ‘King of the Kill’ and ‘Refresh the Demon’, get back to more that style. I just wanted to be able to do that once and if things don’t work out, maybe I will consider someone else as a vocalist, that is always a possibility.”

“I am not going to worry about commercial catchy choruses on this album. Forget the formula’s I have been leaning towards the last ten albums or more, just wanted to write something messed up that doesn’t make sense to do. What ended up happening is, the music started sounding like the first two records (Alice in Hell, Never Neverland). I also brought in another producer, writer, co-writer of the music and I sat there with Rich Hinks (producer) from the UK, he is actually our bass player for the last year. There was something about him that I knew after I met him and spent a year on the road with him I realized this is the guy I want to come in  and kick my butt, he knows the band and he knows music and studio as well me but he knows a different way. ”

When asked why it took so long to come back to Canada and do a full tour
“1989 was our first studio album and until 1993 we got to tour the States and Canada and after that then the scene pretty much tanked for most metal stuff 92-93 and I was lucky enough that Europe and Japan and eventually South America just got really big for Annihilator and that kept us going since then. When I tried to come back to Canada when promoters and clubs were starting up again and metal was getting some publicity in the early 2000’s.  By the time I tried to get back in, the answers were pretty clear, it was like well you guys  were never really big here and it’s not like a big reunion and you won’t let us screw you over with a terrible contracts so we would kind of like to put our money into some younger bands to have a new twist on things. So I was like oh well that sucks and I just stayed over seas and everywhere else and had a good time and things are going fantastic. Basically it came to the point where screw it I don’t need a tour agency or a record company here, I can just call all the club owners up and the in-house booking people and say who we are and we would like to do a tour and I was pretty surprised at how easy that was by passing the agencies and the people you are suppose to need to do a tour. I guess people figured out well at least Annihilator are good for one good Canadian tour cause people hadn’t seen us for so long they want they want to go check it out.”

When asked if he would consider finding a new singer for Annihilator for the future
“The only other singer  I would hire would be if Stu Block defects from Iced Earth or if Rob Halford wanted to join but I don’t think any of those are going to happen.”

When asked about participating in a Big 4-6 Canadian Thrash  festival and his thoughts on who would be included
“Weeks and weeks ago I actually tried to put together a Big 6 kind of vibe for Canada, Razor, Anvil, Exciter, Annihilator, Piledriver, Voivod and I talked to most of them and most of them were in and wanted to do it.  Then Anvil had a tour at the time and another band same thing and I sort gave up on it for now but I think it would be fun to do like Canada’s Big 6 vibe because as small as a population we sure have an original style for bands that came out of here cause we are sandwiched between the UK and the USA, we get the best of both worlds.”

When asked about saying no to joining Megadeth, his relationship with Dave Mustaine and any future collaboration
The first contact I had with Dave Mustaine  wasin 1989 where we were on tour with Testament in the States, Chuck Billy comes into my hotel room and says Jeff Mustaine’s on the phone. Dave was clearly by his own words was messed up back then. I was on booze at the time. Mustaine essentially said I got a couple of guitarist I want to talk to, I like your Alice in Hell Album ( I was blown away) I had to turn him down as I just signed with Roadrunner Records for a couple of albums and the album had just exploded, my manager said no you cant do it. So I had to tell Mustiane no. But then after a while years later 2004-2005, when Mustaine was doing a record with Chris Poland he called up and said do you want to come and do some solos, can you come down tomorrow and then he called back and said well no I worked it out with Chris. Shortly after that he got the Drover brother in, we were talking about writing together, it was all kind of back and forth he was going to play on Annihilators METAL album in 2007. But I see him over the years, we have diner and I am friends with David  Elefson and I asked Dave to ask Mustiane  if we could  write just one song together, which would be really cool, I think that would be something fantastic.”

When asked about being nominated for a Canadian Juno Award (Like American Grammy)
It was fun and it was weird to be nominated because we never really been part of the industry here. Canada has a weird way of not generally not supporting artists that go outside of there own country to sign their deals. When you go outsider your country like we did sign to New York Roadrunner Records, its kind of like a black listing in a sense and the only way it works out for you in Canada if you  become so big or commercial or radio friendly everywhere else they have to recognize you here they have no choice. So it was just easy for them to just leave us out of their history.”

Annihilator tour will see the band kick off their first date in Victoria, BC on June 13th and travel east wrapping up the tour in Cornwall.  Annihilator tour to return to Canadian soil for over 20 years.The Canadian shows will also included the 2014 Canadian Wacken champions thrashers  Mutank

On January 27, 2017, ANNIHILATOR released “Triple Threat”, a three-disc collection.

“Suicide Society” was released in September 2015 via UDR Music.

Tour dates:

June
13 – Victoria, BC – Distrikt Nightclub
16 – Calgary, AB – Dickens Pub
17 – Edmonton, AB – Starlite Room
18 – Saskatoon, SK – Saskatoon Event Center
19 – Regina, SK – The Exchange
20 – Winnipeg, MB – Park Theater
23 – Waterloo, ON – Maxwells
24 – Toronto, ON – The Opera House
26 – Ottawa, ON – The Brass Monkey
28 – Quebec City, QC – L’Anti
29 – Montreal, QC – Café Campus
30 – Cornwall, ON – The House

July
1 – Cornwall, ON – The House