Jeff Waters: We did a lot in 2007. We did Japan and played some shows with Destruction and Nevermore over there. We did some festivals, over two months with Trivium in Europe, and just got back from four weeks with Iced Earth.
What do you think about Iced Earth bringing back Matt Barlow and replacing Ripper Owens?
It’s good and bad. It’s good for Jon (Schaffer). I know where Jon’s coming from, because sometimes you have to make decisions where half the people think it’s a great thing and half the people don’t. But there is a lot of stuff behind the scenes that you don’t know go on, and Jon has to make decisions. I was very close to those guys on the Iced Earth tour. We were all friends and hanging out for over a month. Everybody got along. Jon and Ripper were best of buddies. There was no negativity at all. It was actually one of the best tours I’ve ever done for getting along with the other band. It was a really close, cool tour and they are all nice guys. It’s sad to see a great singer like Tim leave that gig. But at the same time Jon feels it’s going to put some extra life in the band, a kickstart. It’s cool to see Matt come back, too. I hope Ripper does some really good things, because he has one of the best voices in metal.
Why haven’t you played a single show in North America since 1993?
The metal thing went out in 1992 or 1993, and unless you changed your style to something like Pantera or Sepultura that was huge then, you could forget it. I didn’t change with the times. I just kept doing what I was doing, and there was no room for Annihilator in North America at that time. Then a year later I didn’t have a choice. I had a kid and the mother left when he was a baby. It was just the two of us, and that restricted my touring. I couldn’t do full time touring and get in a van or bus and tour North America. So I decided I am going to go where we were popular and could make some money and have fun. We kept going to Europe and Japan. I was a part time Dad and part time metal guy, and that’s the way it’s been ever since. From a life perspective it’s great because you can be a parent and a wannabe rock star. We still have opportunities to play festivals and do great tours and make a career out of it. I haven’t had a real job since I was a teenager. Now my kid is older and I can come back to North America and metal is a trend now.
I was trying to name this record. I looked at the website and for over a decade it’s been AnnihilatorMetal.com. It’s been in front of me the whole time. The first thing I thought it that it’s too cheesy and cliché. So I did search and found that there is no Judas Priest album called Metal, and they are the ones that deserve a title like that more than anyone. And every time someone asks me what kind of music we play, I call it metal. It made a lot of sense to me in my mind. And then when the guests came on it made even more sense. They are all from different bands and different styles of metal. It seemed to be a perfect title because a lot of bands who would never relate themselves to metal would say “This is the most metal album we’ve ever done.” Everybody is doing it now.
Any chance of doing a show or tour here in the future?
I could say yes, we’ll be there, but I’ve said that before. But the good news is the label has given us tour support, which we need because we aren’t going to triumphantly return to the U.S. and be big stars. It would be a building process again and who knows what would happen? I’ve been calling up a lot of bands I know and ask them if they would take Annihilator on tour. A lot of them have said they would like to. So I hope we’ll be there this time.
As you look back at Annihilator’s catalog, are there any albums that you think are underrated?
If I look at it from my overseas career, I’d say Schizo Deluxe, which we did in 2005. That was the one time in Europe where the album had a problem. It was the only time in my career where I had a problem with the record company. I’ve had a great relationship with record companies. The label I was with was AFM Records, and we did two albums with them. It was a disaster for me. I got out of the deal three albums before the contract ended. It was my last album and I thought they were going to promote the heck out of the album and do the job they promised. It was a damn good record. They basically manufactured a minimum number of records and put a minimum of support and almost no work on it. They had intended the whole time to can the record and get rid of me. It a sad thing, because the album was good. It just got lost. I was very depressed about it, but the good news is that I was able to get out of that label and start a new career. I signed a new publishing deal, a new record deal and new endorsement deals. It’s too bad that album didn’t get more light.
You’ve seen a lot of changes in the industry since the mid ’80s, but the internet has to be the biggest one.
It’s a double edged sword. On one hand it’s the ultimate promotion. Back when I started doing demos I would have to send out packages by mail. You would have to wait a few weeks for it to get there, and then another few weeks to get a reaction back. There weren’t even fax machines back then. Looking at things now, kids can record demos on their computer and upload them and have thousands of people listen to their stuff. For young bands it’s great. Any kid in a bedroom can do a record. It doesn’t mean it’s good, but they can do it, and that’s a great thing to be able to be creative. In the old days you’d have to pay a lot of money to go into a studio and record. The bad thing is everybody thinks they know how to play, how to write, and everybody thinks they are good because they have a demo. But it floods the market with crap. You have to weed through a lot of lousy stuff.
