ANNIHILATOR Mainman Comments On ICED EARTH's Split With TIM 'RIPPER' OWENS

About.com's Chad Bower recently conducted an interview with ANNIHILATOR mainman Jeff Waters. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

About.com: "Metal" has been out for nearly a year in Europe. What was the delay in getting a North American release?

Jeff Waters: I've been away from the states since 1993. My home country Canada hasn't seen us tour there since '93, nor has the U.S. So we haven't really had a proper release there. This is more of a proper release, although it's not going to get us out front and get us in all the magazines there. But SPV will try to get us a little momentum. We've had a good following in Europe and Asia since the first record in 1989. The first three records did pretty well in North America, then in 1993 metal went out and we decided stay overseas where we were doing well, and that's where we've been all this time. I've tried to get Canadian and U.S. deals for many albums over many years. This is the 12th studio album, and after the third one it was almost impossible because in the '90s traditional metal went out. It was only in the underground. No promoters and clubs would book anything with "metal" in it. And now it's really tough for us, because we an "older" band, and labels would rather sign the newer stuff. We don't have that guaranteed big sales thing, where overseas we keep getting resigned and getting good deals and doing good tours because we do have the sales over there.

About.com: You sang lead vocals on a track on "Metal" and you were actually the full-time vocalist for ANNIHILATOR for a while in the '90s. Do you miss being the vocalist?

Jeff Waters: No. I did it on "King Of The Kill" (1994),"Refresh The Demon" (1996) and "Remains" (1997). I just did it because I couldn't find anyone around where I was living. Friends of mine conned me into giving it a try. "King Of The Kill" was a big album everywhere except North America, and we did three videos for the album. I was laughing because I was very insecure as a singer. I'm not really a singer. I just picked it up at the age of 26. But it worked well. Eventually it became too physically demanding. I wanted to concentrate on guitar and we brought back an old singer, Randy Rampage. Once in a while I'll sing on a record. It's fun to do, but I'm not great at it and it's very physically demanding. When we're doing touring, I do three or four songs if we're the opening act, and six out of 18 in a headline set.

About.com: You had a ton of guests on this album. Were they in the studio with you, or did it happen via the Internet and other electronic means?

Jeff Waters: I guess about half of them were with me in my studio and the other half were in the city where they live. It was really cool. I had finished the record. We do things a little backwards. What I've done for years is play the guitar and bass tracks to a drum machine so it's perfect timing. It makes your playing tighter and better. We do the singer and the solos and then at the very end of the process get rid of the drum machine and bring in the real drummer. So the real drummer is playing along to the finished track. So if something sounds off or wrong, it has to be the drummer. It's good for drummers because they have to learn to play really well. I had finished the record and had been waiting to do the drum tracks with Mike Mangini. I got a call from Michael Amott (ARCH ENEMY) and Corey Beaulieu (TRIVIUM) on the same day. Corey called me up to say hi and he was in the studio. He asked me what stage I was at, and asked if he could play a solo on it if it wasn't done. He's a great example of the kids these days trying to bring back and alert kids about great old bands like EXODUS, TESTAMENT and early METALLICA. I thought it would be cool for a guy like that to do a solo, so he did. Later that day Amott called and I figured since Corey was into it, I might as well ask Michael. He said yes right away. It just snowballed from there. The next day I called Alexi (Laiho) from CHILDREN OF BODOM. I even made up a list of big names I've met over the years. I thought that way for about a day. Corey did it because he likes my music and I like his music. My girlfriend said that it would look ridiculous to the fans if I started calling the big names and asking them to do this. I would look like a cash-grabbing S.O.B. So then I went back and rearranged my list and just called my friends. I just kept it to the people I hang out with and talk to a lot. They all came in and did some solos, except for Danko Jones and Angela Gossow, who did some vocals.

About.com: What do you think about ICED EARTH bringing back Matt Barlow and replacing Ripper Owens?

Jeff Waters: 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.

Read the entire interview at About.com.