Jeff Waters (born February 13, 1966) is a Canadian guitarist and the founder and bandleader of the metal band Annihilator. He was born and resides in Ottawa, Ontario. Waters has owned Watersound Studios Inc. since 1994 (where it was in Maple Ridge, British Columbia) and from 2003 until 2018, in Ottawa, Ontario, and now in the UK.
Early life
Water's father was in the military and his mother was a teacher. His family had houses in Ottawa and Camp Borden, Ontario as well as London, England. He took some classical and jazz guitar lessons at a young age.
Waters has referred to Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Michael Schenker, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath as his early influences. In a 2013 interview with photogroupie.com, he said, "I started listening to Elton John, Kiss, Sweet, AC/DC then it evolved from hard rock with electric guitar to Black Sabbath and the heavier stuff, Judas Priest, Maiden, Loudness, Van Halen was coming in. Then I get turned on to the thrash stuff, so then it was Razor, Exciter... Those first albums were a huge influence on metal bands."
Career with Annihilator
Waters formed the band Annihilator in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1984. He wrote and recorded the song "Annihilator" (not to be confused with their 1994 song of the same name) with singer Big John Bates. This original version of Annihilator was released on the special edition of the 2005 album, Schizo Deluxe.
Waters has frequently changed Annihilator's line-up over the years. During the early era of the band, his goal was to produce a stable line-up. However, members left for a multitude of reasons such as family issues, substance abuse and work commitments. Due to these rapid line-up changes, Waters has taken on the role of bass player, engineer, producer and writer as well as guitar player. After some time, Waters began to embrace the idea of working with many other musicians, and recruited vocalist Dave Padden for 12 years (2003 - December 2014) as well as a revolving touring line-up. Jeff Waters has performed lead vocals for six of the band's studio albums and on the songs "Holding On" from 2004's All for You, "Too Far Gone" from the 2005 album Schizo Deluxe, "Operation Annihilation" from 2007's Metal, and "Demon Code" on the 2013 album "Feast".
After a couple of weeks of decision sometime in December 2014, Waters made a return to lead vocals for the band on their 2015 album, "Suicide Society" following former bandmate Dave Padden's departure. Padden cited he wasn't at all happy playing in the band over the past five years and the decision to leave was not caused by anyone in the band but by a general discontent with the lifestyle and constant touring.
Annihilator has been touring prominently Europe and Asia since 1989. Despite not touring and receiving virtually no press or label interest in Canada and the US, Annihilator has become one of the biggest selling Canadian Metal band of all-time, yet the majority of their sales have been generated from Asia and Europe. Most of Annihilator's discography is hard to find in the band's home country of Canada. Waters has been quoted as saying: "I live a few blocks from the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. One day, a few years ago (2005) I contacted the Entertainment editor by email and introduced myself, gave him links to our web site and info, and asked if he might spare a few minutes to talk with me about the band, as I live a few minutes walking from his office. He told me to mail him a CD and he would consider reviewing it. He didn't. It actually made me a bit sad, as I have been waving the flag for Canadian metal and Canadian music for over 21 years abroad and also have sold more than any other metal band from this fine land. Yet I could not even get a review or interview with our nation's capital newspaper, when local artists with no deal and no CD releases, were actually getting full page or front page stories. The last thing I needed was coverage in Ottawa but I thought, out of principle, I should try. Shot down in flames! Ha!"
Legacy
Waters is well respected in the metal community for his technical skill and versatility on the guitar. In Annihilator, he plays extremely difficult passages on rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, and classical guitar. Even when he is playing challenging material, he does so with speed, fluidity and precision. He has also arranged some Annihilator songs into unplugged versions.