Canadian metal lifers Annihilator are finally touring their own country again (photo by Jasmina Vrcko).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cOur sound is basically a collection of \u201980s thrash and heavy metal, so it\u2019s not exactly a groundbreaking style,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a bit of a shock for me, but I just kind of said, \u2018Oh well; I\u2019m doing well in other places.\u2019 Someone close to me said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just phone the clubs and do your own tour?\u2019 Instantly, every club was like, \u2018Okay.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, things have been on the up-and-up for Waters. Their latest album, 2015\u2019s Suicide Society<\/i>, was nominated for a 2017 Juno in the Metal\/Hard Music Album of the Year category; Waters says that, while this made him smile, he also felt mixed emotions, because he says the album isn\u2019t even one of their five best.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of our best albums have been done over the last 20, 25 years and not been even discussed or mentioned,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew Suicide Society<\/i> was a decent record, but by no means would I call that one of our best albums. I found it strange because we haven\u2019t done a tour here, but it\u2019s an honour no matter how you look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band has gone through many changes since their debut album, 1989\u2019s Alice in Hell<\/i>. Waters describes the early years as the band going from \u201cthe basement to the fancy tour bus to the nice first-class flights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked very hard, but I didn\u2019t have to go through the hell most bands would have to go through for years to get it going,\u201d says Waters, who credits his success to taking band matters into his own hands.<\/p>\n
But with success came personal struggles with alcohol, although Waters has now been clean and sober since 1999.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018I just can\u2019t do this anymore; this is ridiculous,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt was clearly an addiction. I just cold-turkeyed it in \u201999. I had no idea that alcohol withdrawal could be as brutal and as dangerous as it was when you stop cold turkey after being a real drinker, so I literally almost had a heart attack in the hospital. I had no clue on day two of cold turkey why it looked like there was a moth or a butterfly in my shirt, and I realized it was my heart flying. It was going about 160 beats a minute. The scare of almost having a heart attack was actually the best psychological thing I could do for not starting ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Annihilator
\nTuesday, June 13
\n$30, Distrikt
\nstrathconahotel.com\/venue\/district<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeff Waters founded Annihilator in 1984 in Vancouver and went on to become a heavy hitter in the international thrash metal scene, but it\u2019s been 24 years since the band did a full Canadian tour. Waters is changing that now, though, bringing Annihilator through Canada, including a stop in Victoria. Waters is proud to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-may-17-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14027,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14024\/revisions\/14027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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