Roadrunner Records recently spoke with ANNIHILATOR guitarist/founder Jeff Waters to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the band's debut album, Alice In Hell. An excerpt from the interview is available below.

Q: Annihilator was one of a small wave of thrash and speed metal bands to emerge from Canada in the early 80s, alongside VOIVOD and EXCITER and a couple of others—who were you listening to at that time?

Jeff: "RAZOR, ANVIL, Exciter, Voivod, and some smaller bands, too. It was great. Some of these, like Razor, Exciter, and Anvil, their first record or two were really influential. Anvil had that movie later, and a career after the '80s, but the first records from those bands were really influential on everybody, from the Big Four to so many people, and the generation after that had no clue who those bands were. I was like 16, 18 years old, sneaking into clubs and watching those three bands. And then of course, SLAYER, METALLICA, EXODUS, ANTHRAX, the Mike Varney Shrapnel Records compilations…that was a big turning point for me. I’d been a melodic heavy metal fan—VAN HALEN, SCORPIONS, AC/DC, KISS, all that stuff—and as soon as that early '80s thrash wave hit, I was done; I was going over to the dark side."

Q: You went through a lot of bandmembers in the band’s first few years, before Alice In Hell was recorded. Why do you think there was so much turnover in those years?

Jeff: "What happened for me was, I was essentially a teenager into melodic heavy metal, and thrash comes along and bang, I’m really into it. I got started a little later—Alice in Hell came out when I was 23 years old, even though I’d been working on Annihilator stuff since I was 18. But I thought, I’m a guitar player, writing songs and playing solos—I need a singer. I need a drummer. I need a bass player. And I think what happened was, my vision was, like a lot of people that are in bands that are successful or still around, the main guy that’s the driving force in the band, they’re full-on. This is your life, you don’t care about money, girls, booze, drugs, cigarettes, food, nothing, you’re just focused on your dreams. Everything is all about the next riff, or learning to be better at this, or learning the new Van Halen solo, watching videos—VHS videos, back in the day. You really are a driving force, if you’re like I am. So I found guys, but essentially what happened was, they were good-looking kids with long hair and they were more interested in going to the bars to drink, watch bands, and let everybody know they looked like a rock star, rather than actually sitting down and working on the songs and getting better as players in whatever they were doing. So I ended up writing and recording the bass for the demos, because I couldn’t get the bass player away from his girlfriend, the singer wanted to be out partying, and I had limited people here in Ottawa, Canada to draw from. It’s a very small city when it came to that kind of music. Metal was popular, but there was nobody around."

Go to this location for the complete interview.