Annihilator frontman / founder Jeff Waters has posted the following update:

"First mix of 'Set The World On Fire' by Annihilator from a killer summer 2016 concert in Germany. A few more mixes to go to get it right but I'm done for the night! Out soon on Blu Ray with tons of other (5 discs) killer stuff in the package. The live concert, live acoustic set and a kinda mini-doc that covers our May/June fun, plus audio discs of the concert and acoustic set! Totally excited about this one! And after, to work on the 16th record as well as 70k tons of metal (Annihilator and all star jam), Europe tour Part 2 soon, Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto shows, German guitar clinic run and more Maybe a special USA show. Ya think I've been busy? More than I have ever been with Annihilator... ever."

Annihilator have announced a show for Toronto on September 10th at The Opera House. It will be the band's first live appearance in Toronto in 23 years. Other bands on the bill include The Exalted Piledriver, Skull Fist and Warmachine. Go to this location for event details.

Waters recently checked in with the following update:

"In answer to a good question on the Annihilator Facebook page, here is my response. The question was why didn't our former touring bassists play on the studio records?

When I write the songs, I don't just write a guitar riff, I write the drums, bass and mostly the vocals/melodies/lyrics. Since I would, for example, write the bass guitar parts entirely, it made no sense to me to let a bassist do it when I wanted it a certain way and got it when I played the part! Another thing people occasionally don't understand is that a live touring musician can also be a not-so-good or even a bad studio musician. They are two different jobs and art forms. Some can do both, of course, but I was always looking for touring players, not writers, so often I would get guys that were good for touring but not so good under the studio scenario.

Often, out of being nice or occasionally being blackmailed, I would give credit to the occasional singer or musician who wrote nothing (actually not kidding), but sometimes a guy like Ray Hartmann (wickedly awesome drummer) would contribute something, drum-wise, that was so good you had to give him credit, even though the songs were already written. Or some of the singers were good writers; just didn't spend the time doing it! I offered ALL Annihilator singers the opportunity to write ALL the lyrics on ALL the Annihilator records... only some wrote a few songs. Hard to imagine, but some were lazy or had a home or party life that would not let them work hard at their craft. The frustrating part was that guys like Padden and Comeau were AWESOME at writing lyrics, and when I pushed them to write, they came up with VERY cool stuff; and a breath of fresh air to the writing (when one guy does most all of it, it can get repetetive or boring at times!). They just didn't offer many songs.

On the other hand, only some people have that certain insane drive to do this! Thus, many musicians in Annihilator did not go on to other things in the music business, except a few that come to mind. Neil Goldberg was on the Set The World On Fire CD and touring; he went on to make some killer music-related software and also played some killer guitar on the STWOF record, and the amazing solo on the 'Fantastic Things' song off a 1992 demo. Mike Mangini, of course, Steve Vai / Extreme / Dream Theater were only some of his achievements! Randy Black went to Primal Fear for a while and is a killer drummer. John Bates has had a great career with his rockabilly-style band. Joe Comeau went on to work as a techncian for a well known artist. I might be missing someone; apologies... but out of 40 musicians I've hired into this beast Annihilator, there are not really many that moved up the music biz ladder!"

Photo by Jasmina Vrcko