70000 Tons Of Metal is proud to announce that Annihilator mastermind Jeff Waters has invited ex-vocalist Coburn Pharr to feature in their performances when The World's Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise sails to Jamaica in January 2015. Pharr was lead vocalist on Annihilator's critically acclaimed and best-selling 1990 release Never, Neverland which includes classics such as “Road To Ruin”, “I Am In Command”, “Reduced To Ash” and “Phantasmagoria”.

Waters comments: “Seeing as how it is the 25th Anniversary of my favorite Annihilator album, I thought it would be a lot of fun to invite Coburn with us to perform some of the songs he was a part of. I haven’t seen him since 1992 so I think the fans are going to spot us having lots of conversations about the old days (and my '80s hair style)! Current Annihilator vocalist Dave Padden is very much looking forward to this as he is a huge fan of that album and Coburn, but also because he won’t have to play and sing those songs hahaha...!”

Jeff Waters will also be hosting Jamming With waters In International Waters All-Star Jam which will feature members from the 60 bands on board 70000 Tons Of Metal 2015,  which includes Arch Enemy, Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth Napalm Death, Blind Guardian, Venom, Therion and more.

70000 Tons Of Metal, The Original, The World's Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise, will sail Thursday, January 22, 2015 on board the Royal Caribbean Liberty Of The Seas from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, FL to Ocho Rios, Jamaica and will not return to the real world until Monday, January 26, 2015

Ticket prices start at $666 per person US (plus taxes & fees), which includes all on-board entertainment, non-alcoholic and non-carbonated beverages, most on-board restaurants and even 24 room service.  

Check out 70000tons.com and book your ticket now!

Annihilator have announced a live date for Ottawa, Ontario at Maverick's on January 20th. No details have been supplied by the band or venue at this point. Watch the official Annihilator Facebook page here for updates or check out Maverick's at this location.

Annihilator guitarist/founder Jeff Waters recently spoke to Greg Prato of Songfacts about a number of topics including: the pros and cons of writing many Annihilator songs by himself, the stories behind several headbanging classics, and how he survived metal's dark mid-late '90s period; an excerpt follows:

What would you say is your favorite Annihilator album, as far as songwriting goes?

Jeff: "Never, Neverland. And I think simply because half of that was leftovers from the first record, called Alice In Hell, that we didn't use. And Alice In Hell, the first one was more of a noisy, messy, thrashy kind of album.

There were a couple of songs on the Never, Neverland album that seemed a little more fun and one called 'Kraf Dinner', about macaroni and cheese. Things like that, that at the time seemed like, 'Oh, that's not serious, I don't want to mess the album up with something fun.' And then we had so much success with the first record I just said, 'Screw it, let's have fun.' So I added a few goofy changes and interesting stuff like that, doing exactly what I wanted."

To read the interview in its entirety, click here.