ANNIHILATOR mainman Jeff Waters spoke to Greek web magazine Rockpages.gr about the differences between the tours of the '80s and the '90s. Here is an excerpt of that interview:

Rockpages.gr: What are the main differences of a tour nowadays in comparison with the '80s?

Jeff Waters: "For the promotion of metal we’ve done about 100 shows. There are differences for sure…in our case, we toured with bands like TRIVIUM that have a different crowd and we introduced ourselves to different fans and markets. We noticed that we sold more records to younger fans that haven’t heard of Annihilator before. That was good for us. It’s pretty cool to have an 18-year old metalhead buy a CD from a band that has been around for 20 years now! The differences are there - in 1993 everybody noticed that the metal scene collapsed in North America and it’s been a long and hard fight to bring it back to where it should be. Now in the US charts, in the Billboard there are bands like LAMB OF GOD or KILLSWITCH ENGAGE…great groups that produce some really heavy music and still they have to tour with three or four other bands in order to draw 2,000-3,000 fans! In the 80s, one huge band would be sufficient enough to gather at least 10-15,000 people. Economically, it’s really tough for most of the metal bands. There are many reasons for that situation - for example when I was a teenager, I was listening to all those huge metal bands and I started learning guitar in order to play like them. All my friends wanted to be the next Randy Rhoads or the next Eddie Van Halen. In the '90s, the majority of the bands had abandoned all the guitar solos…even METALLICA! A whole generation of metalheads in high school grew up without wanting to be the next guitar hero, the next Eddie Van Halen. There wasn’t any need of a six-hour practice per day…or at least that’s what they thought. Kids just learned five or six simple guitar chords and jumped like Flea from the CHILI PEPPERS…by the way, I love the Peppers but you know what I mean! That was the attitude of the '90s. The labels didn’t invest on the bands and they didn’t help the groups to develop. Every big band from the '70s or the '80s needed a couple of records to enrich and establish their sound. It’s only natural for a band to find its way. But, the labels now want only 1 or 2 good songs in order to have a product for the download and the rest of the album could be crap! That kills good music! If the video of that song didn’t bring the money that the label hoped for, then they would kick the band out! That’s not a way to build a career."

The full interview can be found here.