ANNIHILATORMETAL.COM : JEFF WATERS AND SOME OF HIS GUITARS

JEFF WATERS AND SOME OF HIS GUITARS

(A few of these might actually be for sale as new endorsement deals frequently keep the band from using some on tour or in public. Contact Verena at watersound@sympatico.ca if you are interested in one of these rare guitars)

This is an Epiphone Prophecy Futura EX from the Epiphone Designer Collection. Usually, this one has EMG 81s and 85s in it but Epiphone put some Gibson Dirty Finger pickups in it for me (as I like them!). I just got this and it is actually for Dave Padden. And it going to be one of his main stage guitars. Killer Look!

This is a 1984 Kramer re-issue that the fine people at Gibson who own Kramer now sent me and I had a good friend of mine, Jon Moore, in Seattle/Washington do the paint job on it. Seymour Duncan was kind enough to make me a custom 78 pickup for it. Killer playing guitar! I will use it for some solos on the new record.

Here is a 1984 Kramer reissue with a Jon Moore paintjob on it and with a Seymour Duncan 78 pickup AND a EVH Frankenstrat replica on the left; my two babies. Can you tell who my favorite guitar player is? While they both play and sound completely different, they are both special and I love the Kramer for solos.

Frankenstrat replica. Nice pose. The shirt actually says it all! I guess if you grew up playing guitar in the 80's, you couldn't help but admit that Eddie was one of the best, if not the best all-round guitar players ever. No one has surpassed the versatility in his songs, rhythm and lead guitar work yet and many doubt it will ever happen. The Michael Jordan/Wayne Gretzky/Tiger Woods of guitar and rock songs!

This is an electrifying guitar (hehe!). The Gibson Jeff Waters Flying Volt. Hard to see clearly in this pic but one thing you can see is that it is lit up. It will be pretty amazing to play onstage in the dark with this one! The lights were put in by my good friends at The Aurora Project in the UK. They already had the pick guard/fret lighting system down; I just needed them to come up with a way to light up the Gibson logo at the headstock. Fantastic job and great work by these guys.

Once again, The Gibson Jeff Waters Flying Volt! Hanging out in the studio, trying not to set the world on fire! Cool pedal board. Note the VH Flanger and Phase 90; the latter being something I use now on almost all solos since the Schizo Deluxe cd.

The ESP Dave Mustaine LTD model. One of my favorite guitars for rhythm guitars in the studio, along with the Gibson re-issues and soon the Epiphone Signature model. Some of you have seen me use this on the Roadrunner United/All-Star sessions DVD for my solos on The Dagger and another tune. This is not the expensive $3000 model; I seem to, often, like the cheaper models; probably the true metalhead in me!

One of my studio basses. Fender Precision USA model. Just got this a few months back. Lately, I will use a Gibson T-Bird/V model for lower tunings and the Precisions for higher tuning but the T-Birds are winning out lately, both in studio and on tour!

Once again, another Fender Precision that I have had for quite a few years. Used it on the Schizo Deluxe record. That cd has my best rhythm guitar and bass sound on any Annihilator cd, I think. However we will see, as the new cd with the Gibson's/T-Birds is coming along just nicely!

This is a brand new Epiphone Prophecy Les Paul EX, from the Epiphone Les Paul Collection series. Fantastic guitar. This is the first Les Paul-style guitar I have had since 2000, when I used a few on the Criteria For A Black Widow touring. This is a nice one. Looks good, plays well and great necks. Epiphone also put in Gibson Dirty Finger pickups in this one. Great job on Epiphone's ENTIRE line, actually.

Not the best photo; obviously the guitar is one mess of color, but this is my favorite guitar for clean electric guitar sounds. I think this is a 1993 or 1994 model (bought it in 94) and started using it on the King Of The Kill record and haven't stopped. . Anytime there is a clean guitar on an Annihilator cd, it is played with this guitar.

Lovely Ovation! My favorite guitar for acoustic playing. Go this one in 1994 as well and this can be heard on most all Annihilator ballads/melodic sections when an acoustic is plucking away!

I think you can tell why I got this one. Angus Young is one of the most energetic live performers ever but also a unique feel that many think they can copy but almost none can. On the King Of The Kill (94-95) and Refresh The Demon (96) tours, I used SG's only, as they are very light-weighted guitars; something that was greatly appreciated by my shoulder and neck when I had to sing and play guitar for 2 hours a night!

This is one of the beautiful Ran Annihilator Jeff Waters Signature Edition V's, double pickup version with the little dancing devil inlay at the 12 th fret. Small and thin feeling guitars. Streamlined and you can easily poke out the eye of your band mate with these! Hehe!

This is an Epiphone Annihilator prototype version 1.0 that Epiphone are building for me at this time. This was the first one and there have been almost a dozen changes made since then (to get an idea of what I like and don't like, so that we can keep trying until we get it perfect!). Thanks to Epiphone USA's president Jim Rosenberg for this project that is still underway!

Red Single pickup Ran Annihilator Jeff Waters Signature Edition V.

1958 Gibson V customized by Gibson Berlin (Dirty Finger pickups, signature on headstock, Annihilator logo on body, etc…). Ulf and Alex from Gibson Berlin are to be greatly thanked for getting these models done for me. A Canadian company (forgot the name) painted this Demon on the pick guard for me (Refresh the what??!)

Bad quality photo (sorry about that; sure takes a long time to photograph this stuff!) of one of the Epiphone Annihilator prototype version 1.0; again, not the final version… just the first of a few! I may have the finals in time for our co-headline show at the Masters Of Rock festival in July. These and the Gibson Flying Volt will surely catch a bit of attention!

Black Single pickup Ran Annihilator Jeff Waters Signature Edition V.

Another killer 1958 Gibson from the fine lads at Gibson Europe. GREAT guitar. Used this and the other DEMON 58 for "Drop D" tuning songs a la "Maximum Satan" and "Like Father, Like Gun"!

A very special guitar to me. An old Yamaha classical guitar from the mid 70's that my grandfather gave to me as a present. I used this guitar to basically learn how to play from 74-79! I took classical lessons for 3 years or so and then a year or two of jazz; nothing extensive and I was quite young, but these 5 years of lessons gave me the “basics” of left hand positioning and my teacher was pretty strict about timing. ALWAYS had a metronome on. Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with Annihilator having to be tight as hell to a click in the studio?! J

This was the guitar used on the 1 st song”(Crystal Ann) on Annihilator's 1 st record (Alice In Hell) as well as on every other ballad/softer song by the band.

This is a very cool one-of-a-kind Ran Xplorer that Dave Padden used on our tours in 05-06. Made from a type of wood that sounds unreal but is so super heavy that Dave's shoulder would be in such pain after 30 minutes that we had to get him a different version! When Dave would let go of this to grab the microphone, the headstock end of the guitar would literally drop to the floor from the weight and imbalance but in the studio, it is great. James Hetfield would love this one!

Here is a Jackson Jenna Jameson flying V guitar. Now out-of-production but I had to get one! Cool paint job and pic, neat inlays and good sounding axe.

A Rare Beauty. A great and genius guitar builder named Patrick Hufschmid runs Hufschmid Guitars and showed up at one of our shows in Switzerland to give me this. Many, types of wood used in making this unique beauty. A LOT of time and effort went into this one, more than any I own. I can imagine that it would be extremely expensive to buy, at least the model I was given. The pickup was hand wound by a friend of his and it is easily the hottest pickups I have ever heard. Good for newer sounding over-driven guitar tones. Too dirty for Annihilator's cd's but I can think of 10 bands right now that would kill for one of these!

Here's a lovely little gift I got a few years back from the Gibson people. I was talking with Ulf Zick at Gibson about wishing there was a fold-up style guitar that could fit in my suitcase so I could bring it on press trips or on tour; where space was an issue. He walked away and came back with this (thanks again, Ulf!); not a fold up but it actually fits in my suitcase! Steinberger, I believe it is!

Here's a very happy me with one of my studio basses. A killer bass, really. Evil Gibson T-Bird. We use them live now and in studio.

Another version of the T-Bird. Beautiful.

Jackson Professional Rhoads EX. Anything with the name Rhoads and Jackson is gonna be rockin'!!'And this one rocks!!

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