ANNIHILATOR leader Jeff Waters, who moved to the United Kingdom from his native Canada back in 2018, and his business partner, entrepreneur and wife Angie are selling their Durham, U.K. estate/house, studio building/loft, all studio equipment as well as Jeff‘s extensive guitar and equipment collections.

The house/property is available on its own, but you can also purchase the studio gear and simply step into an already-up-and-running, world-class studio with loft.

Located just 30 minutes away from both Newcastle International and Durham Tees Valley airports, the studio is nestled in a private valley estate near Durham Cathedral.

Angie, a life-long Durham resident and co-founder of a successful U.K. merchandise company, is a real-estate entrepreneur and the studio’s co-owner with Jeff. Jeff has been the mastermind behind the many-million-selling band ANNIHILATOR since 1984, writing for Sony/ATV, Warner Chappell and many artists, playing guitar, producing and engineering as well as owning three previous Canadian studios (Vancouver, Ottawa and Dunrobin).

Jeff comments: “No retirement, no money probs, no divorce, no health issues: just downsizing most everything!

“Studios and gear collections are a lot of work and maintenance, and it’s time to slow down — just a bit,” he explains. “A few people are going to love having this stuff and I’m sure many will find it cool to check out the first 100 guitars and more.”

For more information, visit www.watersoundstudios.co.uk.

Founded in 1984, ANNIHILATOR took the metal scene by storm with its debut 1989 release “Alice In Hell”, upped the ante with 1990’s “Never, Neverland” and has continued a non-stop career-pattern of releasing records and touring with many of the biggest bands in the metal genre (mostly outside North America) ever since, cementing ANNIHILATOR as the biggest-selling metal act in Canada’s history.

In June 2024, ANNIHILATOR celebrated the 35th anniversary of “Alice In Hell”, with former ICED EARTH frontman Stu Block singing the entire record, at a livestream event from the United Kingdom. Block, Waters, guitarist Aaron Homma, bassist Rich Gray (a.k.a. Rich Hinks) and drummer Fabio Alessandrini also performed a few “best-of” songs that included “hits” chosen by the fans.

This past April, Metal Department released the sophomore album from Jeff‘s “secret love child” AMERIKAN KAOS, “All That Jive”. AMERIKAN KAOS marked a significant shift in the musical journey of Waters, promising to blend a variety of musical influences, transcending the boundaries he experienced with ANNIHILATOR.

Block can be heard on “Metal II”, the reworked version of ANNIHILATOR‘s 2007 “Metal” studio album. “Metal II” also features former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo.

“Alice In Hell” was the first of six ANNIHILATOR albums to feature songwriting contributions from the band’s former singer John Bates, who was credited as the co-writer of the songs “Alison Hell”, “W.T.Y.D.”, “Burns Like A Buzzsaw Blade” and “Human Insecticide”.

Three years ago, earMusic announced a reissue series of (almost) the entire ANNIHILATOR catalog. In total, 18 records are being released over the next few years, including the original 2007 version of the “Metal” album.