Amerikan Kaos: How, What and Why?

Well, Amerikan Kaos was born out of the fact that I have spent my career with, of course, Annihilator, for many decades. 17 studio records and many other releases… and a lot of touring.

People that follow Annihilator know that I like all kinds of music. I have influences from blues, punk, thrash, speed, heavy metal, to pop music, classical and jazz. I have tried to do as much of that with the Annihilator music as I could, but there was always a certain limit to the area I stay within. And I always knew for decades that I hoped I would have the opportunity to sit down and write a record for a new band, or a new project for a different kind of music. I didn’t really know what it would be. So, when the world shut down, I lost some interest in the writing side of Annihilator, and I took it as the perfect opportunity for me to explore my creativity and do something, finally, that let’s me create and apply a lot of what I’ve loved and learned over the decades. Whether it is other musical styles than I have been known for making, different studio productions/technical ideas (engineering, producing, mixing… and have a blast making great music, with some great talents and people involved).

As much as it was cool to have that time in the studio, it was also confusing, as I had no solid idea of the style of music I wanted to do, and I had to be careful that it was not too influenced by my favourite bands. I have so many different favourite bands and different types of music that when I write songs, sometimes they sound the same as other bands, because I’m so much of a fan of them.

That was a tough thing to do, to decide to write a record when you are known as a thrash metal / heavy metal guitar player for your whole life. If you sit down and put something else out it’s going to get criticised, so I decided to just do what I wanted to do. I started writing a few songs and they were scattered…one was like a pop song, the next was back to a heavy metal song, the next was Rolling Stones style and another, with some The Knack grooves. So, I thought I really need to come up with a plan and get some focus here, because I can’t just put out a record with ten or eleven songs that make no sense to each other.

So, I decided what area I was going to go into for writing and try to keep some focus, but the problem was that I wanted to write across many areas and styles. I didn’t want to be held back to one style again, so I thought what about maybe three records? What if I have the focus and time in the creative space that I was in during 2020? Why not spread the styles across three different records, with maybe three different singers and maybe three different sets of line-ups or people? So that is where the trilogy came from, whether it made sense to anyone else. This was for me, to get the ideas out of me while I had the time and creative mindset to get it done.

The debut album, ‘Armageddon Boogie’, was released to critical acclaim in May of 2024, and 2nd album ‘All That Jive’ in 2025. The trilogy is now finally complete with the release of ‘The Sheeple Swing’.

OVERVIEW – AN INTRODUCTION BY JEFF WATERS:

We are at the 3rd Amerikan Kaos record: exciting, very exciting! Once again I got to work with Stu Block on this, who did the previous record, ‘All That Jive’, which was and still is my favorite of the three. But here we go with the final installation of The Trilogy, tied for 2nd best AK record with the first one: ‘Armageddon Boogie’. I hope you enjoy this.

It has a slightly different sound and, as I’ve said before, I wanted to try different instruments and different styles. This one was a little bit quicker written and recorded than the previous, probably about two weeks quicker than the other ones. Stu and I said let’s just go in and do something a little more raw. I did add some nice production and tracks to some songs and parts, but they sound was generally more live. The theme for this one, I’d say a good 3 or 4 songs sort of slightly touching on politics, in a common sense way perspective.

And then there’s some pretty cool topics I covered about, you know, and one of those that stands out to me would be “The Punk Rockers Were Right”. It’s kind of a fun song about how when I was back in high school, I was noticing that the Punk rockers would always have shirts and yell these political things about the environment and politics and corruption, and I just ignored it. And I was doing my Metal thing for decades until I finally realized in my 50s that they were right. While we were talking about cars, girls, Metal and aggression (which is great), they were talking about corruption and politics and how the systems work. And that turns out that’s also an important outlet and important subject. So yeah, Punk rockers were right.

And I also have some little more personal things in there and songs like “Traitor In The Family” and “Take Back”. “Take Back” is about reminiscing about the days before the main computer electronics came out and how people would, you know, just socialize more, have more conversations, look at each other more and talk more. But it’s just a reminiscing song. Happens when you get older.

I think “Traitor In The Family” is kind of self-explanatory.

And there’s lots of cool, cool ideas on this one, lyrically. And there’s a fun one, I think the track the record opens up with “The Hottie Lottery”, which I’m just having fun with it, right? In brackets “(I Won) The Hottie Lottery” and of course it’s about a female. As always, on these records, I have quite a few songs about my wife, but this one is a fun one. It’s got a little, I won’t say Michael Jackson vibe because there’s no way you could compete or even get close to almost even a B level unless you’re Bruno Mars or one of these types of artists. But for this I wasn’t trying to be Michael Jackson, but I always liked the song “Enjoy Yourself” by The Jacksons/Jackson Five? I can’t remember, but you know, Michael Jackson was always a favourite of mine and billions of others. A fun thing.

I also love Las Vegas and casinos, so looks like I won the jackpot by meeting my wife is kind of the obvious meaning in that one.
Musically speaking, musician-wise first, I guess you would say, Stu was the pleasure of having, once again, on this record. Amazing to work with him. This time we knew each other and how we worked in the studio with All That Jive and the ‘Metal II’ record by Annihilator.

Stu’s very prolific when it comes to vocal sounds and styles, and easy to work with. This time I was able to sort of ask him to do more of his own thing. Didn’t have to say as much to him as a producer. So that was fantastic. Let him loose a little bit. As always, I wrote everything, but I gave him a lot of leeway on what he wanted to do with it. Yeah.

As for backing vocals: I think on this record, we didn’t have anybody else on backing vocals except myself and my stepdaughter Ruby.
She’s been on all three of the records doing girl voices or yelling or party scenes or things like that.
And of course, Bob Katsionis on the keyboards, piano, that kind of stuff. He’s always been an asset to this project. Incredible talent.

This was a great way to end the trilogy. Fantastic way! The first one was more 1980’s Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal style. And second one was a little bit more Hard Rock with a trace of everything from Dance and a little Prog and keyboards and, you know, really more serious songwriting I think on the second one.

I think on this third one, ‘The Sheeple Swing’, which by the way, I’ll go back to saying why that title, it was misread by the mastering guys, Ted Jensen’s people down at Sterling Sound in Nashville and misread by the gaming company that owns this trilogy. And I understand why, they thought it was ‘The People Swing’. But it actually is ‘The Sheeple Swing’.

If someone doesn’t know what ‘sheeple’ means, I think I can tell you without getting into detail: sheep people. I think you understand the meaning of that one. And it’s not necessarily political. It’s just about people going with the flow without questioning anything and might not always be the right way to do it. You should always question things and use common sense. So, and again, this third final record had to have a dance in the title. You have the ‘Armageddon Boogie’, you have ‘All That Jive’ and of course you have ‘The Sheeple Swing’.

Thank you very much. We hope you enjoy this one. It’s much different than the first two but it fits in perfectly. CHEERS ALL!

- Jeff Waters