Jeff Waters (born February 13, 1966) is a Canadian guitarist and the founder, bandleader and producer of the metal band Annihilator.

Waters has owned Watersound Studios since 1994 (where it was in Maple Ridge, British Columbia) and from 2003 until 2018, in Ottawa, Ontario, and now in the UK.

Waters has referred to Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Michael Schenker, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath as his early influences.

[1][2][3] In a 2013 interview with photogroupie.com, he said, "I started listening to Elton John, Kiss, Sweet, AC/DC then it evolved from hard rock with electric guitar to Black Sabbath and the heavier stuff, Judas Priest, Maiden, Loudness, Van Halen was coming in.

After some time, Waters began to embrace the idea of working with many other musicians, and recruited vocalist Dave Padden for 12 years (2003 - December 2014) as well as a revolving touring line-up.

After a couple of weeks of decision sometime in December 2014, Waters made a return to lead vocals for the band on their 2015 album, "Suicide Society" following former bandmate Dave Padden's departure.

Despite not touring and receiving virtually no press or label interest in Canada and the US, Annihilator has become one of the biggest selling Canadian Metal band of all-time,[citation needed] yet the majority of their sales have been generated from Asia and Europe.

Artists from many bands such as 3 Doors Down, Slipknot, Nickelback, Megadeth, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, In Flames, Danko Jones, HIM, Children of Bodom,[7] and WOLF[8] have either cited Waters as an influence or have revealed themselves as a fan of Annihilator or his guitar playing.

Waters has been known to use an ESP Dave Mustaine signature Flying V that he owns and it was this guitar that he used to record Schizo Deluxe as mentioned in the video section of annihilatormetal.com.

The new Annihilation-V shape is very similar to the original flying V, but has a smaller body and four cosmetic lines cut into the center of the V as well as a rubberized patch on the lowest edge of the V (to stop the guitar from slipping).

[12] He has also had his own signature overdrive pedal called the Jeff Waters Devil Drive by SolidGoldFX,[13] however this is no longer in production.