Metal Anarchy

Amerikan Kaos, the project featuring Annihilator’s Jeff Waters, will be releasing a new album, titled “The Sheeple Swing,” on March 31. The first single, “(I Won) The Hottie Lottery,” can be found below:

“The Sheeple Swing” track listing:

01. “(I Won) The Hottie Lottery”
02. “Take Back”
03. “(I Wish I Could) Talk To The Dead”
04. “The Answer”
05. “The Punk Rockers Were Right”
06. “Operation Hollywood”
07. “Last Breath”
08. “War On Moron”
09. “Traitor In The Family”
10. “Trusted Thugs”

Waters commented:

“We are at the third 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 second best Amerikan Kaos 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 three or four songs sort of slightly touching on politics, in a common sense way perspective.

And then there’s some pretty cool topics I covered about, 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 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 favorite 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.”