King Of The Kill

This was the title track of the Canadian metal band Annihilator's fourth album, the title of which is a play on the phrase "King of the Hill."

Guitarist Jeff Waters wrote the song with John Bates, who was the group's original lead singer, but left soon after they formed. Bates and Waters continued their songwriting partnership, however, and co-wrote Annihilator's most popular song, "Alison Hell." In our interview with Jeff Waters, he told the story behind this one: "Us two metalhead dudes sat down and came up with an idea of, Let's write a song about a female lion, and not make it sexual, make it actually about a lion. [Laughs] It was like, Okay, 'King of the Kill,' that's wrong. It's supposed to be 'Queen of the Kill.' The female lion's the one you should be scared of and not as much the male.' Then we looked at each other, I remember I went, 'Yeah, but 'Queen of the Kill' doesn't really sound too good. It sounds like something from the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. So maybe we should just stick to 'King of the Kill.'' So we wrote it about a female lion, called it 'King of the Kill,' and that's really all it was. It was a pretty simple and slightly Canadian cheesed lyric, just writing about a female lion."