No Way Out

Album: Feast (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song is about Jodi Arias, who killed her former lover Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008. Her trial lasted 17 weeks and was a media sensation, as the soft-spoken Arias claimed self-defense and the prosecution portrayed her as a calculated killer. Arias was eventually convicted of first-degree murder.

    Arias first claimed that she didn't kill him at all, and later changed her story, saying she killed him after a night of sex. There were lots of inconsistencies in the case that led to her conviction, but looking at Arias it was hard to believe she was capable of such violence.

    One of the many viewers intrigued by the case was Annihilator guitarist Jeff Waters, who wrote this song about the ordeal. "Here I am supposed to be writing riffs for the album, and I would literally write for two hours, run up for two hours and watch, and then come down for two hours," Waters said in our 2014 interview. "I'm on the east coast, so I spent my entire morning, afternoon, and night watching because the trial would go on until 8 at night our time."
  • It's pretty clear what Jeff Waters thinks of Jodi Arias, writing in this song that she is "A selfish evil psychopath." The suicide reference deals with events after the trial when Arias was placed on suicide watch after saying that she would rather die than get a life sentence.

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