June 2, 2008

Though album No. 3 is in the can, in the words of frontman David Bunton, many people “don’t know what The Showdown is.” The band’s first release, A Chorus of Obliteration (2004), was an aggressive effort featuring harsh metal vocals from Bunton. The follow-up, Temptation Come My Way (2007), eased into more melodic hard rock territory. It was a solid effort but hardly representative of the band, especially in a live setting. The new album, Back Breaker, scheduled for an August release on an undisclosed label, sees another stylistic shift, this time to all-out thrash. So on a recent tour with Shadows Fall, these four lads from Tennessee fit in just fine alongside fellow openers Kataklysm, Arsis and Droid. At the tour’s last stop, Bunton sat down to discuss the new album and the current state of the band with Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki.


Live-Metal.net: I read on your MySpace page that the new album is done or, at least, you’re done recording.

David Bunton: Yeah, we just finished right before we came on this tour like two weeks ago. We’re gonna mix it on May 13 and then it’ll be all the way done. So yeah, we’re pretty excited to get that done, wrapped up.

It’s called Back Breaker?

Yeah.

Is there a story behind that title?

It’s just one of the songs on the record. We always name our albums after a title on the CD. It was a heavy title for one of the songs. It’s one of the coolest songs, I think, on the record. So I don’t know. So it’s just kinda the vibe of our band and what we’re going for this record. It’s a lot heavier than the last one, too.

Yeah, I know there was a change in styles from the first album to the second one a little bit. What can we expect on this one?

It’s a lot heavier and it’s a lot more thrash. It’s like both records combined, kind of. It’s heavy, but it has structure like our second record. The vocals are a lot heavier. I basically got to do whatever I wanted, which was really cool. Not that I didn’t get to on the last record, but it was really just me and our producer, who’s actually a friend of ours. It was just me and him working on my vocals, so the vocals definitely turned out a lot different, more like how I am live. And I think that’s what we wanted for the whole record.

Is it like on “Temptation Come My Way” and “Breath of the Swamp,” those kind of vocals?

It’s honestly even heavier. It’s more like thrash. Even though the vocals were heavier on the new record, I still did some of the stuff I did on the second record, like vocal layering and stuff like that. I like really big vocals. I love Bad Religion and bands like that, bands that just take vocals over the top. So I want to apply that to our music, like thrash. It’s more of a raw record. I don’t know. We’re mega-amped on it. It was weird ‘cause we love Temptation Come My Way and we’re really proud of that record, but it’s like, some of those songs are just not—we would never play “Head Down” live. It’s fun. I love that song. I don’t know. It’s just not a song that we just jam. There’s probably a good, maybe half that record that it’s just like I love, but I don’t know. It’s just weird. It doesn’t feel right playing ‘em. It’s probably not a bad thing. It’s just learning what we’re into and what we’re not, I guess.

It’s good to have some variety, too. You don’t want to hear the same song over and over.

Right, right.

Do you know when the album will be released?

It’s actually gonna come out on August 19. We haven’t really been given many details, just because our record deal’s not completely solid. It is, but we’re still working the details out.

So you can’t say who it is yet.

No, but they paid for it. It’s coming out. We’re just trying to fine tune some of the details for other records for later on. So that’s really what we’re doing. But release date’s set. The record’s done. It’s coming out in August. We’re glad because we didn’t realize it was gonna be that soon. We found out in the studio and we were like, “Heck yeah. That’s very cool.” It’s what we were into, just getting it done.

Did that make you have to speed things up at all?

Not really ‘cause we were pushing forward so hard. We were just wanting to get in the studio as fast as possible and wanting to move forward ‘cause we had so much space in between the first two records and it wasn’t even our fault. It was done for like a year before it even came out. We just wanted to hurry ‘cause everything takes so long with records labels. So we’re kinda pumped that they’re just really pumped on getting it out and really into it and backing it. And they haven’t even heard it yet. They just like us, which is cool. It feels good that they actually care.

So this is the last night on this tour. How has it gone?

It’s been a good tour. It’s been a really cool tour. This is the third time we’ve done shows with Shadows Fall. We would do any tour with Shadows Fall. You can’t beat it. They’re just such chill dudes and their fans are always really warm to us. It’s been kind of a weird tour ‘cause there’s death metal bands on the tour. So it’s not like the normal Shadows Fall tour that we’re used to. But it’s still really cool and fun.

There are probably some different fans coming out.

Yeah, some death metal fans, like straight-up, which is cool. We’re doing a lot heavier set on this tour. It’s a heavier tour. Shadows Fall is playing a lot of older stuff. I don’t know. It’s just a heavy show all around, I think.

What’s next after this? Do you go home after this show?

Pretty much. Honestly, I have no idea. I wish I knew what tour we were on. We really want to be on tour. We just don’t have anything right now. I think it’s hard because a lot of people, they don’t know what The Showdown is ‘cause our two records are so different. No one knows what our third record is gonna be. We’re on a label, but we’re not technically in a place where we can have a label to market us when we’re on other tours.

It’s kind of a strange time for the band.

It really honestly is, and it sucks because summer is so fun and it’s so cool to tour. I’m really disappointed ‘cause we haven’t really done many tours this year other than Ozzfest.

Yeah, I was gonna ask, how was that for you last year?

Last year, yeah. That was cool. That was killer. Last year, that was really the only thing we did. We did Ozzfest and we did The Cult, and we toured in Europe. We did a ton of headlining shows. We played like a million shows last year, but as far as where we were supporting, it wasn’t that many. And this year, we haven’t really supported anyone. This is actually the first time. The first show of this tour was the first time we played since the 15th of December. I feel like a lunk on stage. I just feel so like—can’t even move. I’m so not used to playing. But whatever. It’s cool.

Did it take a few shows to work that rust off?

Yeah. Honestly, last night was the first time it was OK. Now I feel like we’re finally—if I had a couple more weeks to play, I could probably feel normal. After doing the record for four straight weeks, leaving the studio and coming straight on tour, we’ve been working in some form for six weeks now, so I’m ready to go home, too. It kinda sucks. We were just getting into the groove, but at the same time, we need a break. Everybody does. So whatever. Breaks aren’t very metal, but whatever.

One of the guitarists in the band, Travis [Bailey], left. What was the situation there?

He’s getting married and has financial obligations that the band just couldn’t—it’s not exactly a good, killer time to be in a rock band. The economy sucks. It’s just a lot harder to get kids out to shows. I think every band is feeling the effect of the economy, bigger bands and smaller bands.

Gas has got to be killing you.

Oh my gosh. Today we filled up with gas and it was like $3.69 a gallon. [NOTE: This interview was conducted April 25, 2008] I mean, dude, it’s freakin’ taking everything we can just to get to the shows. And kids don’t have any extra money to buy T-shirts. So it’s just really, really freakin’ weird. So that’s part of it. He’s getting married. He just got engaged at Christmas. It sucks ‘cause I’ve been friends with him since we were in third grade. We were in the lunch line in third grade singing Mötley Crüe and stuff together. So it’s kind of weird ‘cause I’ve always been in a band with him and the other guys up front. It’s always been us four. We’ve had other drummers, but it’s always been us. But it’s fine with us four as a four-piece. I think it’s working.

You’re not planning to replace him?

We may, we may. But I don’t know. It’s just hard to tell.

So what kinds of things do you like to do out there on the road when you have free time?

Man, it’s been pretty cool for free time. It just depends. If we have a lot of extra money, there’s nothing that we can’t—we can always find something to do. Always. But this tour’s been cool. Me and the bass player, we always try to go to the gym every day or every other day, whenever we can. We do that. This tour we’ve just went to parks and grilled, like went and got food and just grilled out at parks and hung out. It’s been really chill. We don’t have a lot of free time on the road, but when we do, we don’t just sit in hotel rooms. We like going out. We went out—it was awesome—we were in some small town. It was this bar, Commix, connected to a hotel and it was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and it was real small and it had pool tables, and we went and hung out there. Literally, the next day everyone was like, “Yeah, you’re that band that was at Commix.” We were like, “Oh my gosh, this is the Twilight Zone.” It was such a small town, when we walked in everyone was just looking. It was so weird. And we went in and stuck tons of money in the jukebox and just played AC/DC all night long and screamed and shot pool and stuff. It was cool. We definitely took the bar over. It was cool.

You mentioned AC/DC and Mötley Crüe. Who are some of your other favorite bands and influences?

We listen to a lot of different stuff in the band. This tour, it seems like we’ve listened to Blink-182 all the time. Soilwork, we’ve been listening to them a lot. We listen to a lot of old stuff, like AC/DC, Def Leppard, Warrant—tons of that stuff. It seems like there’s always different CDs or stuff that we do every tour, like we just get on a kick. We’re really influenced by a lot of old stuff, especially our guitar player Josh [Childers], like Pantera, Testament, Metallica. We all like those bands, for sure. We like a lot of punk rock, metal, just a lot of rock.

Are you playing any covers in the set right now?

No. I wish.

I really liked the Metallica medley that you did at Ozzfest last year.

Oh yeah. Dude, thanks. That was fun. We’re probably gonna try to do something else like that, maybe different songs, at some point. We really like covers. Last tour we did, we did “Mississippi Queen,” we covered that song. We’re into covers.

How did “Carry On Wayward Son” come up [on Temptation Come My Way]?

We love Kansas and our producer, Paul [Ebersold], was just like, “Hey, wanna cover ‘Carry On Wayward Son?’” We were just like, “What in the world are you talking about? That is the most insane idea ever. OK, cool, let’s do it.” ‘Cause, dude, that’s definitely a jam that we play and are into. So we just did it. We all knew the song and we just tried to figure it out. It was cool, though. I worked hard on it, as far as vocals and stuff. Especially at the time, I wasn’t even—I don’t know. I started out playing drums. I’m not like some singer dude or whatever. That CD was a challenge because I didn’t scream any on the CD at all. It’s easier for me to scream, but that was fun.

Related Links:
http://www.theshowdownmetal.com - Official Site of Showdown
www.myspace.com/theshowdown - Official Myspace Page of The Showdown

©2008 Live-Metal.Net