Interview with The Showdown lead singer Dave Bunton

Blood In The Gears the newest offering from The Showdown is an album that I have been anticipating for a while now. I caught up with lead singer Dave Bunton to discuss the disc and the process behind making this heavy, southern-tinged album. Blood In The Gears does not disappoint at all and it carries on the long standing tradition that we have come to expect from The Showdown. After perfecting their craft on their previous four records, I believe they have hit their stride on this one. I feel you can pick up this CD and find songs that are remarkably heavy, immensely powerful and at times even a bit familiar. Bunton’s vocals seem heavier, angrier and in my opinion more commanding than on the band’s previous efforts, if that is even possible. Here is how the conversation went.

Now that your new CD, Blood In The Gears, has been released. How do you feel about it and are you satisfied with the outcome?
Dave: We are really pumped on it. It was really a big group effort and we recorded it ourselves. We are really happy with the way it turned out. Since we recorded it ourselves, we got to do the things we wanted to do and we are very happy about that.

How quick are you guys in the studio? Can you usually knock things out in couple of takes or does it usually take considerably longer?
Dave: We kind of took our time… just because the studio is at Jeremiah’s house, it is in his basement. We did not feel super rushed at all. I did a couple of vocals a week and we just kind of took it easy. We probably could have done it in like two weeks but we took our time. That is the nice thing about doing it ourselves is that we could take our time so it kind of worked out really well.

Are there any tracks on the disc that are personal favorites or that have good stories behind them?
Dave: Yeah I like “Bring It Down” a lot. When I learned the song I was super pumped on it probably because it has more of a punk rock delivery and I really like that. I learned it and went into the studio to track it and I tracked it all the way through. It was super fast. I just rocked it out, you know, no punch ins and just super raw. It was really cool. I really like the song a lot.

I also really like “Dogma Enthroned,” which was the last song we recorded. I tracked that one in like 35 minutes. We popped out the webcams and did the tweet thing, there were a bunch of people watching and I just kind of tracked it live. It was super quick and super gnarly but it was kind of fun. I felt like I got a lot of stuff done quicker this time because I was not really pressured. Everybody had a lot of input and we definitely had a lot of songs. We were snowed in in Nashville and there was a lot of stuff going on. We have some making of the album videos up on YouTube and you can see the whole process; writing, vocals and extra stuff we did for the album. It is pretty extensive and there is a lot of goofing around in there as well.

Can you give me some insight into the title, Blood In The Gears?
Dave: Yeah is it basically like we are the blood in the gears that make the machine work, you know, the poor people. That is kind of what that song is about, we are just normal, heavy metal musicians and we can relate to that.

What kind of touring plans do you have in support of the record?
Dave: We are getting ready to go and do a short, two week tour with Becoming The Archetype. Those guys are awesome so we are getting ready to do that in a couple of days. In December we are going on tour with Living Sacrifice and Becoming The Archetype as well. This is going to be a really great tour, it will be mostly on the west coast. We will probably be going on a month long tour in the middle of October and November but we have not solidified that yet. We will be doing some support stuff there but since it is not solid yet we cannot mention it; things could fall through at any time. We are pumped on that because we have not done a lot of touring this year while we were making the album. The last big run we did was with Saliva back in October. And we have done some one offs while making the record. I am pumped for this tour coming up; it starts tomorrow actually.

Really you are heading out tomorrow?
Dave: Yeah it starts tomorrow and our van broke down. We went out and rented a Dodge Charger to go to the show; we are going to the show in a Dodge Charger with our guitars. We are just going to play Becoming The Archetype’s gear. It is pretty cool to because the Dodge Charger has a satellite radio in it as well and I am stoked.

Are you going to travel like that for the whole two weeks?
Dave: No just for tomorrow night.

So you are hoping to have it back by the time you get to the next city?
Dave: Yeah, the next show is in Nashville, which is where we live, so we will pick up the van the day after tomorrow and continue the tour. We have put about 250,000 miles on it and we bought it with 30,000 so we have done our fair share of touring for sure. The van needs a little bit of love but it is going to be ready for us on Saturday.

Any closing words?
Dave: Keep it metal. Come out and support live music anywhere. I think it is awesome to go to shows. I know we have done our fair share of touring and there are lots of bands touring this Summer. So keep metal alive, that is what we are trying to do.  [ END ]