Robert Gray at Ultimate-guitar.com recently caught up with THE SHOWDOWN guitarist Josh Childers. An excerpt from the interview is available below.

Q: In an interview, you said that (new album) Blood In The Gears is "essentially the same as Back Breaker, but bigger". Could you explain what you meant by that statement?

Childers: "Yeah. We've always been a little bit reactionary; after we put out that first record, we put out Temptation Come My Way which is completely the opposite. We then did Ozzfest and all this touring with death metal bands and stuff like that, and we got tired of not being the heaviest band on the bill anymore, so Back Breaker was just a straight up thrash reaction against that - that was about as in your face as we were capable of being at the time. This time around, we wanted to not react to something we'd done before or something that's gone on outside of us. We just took the formula to where we wanted it to be, which has some of the songwriting of Temptation and a little bit more of the stadium rock and things like that, but is still ballsy and in your face. It's basically everything we've been doing on the last two records, but just honed in fortunately because we've got that fresh blood, and we're able to focus really more intensely on our individual roles - instead of having to focus on everything at once."

Q: How do you feel The Showdown has evolved since writing A Chorus Of Obliteration?

Childers: "We're a totally different band; when we started writing for our first record, we weren't really musicians at that point. We were trying really hard to play as fast as possible, as many notes as possible, and as many styles of metal as possible - we were just always on ten, basically. 'Temptation' was the exact opposite; we wanted to actually write songs, and we'd already been playing A Chorus of Obliteration's songs forever, so we were kind of tired of that album. And like I said, Back Breaker was a little bit a combination of the first two records. We just wanted to get it back to being more intense, but with more songwriting. This time around, we're finally finding what our sound actually is instead of reacting to outside influences. We've definitely grown up a whole lot, because now we're able to just write without worrying about what it's supposed to sound like.

Q: So Blood In The Gears is probably the most accurate presentation of The Showdown's musical style?

Childers: "Yeah, hands down. Easily."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

As previously reported, The Showdown, LIVING SACRIFICE, BECOMING THE ARCHETYPE, TO SPEAK OF WOLVES and AS THEY SLEEP will embark on A Very Metal Christmas Tour in December. Confirmed dates are as follows:

December

2 - Joshua Springs Calvary - Yucca Valley, CA
3 - Epic Ventura - Ventura, CA
4 - The Phoenix Theater - Petaluma, CA
5 - Chain Reaction - Anaheim, CA
6 - Cobalt Cafe - Canoga Park, CA
7 - The Underground - Mesa, AZ
8 - Tramway Community Church - Albuquerque, NM
10 - The Door - Dallas, TX
11 - The Conservatory - Oklahoma City, OK
12 - Downtown Music Center - Little Rock, AR

BraveWords.com's Aaron Small recently interviewed The Showdown guitarist Josh Childers, click here for the feature.