We can do it together.
Maxing on civic media, we are local music.
That is M. Shays and Belied.
That's a brand new song, 22 days old.
And you can get that single right now
up at M. Shays bandcampage.
How you doing everybody?
M. G. B. K. coming up on the show still.
We got Ron Brooks.
We're going to talk about the whammy's.
We got bar notes coming on.
Rocker, K. J. Fillin' in for Terry Barr.
And Rocker, super excited about our next guest.
Jimmy M. Shays is an emerging duo in Madison grounded
by the songwriting, pointing at lyrics and piano agility
of Maggie Shays and propelled by the drumming of Sean K.
Pierce.
You may also find Maggie working over at the Baroque
as an audio engineer or audio for the arts.
Working on some of your favorite albums.
And tonight M. Shays premieres a brand new single
which will drop Friday, March 8th at the Harmony Bar.
And here to tell us about our new music and the singles
and upcoming shows is Maggie Shays.
Maggie, welcome to Mexico Radio.
Hi, Rocker.
Thanks for that intro that I wrote.
Well, we, you know, I'm like Chachi B. T.
I just kind of manipulate a little bit to, you know,
make it fit what we're doing here on the show.
And stop telling our secrets.
Yeah, yeah, no more cats back in the bags.
Yeah, there you go.
So what show are you mixing tonight over at the Baroque?
I mean, I know you just, you kind of love
the show.
Oh, she snuck out and you're here on the radio.
Tell us about that show.
That show is for Alex White and the friends.
Oh, yeah, we had him on last week.
Yeah, and Lamphouse Blue and Josh Alley mixed Alex's music.
And he's also mixing my music for me now too.
So there's a symbiotic music thing.
Wait, it's a small world.
Sure, exactly.
So tell us, or, okay, wait, sorry, never mind.
For those who don't know you, like me included,
it's so nice to meet you and learn all about you.
Tell us a little bit about yourself
and how you got to this moment.
Like basically just give us your whole backstory.
Sure, yeah.
So I've been playing music in the Madison area
for about five or six years or so.
And under the name of Maggie Shays.
And then a couple of years ago, my friend Sean hit me up
and was like, hey, what are you doing?
Do you want to like make a band or something?
And we started.
Is that how I have a, hey, what are you doing?
Want to make a band or something?
I got the afternoon free shirt.
So yeah, from there, we started collabbing
and wanted to put this record together.
And here we are now and we're doing it piece by piece.
All right.
So you know, you come from this like incredibly musical
family, right?
Your two brothers are in the earthlings.
And you do, yeah, and you do audio.
Like what role did your parents play
in your music kind of upbringing?
Yeah, music was kind of like a central focus
just for fun and games.
They didn't like, you know, they weren't serious musicians
themselves, but they always loved music
and we'd always be listening to prog rock
and the Beatles and just stuff like that.
And I'll kind of went around with video cameras
in the 90s and made up like songs
and our own news channel and everything.
I'd love to see some of that old footage.
Well, we hope you get famous
because then maybe we will, right?
We can do documentary, of course.
Okay, it's already in the works.
Wow.
Sounds good.
Well, tell us about your duo, M. Shays,
and give me your drummer some.
Who's he?
Sure, yeah.
So it's not really a duo.
We are collaborating with guitarists
and bass players and various instrumentalists.
So it's a collaborative effort.
Right now, we're playing with educational Davis.
Oh, okay.
We're the flavor that kills an awesome lunch
who plays with Seasaw and also the bandline.
Wow, you're like, I'll start.
The song we just heard, bleed.
You're also playing with Josh Alley
on their Bobby Hussey as well.
Yes.
In educational Davis, we talked about him.
Working with some good all-star,
really solid musicians here in Madison.
Yeah, it's a very, very fortunate and blessed.
Tell us about the song we just heard, bleed.
Bleed is a six-minute-long song
that I wrote a few years ago
and Josh Alley helped co-write the song a little bit
but he has just kind of my normal songwriting process
of sitting down at a piano
and just hashing stuff out.
Sort of like, I don't know.
Jet GDP help us with where it's here.
Being a musician and a sound engineer,
that has to give you a unique perspective
when you're writing.
Are you hard on yourself
when you're trying to make music?
You find yourself overly critical of yourself?
I mean, as a person in general,
I'm pretty overly critical of myself.
The music for me came before the audio engineering,
so I have a pretty clear line in my mind
between what the two things are
and the engineering is a way to portray that music
for me more than the other way around.
So you call it kind of a valuable tool
to be able to obviously write music that comes first
but then to be able to put the polishes on it
in the engineering part?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, yeah, that matters.
It matters how something sits on your ears
like that song that we just heard.
It's very haunting.
I first heard it when we were out there in the lobby
and I was like, oh, this is,
this is where I got to be quiet and listen to the song.
And you're not going to get that emotional,
those kind of those chills.
If something just, frankly, isn't produced very well.
It's true.
It's not your standard pop song.
No.
And I hear you're up for some whammy and mama awards.
Yeah.
I'm up for Best Keyboard piano player this year.
I'm up here for the whammy's and the mama's.
So go vote for Maggie Shays.
For him, she's representative.
So that's under your name of Maggie Shays.
Yeah, and that's her name.
Maggie with an E, not Maggie.
Right.
Maggie, yes, informally for Megan.
OK, I like it.
So.
And you're in the studio recording a new album.
Tell us about that.
And when we might be able to find it.
When?
That's a great question.
Hopefully later this year.
Yeah, but we're released.
We just released bleed.
I guess it was a couple of weeks ago now.
And middle of nowhere is going to be coming up next on March 8th.
So make your way down to the harmony.
And we're going to actually give you a listen to that brand
new song tonight and just a couple of seconds.
Tell us about the release show.
Let's come it up at the harmony.
Yeah, it's coming up in a couple of weeks on a Friday night.
And Dana Perry is going to open.
And she's awesome.
Yeah, Dean is so great.
So supportive of local music and cargo
coffee and really happy about everything she's doing over there.
And yeah, it's going to be a great night of music.
And giveaways.
Am I reading this right?
Are you giving away some vinyl?
We're giving away some vinyl.
Wait, no, don't tell Jimmy.
Love the vinyl.
Yeah, how do we win vinyl?
You two win too.
Yeah, you just got to go to the show and be one of the first 20 people
through the door.
Wow, Jimmy, it's that easy.
I'm putting that on my calendar right now.
We're only giving away one Friday, March 8th.
Hey, Ray is going to be there.
Morgan Ray.
She's great too.
Yeah.
And her new project, Ray is great.
Of course, Dana Perry, who you've already covered her.
She's kind of a rock star.
If people want to learn more about you, connect with you on socials.
How do we do that?
Oh, my.
Well, you could find me on my website, our website, mshaysmusic.com.
And you know what, we are premiering one more song tonight.
It's called middle of nowhere.
Is this song about Jimmy's last can't be tripped?
Oh, my, it is now.
Tell us about that song before we listen.
Tell you about the song.
OK, middle of nowhere.
I wrote that in my old apartment building.
This was pre-COVID.
Yeah, I mean, the song really speaks to just, it's kind of can go
anyway you want to like thinking about it as a story.
So hopefully it'll speak to the listener.
However, it associates to you.
And this is the first time the song has been played in public, right?
This is, yeah, this is the first earring of all time.
Well, we appreciate that, Maggie.
And thank you so much for coming in tonight.
We appreciate you.
Thank you, Jimmy.
Let's hear the brand new song world debut on Maxing Gradio.
Middle of nowhere is mshays on Maxing Gradio.