You found Wisconsin's local music authority. This is MagSync Radio. We are local music.
Holidays always bring home our musicians who've resettled in Nashville, Chicago, Los Angeles,
and guitarist and singer Justin Blair is one of those people. Shiver is a new band out of L.A.
that features native Madisonians Justin Blair on vocals and guitarist Niko Campbell and Shiver
will be back on the trail in 2026 promoting their new album Raised in the Wild. He and
here in the studio with us to talk about Shiver the new album and his love for snow is Justin Blair.
Justin, welcome back to MagSync Radio.
Rocker, thank you so much for having me, man. I really appreciate it. Before we could start it,
I'd have a bone to pick with you. I heard you say that it looked like I was shivering when I walked in.
I need to defend my Wisconsin bone a few days here. I have not yet acclimated to the
Los Angeles weather there and I'll be running in a pair of shorts and people from Los Angeles will
be walking by in a park. So I was not shivering. Thank you very much. I had to tie it in with the band.
I know. We had to find some kind of little girl thing. How is it to be back in Madison?
It's great. It's great. It's great to change here. Find any new restaurants or anything around here.
Oh, man. We have our go-to's in my family. We always hit like Laredo's and Big Surts. The same
few restaurants every time that I'm back. So we don't need to find any new stuff, right?
Wow. Nice. Justin, you have been in many bands, including the dead lights, high tide,
live wire, and now, Shiver, how did you get started playing music? What's your backstory?
Yeah, absolutely. Just really quick, Shiver's not too new of a band. We're a few years old now,
but yeah, so I got started in music when my family was much more into Jimmy Buffett and Genesis
not to knock him at all. Great, great. But just more softer stuff. My buddy Stu
back a freshman year of high school showed me black dog when we were in shop class.
I pretty much fell out of my seat right there. All of the rest, just downhill from there and all
that. Then I went to the Middleson Library the next day and got as many rock CDs as I possibly could.
My brother and I started a band here in Madison called High Tide, which later we brought Niko
into, who's our current guitarist and just some vocals as well. He looked just like Taylor
Lautner at the time, so that certainly didn't hurt either. Bring some of the girls into the shows
and all that. But yeah, so it's just that first day hearing black dog and hearing some Zeppelin,
that kind of did it for me. And you're also in a band you were telling me live wire.
Yes. I can't remember that band as well. Talk about it. I don't remember it either.
So that's just fine. That was one that we had in college here in Madison. It was just sort of
hard rock, classic rock, all that sort of stuff. Ryan, Emma and Charles were in that one. All
great musicians and just a fun one to play around town. So what took you out to LA?
Just pursuing music. Yeah. And one day you were like, man, gonna go to LA and make it pretty much.
I packed up my car with a bunch of amps and keyboards and guitars. I'm not even sure if I brought any
clothing. I forgot that. I was in the first three weeks there. When you're a drummer,
you can pack your clothes in your drum. That's a good point. I should have stuffed the amps with
a few T-shirts or something like that. Very good point. I think some cool new sound you never know.
That's right. That's a great point. We're called Muffle Rock. That's our new genre that we just
came up with here. Well, let's hear about Shiver. What's this band all about? Yeah, absolutely.
So we're just kind of your standard rock and roll 80s band just made for people that still find
big teased out hair sexy. Yeah. That's what we're all about. But you know, Cinderella, Alice Cooper,
Deaf Leopard, all that sort of stuff. I think every band from LA is legally required to say that
Guns and Roses is also an influence. They're kind of the patron saints of the town.
I remember I was driving in my car one time to an audition and Paradise City came on and I had just
heard a little bit of Guns and Roses earlier. So I'm like, hey, I'll switch it to something else.
Swap to another station and Paradise City was also playing on that station. So you can tell how
you play Paradise City. Yeah, they're pretty ubiquitous there. I love Guns and Roses. That's certainly
not a knock. So there's two kinds of music in LA. Guns and Roses and Guns and Roses. Yeah,
Roses and Guns is a great one too. I heard that. You know, what's the LA scene like as far as,
do you find more original bands there? Cover bands? What kind of bands do you find out?
They're like in the music scene, not the big guys. Yeah, yeah. There's a ton of everything.
I mean, certain venues will be all cover bands. Certain venues will be all original music.
There's such a range. It would be impossible to kind of pigeonhole. I would be curious to know
how many bands in total are in Los Angeles. Everyone there is in like seven different groups,
of course. Right. So I would guess roughly about 2.3 million bands out there. More bands and
raccoons in the gutter. Absolutely. But yeah, it's been fun. So like, when Nico got out there,
we got this band going and picked up and all that. And it was nice to have been working together
back here in Madison because we, you know, as kids getting all the voice cracks out at that
point of life and all that kind of got to experiment with getting on stage and try to avoid some of
those pitfalls that later on might happen and get them all out of the way early, certainly not
to say that we don't have our fair share of on-stage horror stories. None as extreme as yours,
rocker. I think we might have time for one, maybe. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So we were debuting a new song
one time. This was a few years back. I had a place called Modern Malone's. And we were getting to
the very last chorus and just starting this last chorus and being a dramatic frontman, I went down
on one knee to hit this, the beginning of this last chorus. And I hadn't seen this giant
shard of glass on the stage. Right through my pants. Right into my knee. And so we're getting,
it's coming right up to the very first words of that last chorus of this new song we're debuting
and we're all psyched and it's great crowd. And everyone's having a good time. The mic was still
up to my face. And I think what I uttered was a sound that was something like. And so that was how
the beginning of that last chorus went when we debuted the song. So fantastic.
This guy is a screamer. Oh, that's pretty crazy. Shiver has released a new album called
Raised in the Wild. And does this mean that you leave the toilet seat up?
I can assure you, rocker. We are perfect gentlemen. Despite any outward appearances.
Where does the name come from? Yeah, it came from a lyric on a song that Nico had written this lyric
for what ended up becoming the eponymous title of the album. But it was just, you know, I'd wish
I had a better story around it, but we just looked at the title of each of the songs on the album,
where we just thought that one sounded the best. So just thought it sounded cool and we went with that.
Raised in the wild, your new album. Tell us about the album. Yeah, absolutely. So it was all done
in house. We tracked the drums at Doug's place. He's got a lockout. Good recording set up there.
And then the rest of the vocals and keys and bass and guitar and all that stuff. We did a
my place. And then we self mixed and mastered it and all that. So it's been a process. But it's
nice to have a little bit of control over all that. So now you said that you can in California.
You're in the same Fernando Valley. Yes, sir. And you converted your garage. That's right.
Into a rehearsal studio. So you're a true garage man. We are exactly asked. Very literally
a garage man. Yeah, absolutely. But it's nice to not have to go and pay for studio time to,
you know, in case I forget a lyric, we're not paying for an extra hour of me remembering the words
to the songs. You know, you go over it and pondering over and over. You guys, you know, push it
through real quick. I tried to go as quick as possible, but this album definitely took a little
while longer, which has been sort of a blessing in disguise to go back and add some extra layers
and some extra hooks here and there, rewrite some parts all that. So kind of wherever the music
takes us. So where can we find this album? Is it out right now? It's not out just yet. We just released
the first song as a music video. That's available on our Instagram and our Facebook and all that
sort of stuff. That's blue tonight, which we'll play in just a little bit here. But then the rest
of the album should be out on January 27th. That'll be available on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora,
wherever you get your music and all that. And you guys have toured a lot, even opening for some
classic bands like Sugar Loaf, LA Gardens and the tubes. Tell us about that experience and,
you know, when your next tour is coming up. Yeah, sure. So yeah, we've each been very fortunate to
be able to get out of town and tour whether it's been individually with other bands or with
Shiver as a whole, but it's always been a blast. We did a, that Sugar Loaf one that you referenced,
we did a tour around some of the Southwest and like hit Colorado and all that. That was a lot of fun.
Did they call you?
Were you sitting on that one there? Here we go, here we go, here we go. Sure was.
Very good. And then a few years ago, we actually came through the Midwest and hit some places in
Madison and all that and actually the day that we played high noon was, I don't know if you remember
that insane flooding that remember that, that just every road. I think the mayor told everyone to
stay home, which slightly are audience numbers a little bit there, but that was a while. I remember
that. Yeah, the Lake Mendoza and it was overflowing right into the streets. Each Washington was like
a couple of feet deep. It was wild. Yeah, almost got our car stuck going to the show. So whoops.
Wow, Ellie Guns. Oh, yeah. So that was actually a different show with a different band. That was
one that when we, when two of our members came into the band that we had done that one. So
Wow, different story. That's classic. And of course the tubes. Same thing with that.
Oh, those guys are awesome. Yeah, they're fantastic. It's a great live show. They sound fantastic.
How do we keep up with Sugar Online? Well, our only fans is really popping off lately. So that's
our main ones. Yeah. We'll be heading there in 10 minutes. That's why you start to get up and
Google us there. We're at www.shiver.band. And our Instagram handle is shiver underscore LA.
And then our Facebook is just shiver LA. Justin, thank you so much for coming down to our studio.
Absolutely. Thank you. We really appreciate it. We have another song we're going to listen to from
your album Raised in the Wild. And it's called Blue Tonight. Tell us about this song before
we listen. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So it's actually it's my favorite song. And I know that
you know, parents aren't supposed to have favorite kids. And I'll break the rule on this one. But
yeah, like I said, we just had a lyric video come out for this. And that is currently up on our
Instagram and Facebook and all that sort of stuff. So if you want to check that out, if you dig
the song here, go and see some visuals for it. But it was actually two songs that I just kind of
mashed together. They seem to be about the same tempo. Change the key a little bit and
wrote about some stuff that was going on at the time. And here we are.
Well, let's check it out. Thanks so much for coming in. Once again, this is shiver.
Their brand new song Blue Tonight. You're listening to Maxing Radio. We are local music.
Thanks, man. Appreciate it.
I know that you've been let so far down. Not a lot of faith left in those around. But don't
look to me. No, I'm not a better find. I know that you want to see me. The different kind of
love and what would be. But don't look to me. No, I'm not that guy. But just one of
the night. I'm going to make you lower night. When it might just hurt your pride for the time.
You'll be fine. That's about the light. I won't ever let you be lonely.
I'm still here. Just to try your tears. And now, hey, sit. Hold me.
Shop local, eat local, listen local. This is Maxing Radio. We are local music.