Make Me Shiver

Influenced by: Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Bon Jovi, Concrete Blonde, Jethro Tull, Chet Atkins, Mozart.

From time to time, a band comes along that brings you to your feet, gets you to put your fist in the air, and makes you call your friends and tell them at length about a band they’ve never heard of. It’s music that makes you glad to be alive. This is Make Me Shiver.

Make no mistake: behind these catchy as hell tunes are thoughtful, introspective lyrics. To call Make Me Shiver just a "rock band" would be to miss the point entirely. Make Me Shiver’s music is an emotion-fueled shot of musical soul-searching for the masses: a hefty dose of turbocharged pop-rock sensibility combined with a bit of blues and a little metal, and infused with just a touch of classical and bluegrass.

Make Me Shiver’s beginnings are either a reality show or a soap opera. It depends on whom you ask. In the spring of 2003, Charity Mason, the band’s rhythm guitarist, lead singer, and principle songwriter, began the search for musicians to create a band to make the songs she had written more than just a hobby. For bass, her brother, Will, agreed to help out. On drums, after nearly five years of searching, Steven joined the band, solidifying the line-up.

But who is Make Me Shiver? Charity grew up around music. Her grandfather was a guitar maestro, who influenced every member of the family toward music. Charity’s father plays trumpet and trombone; one aunt plays saxophone; another, flute and drums. One summer, Charity’s father brought home an ancient player piano, and Charity took to the instrument immediately. At age 16, she had already won numerous piano competitions, and written several classical pieces. That same year, she started teaching herself guitar. By the time she founded Make Me Shiver in 2002, she had a catalogue of over 400 songs. Will began playing bass in order to join the band, but it soon became much, much more than that. Having studied at the feet of one of Santana’s bass players, Will plays everything from Jethro Tull to J.S. Bach and everything in between. For Steven, having come of age in the midst of the Seattle grunge heyday, he was always drawn to music, and the scene at the time provided him with the perfect backdrop to hone his chops. After moving to the Inland Northwest, he was looking for a band to join. Even though he is primarily a guitar player, he is proficient at several instruments… drums among those. It is as a drummer that he has found his niche with Make Me Shiver.

Make Me Shiver’s debut CD, Too Much To Dream, is an album loosely based on the theme of change and taking that "next step" in life, in love… in whatever "it" happens to be. Make Me Shiver has nearly sold out the first run of the CD, and has garnered praise from fans and critics alike. The album is dedicated to the man that, really, started it all, Charity and Will’s grandfather, Don Brock, who died in February 2006, just months before Too Much To Dream was completed.

The band’s forthcoming second album, Moonshine Valentine, explores what happens when that next step is taken. This is the album the band calls their "storytelling record," and they are right on with that assessment. Every song tells a story: from the title track (inspired by a documentary on moonshine runners and a 1911 silent film entitled The Revenue Man and the Girl) to "Honor Among Thieves (inspired by real-life events in Charity’s life dealing with unscrupulous people in the music industry), the album is full of real-life tales and stories all set to catchy arrangements and lush instrumentation.

Since forming in 2002, Make Me Shiver has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments, including having their debut single from Too Much To Dream, "Riding The Bell," selected by VH1 for the cable channel’s “Best Week Ever” podcast, and reaching number three on the Seattle-regional list on MTV2’s "On The Rise" competition in August 2006, playing at the Denver Broncos home opener at Invesco Field at Mile High at the largest tailgate party at the event, opening for Jello Biafra in Seattle, and performing on the same stage as Rick Springfield.

The future is wide open for Make Me Shiver. This is one band that simply refuses to sit back and dream about it. Instead, they are hell-bent on making their dreams a reality, and doing so the old-fashioned way — through hard work, perseverance, and a keen understanding of what it takes to succeed.