Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Season 5 of The Voice begins Monday night at 8 p.m. on NBC. Check back for live blogs during each show and for bios of contestants who land a spot in the competition.

Meanwhile, it’s time to catch up with some familiar faces from past seasons, with the focus on those who have released music recently. Justin Rivers, an Alabama native who now lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky, was 29 when he auditioned for Season 4 of The Voice.

Before The Voice: Justin got an early start in music, playing the drums at his parents’ church when he was just 5. In 2006, he moved to Nashville and became part of a country-Christian band known as Austins Bridge. The band released three albums, won a Dove Award in 2008 for best bluegrass song of the year (“She’s in Control”). And Austins Bridge was nominated for a Grammy in 2011 for best southern country, bluegrass or gospel album for the 2010 album “Times Like These.” At the time The Voice came calling, Justin was working on a solo country album.

On The Voice: He auditioned with Kenny Chesney’s “Summertime,” earning a spot on Blake Shelton’s country-heavy Season 4 team. He won his battle round and knockout round matchups to advance to the live playoffs. His performance of “Man in the Middle” cracked the top 100 on iTunes singles download chart, but Blake opted to keep the Swon Brothers instead as the show cut down to 12 contestants. They wound up finishing third.

Since The Voice: Justin has opened for the likes of Randy Houser and Darius Rucker. And he got to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in June with Diamond Rio, calling it “a milestone in my career,” on Facebook. But he also released his first post-Voice single, a country version of Rihanna’s “Stay” in May, before Season 4 even ended. Then he followed that up with a six-track country EP of original material in mid-July. The EP is called “Love for a Livin’,” and I’ve embedded one of the tracks, “Bring It On Back,” below. You can check out the rest on Justin’s Facebook page.

Keeping up with Justin: On Twitter, he is simply @justinrivers. Here are links to his Facebook page and website.

Justin Rivers, “Bring It On Back”