Biography
Fronting the group Holler as singer, songwriter, and bassist, Mike Ireland saw the band's first album, Learning to Live, issued by Sub Pop in 1998. Growing up in Missouri, he had regarded country music as both uncool and overdone. At the University of Missouri-Columbia he spent eight years earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in music education and English literature while performing with the band And How. Once his studies concluded the group dissolved, prompting Ireland to return to Kansas City, marry, and take a steady job. An unplanned appearance alongside two former bandmates at his own wedding reception, however, pulled him back toward music, and the three soon launched the alternative-country outfit Starkweathers. In 1994, after hearing the band's five-song EP, Sub Pop CEO Jonathan Poneman traveled to Lawrence, KS, for a live show; he proposed releasing a single, leading Ireland to resign from his position teaching English composition and devote himself fully to the group. Then, in October 1995, Ireland discovered that Starkweathers' lead singer was involved with his wife, and both the band and the marriage collapsed. He began composing stark, desolate material, initially in the country-rock vein associated with Starkweathers before shifting toward the countrypolitan style of the mid-'60s. Poneman had been most struck by Ireland's voice rather than the band itself, and therefore offered him a solo deal. Ireland recruited former Starkweathers brothers Mike on guitar and Paul Lemon on drums, while Dan Mesh earned the rhythm-guitar spot after auditioning. The newly formed Holler then placed many of Ireland's post-breakup compositions on its debut album.