Holly has loved music since she was just a little girl growing up in the small town of Wana, West Virginia. She found her voice as a little girl, accompanying her father on Sunday mornings in church choir. As she grew up she began to take her musical talents outside of the church walls, performing in multiple school choirs, musicals, festivals and fairs. To continue feeding the fire Holly's mother saw in her daughter, she purchased her daughter a piano and scheduled lessons with a local instructor. Holly loved the sound and the feel of the keys under her fingers. She soaked up what her instructor was teaching her but eventually found herself feeling caged in, trapped. She wanted to be free to move, free to dance, free to express the music. It was right about this time when she saw a Melissa Etheridge television special and immediately knew what she wanted, what she needed. After hours of begging her mother and a spotting in the classifieds by her mom, Holly got the first love of her life, her first guitar. Little did she know that that the seemingly insignificant purchase of her twenty five dollar garage sale special would set the stage for a whirlwind of new life experiences coming her way.
While teaching herself to play her new instrument, Holly began writing songs and learning about the world of music business. She joined two different rock bands and interned at a local radio station, honing her musical gifts while learning what it meant to make music for music lovers. During her radio station internship, Holly was introduced to Blessid Union of Souls lead singer, Eliot Sloan. He heard her sing and asked her to send him some of her music. Though she had a lifetime's worth of music and lyrics written out, she had not yet recorded anything and had no money for recording equipment or studio time. She needed to find a way to create a demo, and she needed to find a way fast. With permission from the radio station, Holly used their equipment to put together a scratch demo for Sloan. He loved what he heard and began working with Holly to develop her unique sound. Balancing school and her passion for music, Holly would attend class on the weekdays and travel to Cincinnati on the weekends to write and record with Sloan and other talented writers and musicians.
After graduating from high school, Holly moved to Cincinnati, began touring with Blessid Union, and opening for bands like The Spin Doctors, Gin Blossoms, Roger McGuinn (the Byrds) and the like, while perusing a degree in Audio-Video Production at Southern Ohio College (now Brown Mackie). Despite no label and very little promotional help, Holly found her music being shared on multiple MTV, MTV2, and VH1 shows and multiple radio and local tv stations.
Taking the next step in her music career, Holly has since moved to Nashville, raised the capital to start her own record label (Girl on a Mission Music, LLC), and is working on both a Christmas EP and her much-anticipated, first full-length album, Heartache to Hope.