313. Shane Ireland, Pt. 1: The Making of a Master of Pipes
I am pleased far beyond words to bring you the first in a two-part interview with Shane Ireland, one of the greats in our pipe community. As you may know, he was awarded the Master of Pipes at the 2022 Chicago pipe show, an honor richly deserved. I was able to connect with him a few weeks after the show and then again recently. His first good pipe was a Pete System 303 and he now companions a number of them. Shane is a master in every sense of the word, a man so genuine in his passion about life and about pipes and tobaccos (among other things) that just to be with him ignites a similar positive energy. That he serves our community from the trade side is all the more remarkable. Mark: Where did you grow up? What was your life before Smokingpipes.com? Shane: : I was born and raised in San Diego until I was twenty-five, when Sykes Wilford made me an offer to come work for Smokingpipes. I grew up listening to classic and prog rock and began playing stringed instruments really young, mostly electric bass. Besides that, I also played played cello and double bass in the high school orchestra and euphonium and tuba in the marching band. I played in jazz ensembles through high school and afterwards. I could play pretty much everything Rush or Pink Floyd ever recorded. My Dad and his brothers had a handful of bar bands, playing Top 40 stuff on the weekends. I once had a gig with a group of teachers outside of school. One was an excellent guitar player, one a great pianist but they needed a bass player. I did that from a fairly early age for extra money. I played in high school musicals and during summers played in a handful of jazz festivals in Southern Cal, most notably at Fullerton College. I’ve also played in a handful of heavier rock groups that played original music as well as top 40 stuff, which got pretty boring. I can’t even tell you how many times I had to play “Love Shack” in a bar. I’m a huge Zeppelin fan. I love Charles Mingus. Then after high school, I worked in the music business on the sales side and sold high-end instruments and went to the NAMM Show [National Association of Music Merchants] every year. But after awhile it got a little heart-breaking peeking behind the curtain to see that’s it so not about the music but the money. I had just had enough of it. Mark: Do you still play professionally? Shane: No, after I moved to South Carolina I had to scale back to just playing for fun. It had gotten to where all the fun had been sucked out of it for me when I was trying to do it for a living. It was more of a job than a hobby. Mark: When did you get interested in the pipe? Shane: I started…