Joel Mullins is an Austin-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who first rose to prominence in the mid-2000s as the songwriter and frontman for Austin indie-pop quintet Tammany Hall Machine. Selected by the Austin Chronicle as one of the best new bands in Austin for their energetic live show and Joel’s melody-driven songwriting, THM disbanded while still on the rise, after two well-received albums and on the heels of opening for The Bangles at La Zona Rosa. Joel quickly assembled a new band and released one album as The Deaf Ears before spending most of the 2010s as a sideman for indie-rock stalwarts The Pons.

Joel's debut solo album, Mid-Life Crisis, was inspired by the existential and emotional crisis that he found himself in as he reached middle age. Struggling with intense grief, depression, and a troubled marriage, Joel wrote 22 new songs in the fall of 2019, a few months before the world was turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. After the release of first solo single "I Know When We Go" in July 2020, a newly sober Joel began recording the 11-song Mid-Life Crisis at home, collaborating remotely with Steve Sanders (The Pons) and Geoff Dupree (Tammany Hall Machine).  

The result is an extremely personal and at times heartbreaking record by an artist trying to find meaning out of suffering and loss.

Mid-Life Crisis was self-produced by Joel Mullins, mixed by Matt Gerhard (Spoon, Tennis, Walker Lukens), and mastered by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Mastering.