Lee Coulter
Lee Coulter is a singer-songwriter, music producer, filmmaker and children’s book author who frequently brings a hopeful, zoom-out perspective to universal themes in large part thanks to his multiracial, multicultural, multinational life. Born in Australia to a Vietnam war veteran father and an Indonesian mother who survived a genocide in her hometown, Lee grew up unwittingly navigating the contrast between the pleasant suburbs outside of Brisbane, Queensland and the weight of war-inflicted trauma from both sides of the family tree.
He discovered the hope inducing, healing power of music as a pre-teen when he first started harmonizing Simon & Garfunkel songs with his guitar-playing older brother, Jono, and has been sharing what he has learned of that power in his own music and writing ever since.
High school was about getting lost in sport or musical experimentation with guitar, bass, vocals and songwriting in various garage bands from rock to grunge to R’n’B. In the first year of a Journalism major at college, he taught himself how to record music on an old PC and submitted an original song to a statewide songwriting competition which he won, setting him on a clear path as a recording artist into adulthood.
In the two decades since then, Coulter has moved to and become a citizen of the United States, based out of San Diego for the past 15 years, and has been honing the healing power of song while simultaneously living two music careers.
One of his careers is as an original singer songwriter writing and recording and promoting his music as a self-managed, self-contained business, with some success including a #1 single on Itunes in Australia and New Zealand, a year long stint in rotation on Sirius XM’s Coffee House who dubbed him the “Discovery of the Year” in 2011, opening for notable acts like Chuck Berry, Tom Jones, Griffin House and Martin Sexton, multiple TEDx performances, and countless charity events where Lee’s songs shine like 3 minute road maps to well being.
His other career is the non-glamorous, guitarist-in-the-corner, fly-on-the-wall, corporate gigging, wedding singing, cover-song-playing musician who works under the radar to support the original career and ensure the bills are paid. Coulter quickly realized that in order to keep his lifelong dream alive he would have to learn to appreciate both careers and understand that while one was more passionate and creative than the other, the lessons and gratitude learned in both were crucial to the overall picture. Even playing wedding DJ the past 4 summers while getting fan mail from around the world for his original acoustic songs, as ironic as it may seem, was used as a learning opportunity as he studied from behind the DJ booth what exactly about every classic hit song that he spun made people sing along or move or light up.
It’s the way that Coulter turns what could be seen as a setback into an opportunity that makes his music feel like a light at the end of a tunnel to his fans. If it feels like life buries you alive, woven into Lee’s lyrics might be a shovel to dig yourself out. Even with the typical concerns of a life as a paycheck to paycheck artist, being a father to an 11 year old, and now being a musician in a pandemic, Coulter continues to find ways in music, collaborations like his duet album with Dixie Maxwell, videos and children’s books to share the experiences and mechanisms that may help others understand that we are never alone and always connected in our trials and triumphs. As summed up in one of his songs, “stardust and forces of attraction, that’s all we are.”