Lee Coulter

Winner “Best Acoustic/Folk Song” 2021 San Diego Music Awards for Look Away
#1 Single on iTunes Australia and New Zealand with “We You Me (featuring Dixie Maxwell)” – August 2018″
“The Discovery of the Year!” – Sirus XM Coffee House 2011
“The world needs more Lee Coulter songs.” – Martin Sexton
Opened for Chuck Berry, Tom Jones, Martin Sexton, Griffin House and shared the stage with Jason Mraz.
Australian born singer songwriter producer resident of San Diego since 2005. Dual citizen of AUS and USA (2016).
Notable venues played. Belly Up SD, Bitter End NY, Hotel Cafe LA, Rockwood Music Hall NY, Club Passim Cambridge, The Coach House SJC, Saint Rock Huntington Beach, Duckroom @Blueberry Hill STL, The Sheldon STL, HOB SD, HOB LA, Lestats West SD, Parish Underground Austin, Rainbow Room LA, and most resorts up the California coast.

BIOGRAPHY

Lee Coulter and his music are a product of globalization in the 21st century – a multi-national, multi-racial artist existing between nations, cultures and belief systems attempting to bridge gaps and synchronize hearts through the uniting powers of words and music.

An Asian-Australian-American performing an easily palatable blend of folk, soul, rock, reggae, blues and jazz-pop gets told frequently, “you don’t look like you sound,” but that’s what made Coulter lean into his unique position to simultaneously bring good vibes and shift preconceptions – music always the catalyst.

Born and raised in Australia to a Vietnam-war-veteran father and a Thai-Indonesian mother who survived an allied aided genocide (US/UK/AUS) in her hometown in the 60s, Lee grew up unwittingly navigating the contrast between the pleasant suburbs outside of Brisbane, Queensland and the complexities of political/war induced generational trauma from both sides of the family tree.

Music became the critical outlet to shine a light on the present and the positive and bridging discrepancies between our mental health and reality became infused into his art and purpose decades before he understood why.

At age 10, Coulter was singing Simon & Garfunkel harmonies with his guitar-playing older brother, Jono, then picked up bass and guitar into his teens, forming rock, grunge and R&B bands with his high school “mates.”

In the first year of a Journalism major at college, he taught himself how to record on a primitive PC and won a statewide songwriting competition, encouraging his path as a singer-songwriter and music producer into adulthood.

In the two decades since then, Coulter has relocated to and become a citizen of the United States and has been honing the sound and purpose while simultaneously living two music careers, based out of San Diego since 2006.

One of his careers is as an original singer-songwriter – writing, recording, mixing and promoting his music as a self-managed, self-contained business, playing mostly in SoCal with some occasional tours. Notable milestones include a #1 single on Itunes in Australia and New Zealand in 2018, winning “Best Acoustic/Folk song” at the 2021 San Diego Music Awards (for his commentary piece on US racial history, Look Away), a year long stint in rotation on Sirius XM’s Coffee House who dubbed him the “Discovery of the Year” in 2011, as well as opening for 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 recipes to well being.

His second career is the due-paying, resort playing, corporate gigging, wedding singing, gear hauling, spirituality center directing musician who works under the radar to support the dream while philosophically making any moment with a guitar in his hands a chance to evoke feelings of togetherness, contentment and joy.

Whether it’s a love song, a life song or an artistic commentary (or even his choice in cover songs when that’s the gig) Coulter constantly weaves in themes that speak to our common humanity. Even with the stress of being a gig worker in one of the world’s most expensive cities, a single father to a teenager, and of course the pandemic, Coulter continues to find ways in music, collaborations, videos and children’s books to share joy, perspectives and mechanisms that help us see that we are always connected no matter what you believe, what you look like, where you come from or what you’ve been through. This is art designed to be contagious and enabling in it’s creativity, inspiration and humanity.

YOU TALK FUNNY TOO // written by Lee Coulter (Children’s book available)

I once met a girl who spoke every word in such a way I had never heard.

A’s sounded like E’s and O’s like Oo’s.
L’s sounded like R’s and I’s like U’s.

“You talk funny,” I said as I shook her hand.
She said, “Yes, I am from a faraway land.”

She spoke of animals and food and the games that you play when you come from a land far away.

“It’s called an accent,” she said. “The way that I speak.”
Whatever it was, it was unique.

The more that she spoke the better it sounded.
Her E’s sounded sharp and her U’s sounded rounded.

Such an interesting girl from an interesting home.
I wished I had an accent of my own.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Your wish has come true…
…because where I come from you talk funny too.”

Lee Coulter

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