Terry Lee: Diving into a music career with joy and anticipation

Photo: @TerryLeeTV

Terry Lee lives in Heber with his fiancée and his 1961 vintage ES-335 Gibson guitar. The used red guitar is older than he is, having lit up his Christmas when he was 11 years old. This was back in Michigan, where he spent much of his life, initially in the northern part of the lower peninsula, then between Ann Arbor and Detroit. As Gibson, the guitar company, states, “From its introduction in 1958, the Gibson ES-335 set an unmatched standard, and it remains one of the world’s most beloved and versatile electric guitars today. Regardless of the styles of music you play, from rock to blues, from country to metal, the ES-335’s versatility enables you to do them all.” 

You can tell from the tone in Terry Lee’s voice that he feels the same way. 

After starting to write music in his twenties, Terry Lee kept playing in bands for fun during most of his life. It wasn’t until he moved to Utah and established new footings that he decided to make music his full-time pursuit. He is the type of musician who can play a song after hearing it once, and after five decades of making music, he wanted to share his own. 

Terry Lee’s local band is called “The Disruption.” The Southern rock band plays songs in the vein of Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, along with Americana. He also has a studio band. In 2023, a music producer attended one of The Disruption’s concerts and asked Terry Lee if he had produced any albums—and if he hadn’t, that he should. After considering his own creations, Terry Lee decided, “What a shame it would be if I didn’t share that.” He worked with Tennessee-based producer Dallas Jack, and they recorded five songs in the studio. Dallas Jack started his own production studio in Nashville, working as an audio engineer and a producer for musicians ranging from country singers Maren Morris, Blake Shelton, Thomas Rhett, and Jon Pardi, to rock musicians Paramore, Sammy Hagar, and Brian May, the cofounder of Queen. 

Terry Lee enjoys the vibe in Nashville, but this isn’t the only thing that draws him to this city. His 92-year-old mother moved here when she was in her eighties, so he heads to Nashville every six weeks for a combined music and family visit. He calls his mom a real “spitfire” and tries to keep up with her.

It takes the founder of The Disruption about four to six weeks to complete a guitar lick, then the lyrics flow in fast. He can combine the two in about five days. At the time of the interview, 10 complete songs are ready for public exposure. Terry Lee and The Disruption will go on tour in Utah in June, and their album release is scheduled for July. You can find Terry Lee’s short videos on YouTube at @terryleeTV. 

Running a music business wasn’t his first endeavor. He still owns Outdoor Ingenuity, a remodeling business in Michigan, but he runs it remotely now. 

Once Terry Lee started building his music business, Step Inside, he discovered that his two businesses were similar. “Everything is a learning experience to me. I have fun with it,” he says. You may have heard him and The Disruption at the outdoor Concert in the Park series in Heber. His live show is high energy, with an acoustic set of three to four songs thrown in, all of which help form a bond with the audience. He adds, “I want everyone to know that they are accepted, no matter what you believe.” 

Love and acceptance are important to Terry Lee, and this seems to run in the family. He has a daughter in Austin, Texas, who runs a mindfulness program, and a son in Tucson, Arizona, who used to play drums with him but is an engineer now. 

Terry Lee loves to travel. He used to venture to Michigan, Montana, and Wyoming to go snowmobiling, but he discovered that the best snowmobiling is right here in his backyard. He is drawn to skiing, snowmobiling, and hiking in the Uinta mountains. 

The musician admits to being on the competitive spectrum when it comes to personality. When he found himself at Glacier National Park with his daughter and her boyfriend, he felt compelled to jump into the ice-cold lake, which had glacier remnants, right after the boyfriend did. 

Terry Lee does not feel the need to repeat that experience; hiking to Mirror Lake and around Brighton and riding dirt bikes in Moab are more to his liking. His speaking voice is full of energy and sounds quite youthful, the joy vibrating as he starts telling me about one of his more recent trips. 

The now–Utah resident went to Greece, taking a catamaran from island to island. On one of the more undeveloped islands that still features horse-drawn wagons as transportation, he proposed to his travel companion. He fell in love with her on their first date, during which he found out she was a Hot Rod skier. Her father had been a ski resort manager and gave her the middle name “Vail.” 

Terry Lee was very happy when Cristina Vail Redford accepted his proposal. Cristina is also in show business (but not related to Robert Redford)—she sings with Terry Lee, and the two of them are now embarking on their life and musical careers together.