lee was born and grew up in st. louis. he grew up playing piano until he began playing professionally. "i started playing classical piano when i was 3. i did that all throughout my youth and in high school. i played at carnegie hall when i was 12 or 13." he has a bachelor's degree from indiana university's jacob's school of music. he started working at fuzzy door productions as a receptionist where he befriended seth macfarlane. "people would come up and just have a conversation with me. and seth and i became cool because when he would come out of his office or the writers room just to get a break, we would just talk about regular life and laugh." he soon began working for macfarlane on many of his projects and jump starting his career.