Chris Utley was born and raised in small town Sewickley, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh. From a young age, he had a passion for music, starting piano lessons at age 5 and picking up a guitar by age 10. At 14 he formed his first rock band and became a multi-instrumentalist by necessity, overdubbing drums and bass on many of the band's songs recorded in the room above his parents’ garage. In high school, he ran sound for the choir and was encouraged by his choir director to pursue his passion for music. After high school, he made the move to Nashville to attend Belmont University where he graduated with a degree in Audio Engineering Technology. During his early years in Nashville, Chris cut his teeth in the music industry in various local rock bands. It was in these bands where he honed his ability to write albums with his bandmates, play live, tour, play in the studio as well as engineering and producing those albums. After college, Chris went on to open his own successful studio, Benchmark Sound. Over the next 12 years, he built a reputation as an engineer. In 2020, as the pandemic halted all tracking sessions and Music Row was shut down, Chris dove back into his longtime love of songwriting. He spent much of quarantine at home writing and building tracks. By 2022 Chris had landed himself a publishing contract at Sony Music Publishing. His latest cuts are: “Missin’ You” recorded by Kelsey Hart, Out Here In It recorded by Tracy Lawrence and “Country Folk” recorded by Trey Lewis.