Born and raised in the UK, Paul Heatley now lives in California with his American wife Marcia. Either despite or because of his lack of classical training, Paul began writing songs while playing keyboards in a church band as a teenager in the 1980s. In the 90s he wrote a musical Nativity play, Christmas No.1, and later conducted a gospel choir which inspired him to begin composing and arranging for voices. In 1999 three of Paul's songs (one a co-write with Rob Baker) were published in Songs For the New Millennium, a UK worship songbook. In 2001 Paul founded London-based acapella pop choir Kitsch in Sync (which is still active today) for whom he arranged several '80s hits. In 2020 Paul was sponsored by his church, Hill Avenue Grace Lutheran in Pasadena, to participate in an artist residency program run by Fuller Seminary during which he composed over a dozen songs based on the Psalms. This in turn inspired him to begin setting poems to music.