Tony Deng was born in Jinan, Shandong in October 2007 and spent his childhood between Jinan and Beijing, moving to New York at nine and to Seattle at ten. He now studies songwriting at Belmont University’s Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business, in Nashville.

He grew up inside a home studio built and run by his father — a producer, recording and mixing engineer, and formerly a lead guitarist and songwriter himself. Instruments and recording gear were simply what the house was made of. Tony studied piano, guzheng, violin and cello, but guitar has always been the one. He has perfect pitch, which his father discovered when Tony restrung a guitar and tuned it accurately without a tuner.

He started writing in 2019, during the pandemic, when school stopped and there was little to do but practise. On Mother’s Day at thirteen he decided to write his mum a song; two hours later the lyrics, the music and the demo were done. It was about her rules, his frustrations, and a deal to trade the song for two pairs of basketball shoes. Most of his songs start somewhere that ordinary.

Music is how I express myself — and how I connect with the world.

At thirteen he wrote and recorded his first original song, Be Mine, and became lead guitarist of the House Band at School of Rock in the Seattle area, playing venues including the Hard Rock Café; that same year he was admitted to Berklee College of Music’s Guitar Summer Program as a middle school student. In 2023 he released his first original album, Saturn Diary. In May 2025 he signed an exclusive global publishing agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group, and that October his second album, Overthinking, was released worldwide by Universal Music Group.