Michael Johns is an Australian-born rock/soul singer-songwriter who finished in eighth place in 2008 on the seventh season of the television series American Idol.

He was born as Michael John Lee in Perth, Western Australia to William (Bill) Lee and Janet Burke. He is of English descent and the youngest of three and has half and step-siblings. He attended Newman College, a K–12 co-educational Roman Catholic school in suburban Perth. As a teenager, he appeared as The Coachman in Pinocchio at the Regal Theatre and was a choir singer in Anything Goes at His Majesty’s Theatre.

He moved to the United States from Australia in 1998 and lived in Atlanta, Georgia, for six years, performing at local venues. He now lives in Los Angeles, California, with his Texan wife, Stacey Vuduris.

Johns has played sports. He won a tennis scholarship at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia, where he majored in drama, and also played Australian rules football for the USAFL club Atlanta Kookaburras.

Prior to attempting to pursue a solo career, Johns performed in Atlanta and released an EP with local band Film. While he was in Atlanta, he performed solo at an Irish pub where he went by his real name, Michael Lee.

After traveling to Los Angeles to showcase for a number of labels in 2001, he signed with Maverick Records. He then found guitarists Robb Torres and Kevin Haaland, bassist Ari Gorman and drummer Kirke Blankenship and formed a rock band called The Rising. The band toured nationally, performed on several television shows and at the opening of a Los Angeles Apple Store in 2003. The latter performance resulted in the release of the Live at the Apple Store EP.

They produced an iTunes album Future Unknown, which was co-produced by Johns and Rick Beato. Although a number of the tracks received some airplay on radio in 2003, the album was not released on iTunes until Johns was a finalist on American Idol.