Peter Edward Kirtley was born in Cuckfield, Sussex, England, but moved to Surrey at a young age. The younger of two children, his father, Al Kirtley, was a semi-professional musician who had at one time been a member of Zoot Money's Big Roll Band and later of Trendsetters Limited, and under contract to Parlophone Records. At the age of 11 he joined a band with Matt Goss, Luke Goss and Craig Logan who later formed the British band Bros. Kirtley was a keen amateur actor while at school, but at the age of 16 chose music as a career and became a professional drummer. For four years he was a member of The Blue, a band managed by Bob Herbert and his son Chris, the original managers of the Spice Girls. The Blue's only single, "Don't Leave Me Standing in the Pouring Rain", was released in 1992, but failed to enter the chart.
Although Kirtley had written songs from an early age his successful writing and production career effectively began with music for television commercials, including commissions by Saatchi and Saatchi. These were followed by tracks on a number of international albums, including the 1998 album, "Privacy", by Ophelie Winter. In 1999 he teamed up with Tim Hawes to form the writing and production team Jiant and, in the following year, they secured a track on Aaron Carter's three million selling double multi-platinum album Aaron's Party , two tracks on Boyzone member Stephen Gately's solo project, and a track on the as well as song placements with acts in Japan, France, Denmark and South Africa. In early 2001 Jiant reached the final of, but this was almost immediately overshadowed by the release of "Pure and Simple", co-written with Alison Clarkson and recorded by Hear'Say, the winners of the ITV talent show, Popstars. "Pure and Simple" was at the time the fastest selling debut single of all time in the UK, selling just under 550,000 copies in the first week. In total more than 1.2 million copies were sold, and it was one of the few singles to achieve double platinum status in that decade. In 2002, Kirtley and his co-writers received an Ivor Novello Award for the best selling UK single of 2001. On 7 May 2012, BBC Radio 1 featured the official top 150 biggest selling singles of the 21st century and placed "Pure and Simple" at number 17. Kirtley continued to enjoy chart success, achieving his second number one single in the UK with the Jiant/Stargate co-production of Hear'Say's, "The Way to Your Love". His third number one single was "No Angel ", recorded by the German band No Angels. Kirtley's fourth number one, "Shame", the debut single of Monrose, became the fastest-selling German CD single of 2006, and the biggest-downloaded song since the introduction of the legal digital download charts in Germany in 2004. Subsequent success included songs on Sugababes number one album Taller in More Ways, Mutya Buena's debut solo album Real Girl, which reached the UK top ten chart, America's Got Talent winner Bianca Ryan's self-titled debut album, plus the Armin van Buuren single "This World is Watching Me". For a number of years Kirtley worked closely with the German TV series of Popstars and produced more than 50 records for the winning acts from the show, including 35 tracks with girlband Monrose and other Popstars winners such as Queensberry, Room 2012 and Some & Any. Kirtley also worked with the German acts Linda Teodosiu, Zascha Moktan and Joana Zimmer. In 2005 Kirtley established Stunt with Molly Smitten-Downes, Simon Wills and Dave Valler and was associated with the project until 2010. In 2010, Kirtley joined with BMG UK, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, to form TaPe Music Publishing. Kim Wilde's album, Come Out and Play, also featured Kirtley's work and reached the top 10 in Germany. In 2012, one of Kirtley's songs was featured on Koda Kumi's tenth studio album, Japonesque, which reached number one in Japan. In 2018 Kirtley's production of a solo version by Stephen Gately of Dream, was included by Boyzone in their album Thank You & Goodnight with Gately's vocals being incorporated in the album version. In 2011,Kirtley joined with Craig Logan, former manager of Pink and ex-Managing Director of the RCA Label Group to work on his first TV format. They entered into a commercial agreement with FremantleMedia in July 2012. Kirtley was the producer of "The School that Rocks", a documentary broadcast on BBC Three television in March 2014. Kirtley is a member of the Executive Committee of the charity Rugby for Heroes, and co-wrote and produced "With Pride", their official anthem for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
