Ross Beach

Indie-pop singer/songwriter and Elephant 6 confederate Ross Beach was born in New Orleans and raised primarily in Baton Rouge, LA, joining his first band, Beach-Head, while in high school. Relocating to Ruston, LA in 1991, he joined the band Smilin' Joe Fission, which after a series of lineup shifts became the Gerbils; in 1994, Beach also helped engineer the rough demos for Neutral Milk Hotel's classic debut album On Avery Island, concurrently joining NMH's Jeff Mangum along with the Gerbils' Scott Spillane and Will Westbrook in the near-mythic E6 all-star aggregrate the Clay Bears. That same year, Beach also issued The Hand-Crafted Heart Sickness Calliope, the first in a series of self-released solo cassettes which also included Cheesequake, They Call Me "Buck" and Utopian Love Songs. Settling in Monroe, LA in 1995, Beach drummed with Midget and Hairs before returning to Baton Rouge and forming his own band, the She-Devils; for the Chicken Ranch label, he recorded the 1997 cassette Tender Severity, followed two years later by his first CD release, Ride Theory. ~ Jason Ankeny