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 ...