Elia Goat - acoustic guitar, vocals
Aaron Bartos - french horn, vocals
Jeff Llama - tenor sax
Growing up in Cincinnati, OH, a city with a strong and continuing musical heritage, Elia Goat has been singing and writing songs for about 10 years. He is a product of several different musical backgrounds, playing in jazz bands as well as more rock-oriented groups, and with experience presenting in the traditional singer-songwriter format as well as in more experimental structures. Born in Moscow in 1987, Elia's family moved to the US the following year, settling in a little ranch house in a rural suburb; he was soon followed by a sister, Elizabeth. After changing districts in middle school, an abundance of spare time led him to begin musical studies in earnest, and he played the tuba in the school band in addition to picking up jazz bass and learning guitar on the side.
Upon graduating high school, an attempt to study jazz in college ended with six months spent hitchhiking and walking in the Iberian Peninsula, and as Elia's interest in a career as a bassist faded, he began to focus on songwriting as a means of expressing some of the new ideas he had found in the time spent living at a walking pace. Stable periods living in one place gave him time to work at his craft, while periodic hitchhiking jaunts continued to provide inspiration and a break from the daily grind. These forays into the flat middle places of America also gave Elia his first glimpses of the stark and sheer beauty that lies in a frozen field, in a flock of birds, in a stack of stones, in a country song. In 2011, Elia returned to Cincinnati from 6 months and 2000 trail miles in California and Oregon to begin recording his first collection of songs; the participation of Liz Burkhart on euphonium and Jason Swann on tenor saxophone in these recording sessions would be the genesis of the Natural Horns.
Elia's songs are grounded in the dichotomy between modern life and the way humans evolved, in the shift between remaining and moving, in the hope for love and life in the face of all that is death and boredom. He sings about the wild life around us and how it sees us, the experiences of living in the modern world versus the heritage of evolution, and the animals we still enjoy to be. Elia sings about birds, trees, getting off work, clouds, hitchhiking and other modes of transportation, rebirth, waiting, sunshine, and maybe even a good old-fashioned love song or two.