Was Elliott smith the founding singer of Heatmiser?

Not a whole lot of info on early heatmeiser albums online.

I was introduced to mic city sons and Elliott’s presence is obvious. He sings just like on his solo stuff, and the songwriting sounds like Elliott smith songs with fuller instrumentation.

But I checked out a few songs from dead air and the songs sound nothing like Smith’s musicality, and it’s very hard for me to imagine that voice coming out of Elliott’s mouth.

So was that him on dead air just singing differently and having less influence/sophistication in the songwriting?