Strat Andriotis was born in Elefsina in West Attica, Greece, in 1963 and emigrated with his family to Hamilton, Ontario in 1967. He began playing classical piano at age 11, but switched to guitar around age 14, cutting his teeth on Jimi Hendrix and Cream. Hearing Miles Davis’s 'In A Silent Way' and John McLaughlin’s 'Electric Guitarist' at age 17 changed the way he thought about the possibilities of what the guitar could do and steered him towards the world of Jazz.
Although Strat has played a wide variety of musical styles including pop, rock, metal and avant-garde (having played with such diverse musical talents as Tony Levin, keyboardist Jim Gilmour of Saga, and Albert Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult) Strat has always returned to jazz and classical as his primary forms of expression.