Riley Hodges vividly remembers hearing The Beatles for the first time through his parent’s early 90’s Panasonic stereo. At 4 years old, Riley began taking piano lessons along with his two sisters and cousin. Their teacher was a psychic that worked on the Queen Mary. "Without realizing it, I'm sure this had a profound effect on me. Our teacher was a trip," says Riley.
Riley's mom was a big influence on his musical journey as she regularly purchased and played new music throughout the 1990s. Riley's first purchase was a double CD of the Smashing Pumpkins album, "Melon Collie & the Infinite Sadness." His first cassette he remembers as his own was the album "Smash" by Offspring.
By the age of 12, Riley became interested in drums. His much older half brother was a drummer who gave him a copy of Led Zeppelin IV. "He came over for Christmas and thrashed my drum heads while demonstrating When the Levee Breaks." Riley was hooked.
After turning 18, Riley picked up a guitar. "My older sister got a Yamaha acoustic for Christmas, but she never used it. One day I grabbed it from her room, and with guitar tablature from a friend, I learned Blackbird by The Beatles and Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin." Riley's love for guitar quickly grew into songwriting.
"Songwriting feels like a cozy couch with nowhere else to be. You are here and nothing else matters. Stories live forever and dreams do come true," says Riley.
Riley attended Cal State Long Beach and majored in Philosophy with an undergraduate in Entrepreneurship. He spent his early 20s juggling a busy social life with friends from Long Beach, Orange County, and Santa Barbara, CA. He also began managing his family's bar business , Shannon's Bayshore, around this time.
Riley was fortunate to travel around the world throughout his young adult life, including multiple trips to Ireland and Scotland; Riley also attended a study abroad program in Spain, and visited multiple countries throughout Europe and South America.
Riley explains in more detail, "A friend of mine told me about a study abroad program and she helped me fill out the forms to attend college in Barcelona, Spain." Riley moved in just down the street from La Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi's most famous architectural masterpiece that has taken over 200 years to build. Riley was heavily influenced by Spansh culture and music.
By the age of 26, Riley started to really focus on his vocals. A friend recommended a local spot, Belmont Music Studio owned by John Capito. Riley took lessons and eventually started jamming and recording songs with John.
Their first band, Taste of Red, described as if "David Gilmour and Paul McCartney moved to Spain and started a band," had a distinct syncopated psychedelic eclectic rock sound. Around this time, Cameron Vodegel joined the band for various gigs. After a few years of recording and doing local shows, John started a family with his wife and newborn twin girls. They moved out of town to get ready to buy their first home together.
By 2016, Riley focused on created a solo record called "Life on Mars" inspired by a journey he made through Iceland. After completing this record, a couple of tracks that were left unused formed the basis for an exploratory journey that led Riley to create "The Cosmic Cowboys."
"At the time I was being influenced by the state of world affairs. So I came up with this concept of a righteous and nomadic cowboy who spreads love and empathy through music," says Riley
By 2019, Riley and John teamed up to perform live shows with a full band. They wrote and recorded a song, "Bottle of Jack" as well as a repurposed old jam song, now called "Crowd Pleaser." But after achieving momentum, the band went on hiatus from 2020 through 2022.
"I was so focused on helping to stabilize my family's business. I was working 80 hours per week for our downtown location, Shannon's On Pine, which now comprises 4 venues," says Riley.
Riley set a goal to write a new album, and worked diligently on it throughout the summer of 2023. He took his demos to The Compound music studio, and met Frank "Fuzz" Hudson who played bass on the album. Totaling 11 tracks, eight of them were all new songs, one of them was recorded as an interlude, and two of the songs were finally finished from the unused bits left over from "Life on Mars."
After releasing this new album called "Songs for Road Trippin'" on the first day of summer, June 20, 2024, Riley and John got back together with an old friend on drums, Cameron Vodegel, and Fuzz on bass.
The Cosmic Cowboys music is described as catchy and upbeat rock music with attitude. The music has distinct western flavoring. and stays fresh through Riley's exploratory songwriting and lyrical content.
The latest release, "For Your Love" is a new single that boasts a gothic journey into underground rock with a primal surfy drumbeat and thumping bass to fatten up a psychedelic guitar experience of some wily character in some far off manor with jellybean eyes and an electric appeal.
