ACT II

After years of working menial jobs to sustain himself whilst composing new music, Riley finally decided to attend college at 25. Only a GED recipient, he had eschewed schooling since 17, but time (and a collapsed economy) encouraged him to betray his youthful stubbornness. "There were years in there - years - where it seemed hopeless. Life without a dream to pursue is a grey horror, and I was drowning in it," Riley recalls. "The lowest point occurred when I was working in retail. I picked up a copy of Rolling Stone in an aisle, and within was one of the musicians I'd worked with." Disconsolate, he swore to make a change in his life. "Seeing that only solidified my suspicions that there was a substantial gulf between my ability and my accomplishments. Jealously doesn't motivate me; a failure to use my talents did. And I wouldn't stand for it any longer."

Within two years, he had graduated from a local community college with honors, and became the first member of his family to attend an Ivy League institution when he transferred to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "My family always had food on the table, and no one went without," he remembers. "But we were always struggling. Financial insecurity was part of day-to-day life, and the stress of that pressure was oppressive. And suddenly...I was going to attend a college where some students' biggest concern is whether or not Dad is going to buy them a BMW. Jumping through the strata of society like that was illuminating, to say the least."

Paradoxically, it was while attending Cornell that Riley returned to his first true love. After hearing about an opportunity to join a nascent independent record label, he wrote new material and organized a band of talented student musicians for a performance on campus. "It was this simple - if I still had the songs, and could still deliver live, I would begin again," Riley recalls. "There are quite a few musicians in the world," he says. "And I was not going to further congest the glut in cyberspace if I didn't still have what it takes."

Luckily, Riley's fears were unfounded. Both the new material and the performance were a rousing success, and with his confidence restored, he was reunited with his best destiny. Immediately, he set to work writing a new album, Kismet.

"To live your life without reaching the your fullest extent of your potential is a tragic waste. One I refused to succumb to."