Meet Riley “Rooster” Breitenbach of BackBone in Fort Collins

Today we’d like to introduce you to Riley Breitenbach.

Riley, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My musical career started a little later than most, I started playing the bass senior year of high school after blowing out my knee playing football. I had always been a sports guy my whole life, and after knowing I would have to miss the basketball, rugby and hunting season, I was blue balled.

My good friends Tyler, Kevin and Will back in Wisconsin were great musicians and they would always jam when we would hang. Knowing I needed a new outlet for my energy and creativity, they convinced me to play bass, and it changed my life forever. We formed a little group called Big Dill Will & The Boys (now known as Big Dill and the Boys, still active in Wisconsin).

I moved to Colorado Fall of 2014 for school, with no real plans of playing music. Time passes and a co-worker of mine, Graham, offered me a chance to sit in with his Grateful Dead cover band in Fort Collins called Dead Jam. I played a couple shows with them and absolutely loved it. This was my first real experience playing on stage for a crowd. I later met my friend Kyle and he asked me to join his new original project called Eon, a psychedelic blues/rock/metal four-piece. Eon came into our own in Fort Collins and we were making some noise around town and in Denver. There were so many bands getting off the ground and it was just a blast to be a part of. Shout out to all of you (you know who you are)! All these bands and friends recognized the efforts and this DIY scene of punk/rock/indie/jam and hardcore bands was blooming. Booking shows with each other, badass local rock-oriented venues, emerging house show spots and widespread cooperation and positivity allowed the scene to grow and prosper. Shit was, and is, so fun.

Eon eventually went on a hiatus due to life and unfortunate happenings. Eon played a ton of shows with Los Toms, Spliff Tank (former members Brain and Ryan from the original Eon) and Race To Neptune throughout our time together, we loved those boys. This is where the BackBone story starts. You can’t tell the tale of BackBone without eluding on this timeline of the NoCO music scene in the past 5-10 years, so thanks for staying with me here. It’s strange sharing all this with you lovely readers but this is a ride I’ve wanting an excuse to share for a while. Anyway, I knew I needed to keep playing music, but I didn’t have the experience or songwriting skills like Brian or Kyle to confidently pursue that type of group again. Not to mention I was salty as a ballpark pretzel about Eon’s falling out.

I had a couple original songs written for Eon that never made it into our rotation due to the jammy and more instrumental nature of the tunes. I wanted to start a side project with the aspirations of opening up for bands and be laid back. Just having fun and creating. Matt Petersen, Race to Neptune’s barbaric kit slayer, always had a great connection with me musically when we would jam together. Matt and I understood one another’s style magically and every time we would play together, we couldn’t help but smile like dorks after the jams. I asked Matt to start this experimental duo with me and he was down to clown in ram town instantly. We played a few shows and decided we needed more. We contemplated it over a bowl and landed on Nate from Los Toms to add some ambiance and alien type space sauce. Nate took it on like a champ and we have been groovin’ since.

Has it been a smooth road?
It’s been very smooth for BackBone. We wanted it to be a laid back side project were Matt and Nate could remain focused on their respected primary groups, and leave room for me to either hop in on or start another project. We haven’t encountered any struggles really, its been really fun.

Can you give our readers some background on your music?
We specialize in good times, curating a vibe. Jah feel? We feel out every song we play live, nothing is concrete. Our style and sound is very unique. It’s a mix of rhythmic grooves with a spacey ambiance, heavy doom/stoner metal riffs and a splash of hip-hop inspired jams.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1017 Da Crib ave
• Email: roostertalent@gmail.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/backbone97o/
• Facebook: facebook.com/backbone97o

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