Before His Music Career He Attended Film School
Riley originally had dreams of becoming a director, enrolling in San Francisco State University in 1992. There, he learned the beginnings of how to create visual projects for the screen. As a student, Riley made a handful of shorts but never graduated. He cited that the school was focusing more on documentary and experimental films as opposed to traditional theater releases at the time, and being away from the major west-coast film schools of USC and UCLA put at him at a disadvantage in terms of seeing a future in the business.
The deciding factor to pursue a career in music as opposed to continuing to try to make movies was the early success of The Coup. He told Sean Fennessey of The Big Picture podcast that he had to choose between staying in school or taking $50,000 to make music.
