Today we’d like to introduce you to Riley Gulotta.
Hi Riley, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
Music was always a part of my life growing up. My dad raised me on a lot of classic rock, The Beatles, ELO, Springsteen, etc, so I always had an appreciation for the art/craft. When I was 12, we were visiting extended family out in rural New York. I had expressed interest in picking up a guitar so my uncle out there (who’s been a guitar player since he was a teenager) took me to Alto Music in Middletown NY and had me feel a bunch of different guitars. It just so happened that the one I felt most comfortable with was one that he had just lying around his house.
That was when he gifted me my first-ever guitar. I spent the first couple of years self-taught, working off the internet, instructional DVDs, and playing things by ear. It was slow going and my interest was intermittent. There were some periods where I didn’t pick the thing up for weeks at a time. But I was always a rather shy and socially awkward kid. I wasn’t athletic, I wasn’t popular, and I had a hard time making friends or finding anywhere to fit in. So eventually, the guitar became my main outlet. I would isolate myself in my room practicing for hours on end, taking such an interest in it that by the time I was 14, my parents caved into signing me up for guitar lessons at Universal Music Center in our hometown of Red Wing, MN.
Founder Mike Arturi and instructor Mark Woerpel became critical mentors in my growth not just as a musician but as a person. I learned so much more than how to play my instrument. I learned how to make friends, how to work in a group, and how to have confidence in myself. For the first time in my life, I found somewhere I felt like I fit in. I picked up both Baritone and Trombone and joined both concert and jazz bands in school, to further immerse myself in different areas of music, while also playing guitar with various iterations of rock bands with friends until my senior year when I had the opportunity to attend Mcnally Smith College of Music in St. Paul as a part-time PSEO student.
Free college in something I love? Absolute no-brainer. So I spent most of my senior year of high school at Mcnally where I took classes in production, ear training, music theory, and applied guitar theory. The teachers there were incredible, many of them being experienced players in the industry themselves, and the structured collegiate approach to music education worked for me. So after my two semesters as a PSEO student, with an HS diploma in hand, I enrolled as a full-time student at Mcnally Smith as a Guitar Performance Major. Little did my naive 18-year-old self know, my time there would be short-lived. In Dec. of 2017, 11 days before the end of my first semester as a full-time college student, the school financially collapsed and was shuttered. Ironically, teaching me one of the most important lessons in the fickleness of the music industry.
After being kicked out of the proverbial nest (or more accurately the nest disintegrating) and a rather fruitless attempt at a semester at Berklee College of Music online. I quickly started making my way into the real world as a freelancer working with bands. I played for a couple of summers at Valley Fair, did a Carnival Cruise Lines contract, and eventually ended up back home in MN where I’ve spent the past few years building my network and professional reputation freelancing within the Minneapolis music community and beyond.
I’ve gotten to open for sizable acts like Brett Michaels, and Uncle Cracker, as well as play some bucket list stages like the First Avenue Mainroom in Minneapolis and the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake IA. I don’t know where this life will take me next, I just know I’m taking it one day at a time.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Working in the entertainment biz is never a smooth road, especially as a performer. There are so many situations where it’s easy to get taken advantage of (and lord knows I have) based on the expectation that you’ll do it “for the love of it”.
The closure of Mcnally Smith was certainly a major struggle. Just being a student, I didn’t even get hit that hard compared to so many others in that situation. But at that moment as a naive 18-year-old, it certainly felt like my whole life was getting derailed.
Another major struggle that’s come up was acquiring a repetitive strain injury while working at Carnival Cruise Lines. We were performing 4 hours a night, 6 nights a week, for what was supposed to be 6 months straight, and the short story is that the tendons in my wrist just couldn’t take it anymore.
The constant repetitive use made them inflamed to the point that I was losing feeling in my left thumb and I could hardly use them outside of playing. Being off the ship and figuring out how to manage it through various stretches and exercises has been a difficult learning curve in protecting my ability to do what I love.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a professional freelance musician, primarily a guitarist, though I also play bass and sing backup vocals.
Currently, my main gig is with John Scalia and the Dirty Word, but I also play with Grayson DeWolfe, The Bluewater Kings, as well as subbing in for groups like Beladiva, Coyote Wild, and The Silver Alchemist.
What I’m most proud of is the relationships I’ve cultivated in the Minnesota music community and the reputation that I have grown and continue to build within it.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Adaptability. Everything within this line of work is subject to change at any given moment. The ability to take it in stride, and roll with the punches is a critical component of making it through such a fast-paced and often chaotic industry.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/r_gelato/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/riley.gulotta/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8zBHCohTN56cVxlw2hcBfA
