Pete Riley began playing drums at age 15 and was soon playing along to albums by Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne and Deep Purple. Having spent a couple of years finding his own way he began working from such well known books as Gary Chester’s New Breed and Gary Chaffee’s Patterns series.



At 20 Pete headed south from his hometown of Leicester and was soon out gigging, which eventually led to him hooking up with guitarist Jan Cyrka.



Around this time Pete Riley began studying with renowned teacher Bob Armstrong who was responsible for ironing out a few areas of Pete’s playing as well focusing on traditional grip and developing reading skills.



Pete Riley went on to record two CDs with Jan and during this time he also worked with a couple other guitar greats including recording work with Motorhead’s Eddie Clarke and lots of UK touring work Phil Hilborne.



In 1996 Pete Riley began teaching at the then new music school the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford where he still teaches. One day whilst at the ACM Pete got a call from a friend of Jan’s to audition for the pop band Republica with whom Pete went on to work over the next three years.



Pete Riley has also written regular articles for Rhythm magazine as well as having work published in Modern Drummer. He’s also the author of three drum books, Double Trouble, 100 Tips For Drums and Crash Course-Drums.