James Riley Breckenridge (born January 5, 1975) is the drummer for the band

Thrice Thrice is an American rock band from Irvine, California, formed in 1998. The group was founded by guitarist/vocalist Dustin Kensrue and lead guitarist Teppei Teranishi while they were in high school. Early in their career, the band was known ...

. He plays Ludwig Drums, and uses

Vic Firth Everett Joseph "Vic" Firth (June 2, 1930 – July 26, 2015) was an American musician and the founder of Vic Firth Company (formerly Vic Firth, Inc.), a company that makes percussion sticks and mallets. He was also known for his association ...

drumsticks,

Zildjian The Avedis Zildjian Company, simply known as Zildjian (), is a musical instrument manufacturer specializing in cymbals and other percussion instruments. Founded by the ethnic Armenian Zildjian family in the 17th-century Ottoman Empire, the com ...

cymbal A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sou ...

Remo Remo Inc. is an American musical instruments manufacturing company based in Valencia, California, and founded by Remo Belli in 1957. Products manufactured include drum kits, drumheads, drums, and drum hardware, hardware, and various percussio ...

drumhead A drumhead or drum skin is a membrane stretched over one or both of the open ends of a drum. The drumhead is struck with sticks, mallets, or hands, so that it vibrates and the sound resonates through the drum. Additionally outside of percus ...

s, with

Drum Workshop Drum Workshop, Inc. (also known as DW Drums or DW) is a drum kit and hardware manufacturing company based in Oxnard, California. Current products by DW include drum sets, snare drums, and hardware. History Drum Workshop was founded in 1972 ...

hardware and

pedals A pedal (from the Latin '' pes'' ''pedis'', "foot") is a lever designed to be operated by foot and may refer to: Computers and other equipment * Footmouse, a foot-operated computer mouse * In medical transcription, a pedal is used to control ...

Music career

Breckenridge began playing the drums in high school after tearing multiple ligaments in his legs while playing football. Being unable to play sports for several months, which had been his "only focus" previously, he bought a

drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...

and taught himself to play. The older brother of Thrice

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), keyboard bass (synth bass) or a low br ...

Eddie Breckenridge, Riley joined Thrice during the early days of the band on the recommendation of Eddie. Breckenridge and Ian Miller released

grindcore Grindcore is an extreme metal, extreme fusion genre of heavy metal music, heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, e ...

music as "Puig Destroyer," a play on

Yasiel Puig Yasiel Puig Valdés ( , ; born December 7, 1990) is a Cuban-born American professional baseball right fielder who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, and Clevelan ...

and

Pig Destroyer Pig Destroyer is an American grindcore band formed in 1997 in Alexandria, Virginia. The band was formed by vocalist J. R. Hayes, guitarist Scott Hull and drummer John Evans. Pig Destroyer is one of the most well-known grindcore bands due ...

Equipment

During the 2011 Major/Minor Fall Headline Tour, Brecker used a drum kit by Q Drums, with Zildjian cymbals, Remo heads, DW hardware, and Vic Firth sticks. He plays electronic sounds on a Roland SPD-SX sampling pad.

Personal life

Breckenridge, along with

Morningwood Morningwood was an alternative rock band from New York City. Founded in 2001, it primarily consisted of Pedro Yanowitz and Chantal Claret. Morningwood was signed to Capitol Records and released two albums. Claret went solo in 2012 and folded t ...

lead singer

Chantal Claret Chantal Claret Euringer (born February 21, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the rock and power pop band Morningwood. Early life Claret was born in Berkeley, California, on February 21, 1982, the ...

, wrote a monthly advice column called "Battle of the Sexes" in ''

Alternative Press Alternative press may refer to: Individual publications * ''Alternative Press'' (magazine), an American music magazine Alternative journalism * Alternative media ** Alternative media (U.S. political left) ** Alternative media (U.S. political r ...

'' magazine for nearly 3 years; which was discontinued in the Winter of 2007. He also wrote a weekly column called "3hree Things" for ''

OC Weekly ''OC Weekly'' was a free alternative weekly paper distributed in Orange County and Long Beach, California. It was founded in September 1995 by Will Swaim, who acted as editor and publisher until 2007. The paper was distributed at coffee shops, ...

''. Breckenridge originally had aspirations of becoming a

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Moder ...

player. He chose to play

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played by Student athlete, student-athletes at institutions of higher education. In the United States, college baseball is sanctioned mainly by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); in Japan, ...

for Pepperdine based in part on their victory in the

1992 College World Series The 1992 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was played at the end of the 1992 NCAA Division I baseball season to determine the national champion of college baseball. The tournament concluded with eight teams competing in the College World Serie ...

. A middle infielder, he

redshirted Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the ...

as a freshman and only saw limited action as a sophomore. After a coaching change at Pepperdine, he transferred to a

junior college A junior college is a type of post-secondary institution that offers vocational and academic training that is designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations or support roles in professions such as engineering, a ...

where he played for a year before giving up baseball to focus on music. He is also co-host of the baseball and music podcast
The PRODcast
In 2012, he contributed a guest article for

Baseball Prospectus Baseball Prospectus (BP) is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well as player and team perf ...

. Between 2012 and 2013, he wrote for

SB Nation ''SB Nation'' (an abbreviation for their full name ''SportsBlogs Nation'') is a sports blogging network owned by Vox Media. It was co-founded by Tyler Blezinski, Markos Moulitsas, and Jerome Armstrong in 2003. The blog from which the netwo ...

about a variety of sports. On August 18, 2015 Jennifer Shaw, wife of Breckenridge, gave birth to their first child, Jacob Miles Breckenridge.

References

External links

Thrice websiteIdiomLife.com interview with Riley Breckenridge
1975 births Living people American rock drummers Thrice members 20th-century American drummers American male drummers 21st-century American drummers Pepperdine Waves baseball players Sportswriters from California 21st-century American writers 21st-century American male writers Junior college baseball players in the United States Grindcore musicians American sports podcasters Drummers from California {{US-rock-drummer-stub