“At this point, all we need is a drummer,” Emerson says. “But I am having a tough time finding the drummer, like a really tough time.”

He asked around; several people mentioned Jack Riley, a drummer from Los Angeles. So Emerson tried to get in touch, first by email, then by text. Radio silence. All he knew was that Riley lived somewhere in Andrews Hall. So Emerson and Beakley decided it was time for some good old-fashioned detective work. They started on the top floor and worked their way down, checking the names written on each door. On the second floor, they finally spotted a Jack. They knocked and asked if Jack Riley lived there. No dice.

So they kept going, all the way down to the basement. They were running out of rooms. Then they saw it—another sign for another Jack. They knocked on the door, and there’s a guy lying in bed. They ask if he’s Jack Riley. He says yes. They ask if he wants to join their band. Sure, he says. Drummer? Check. 

Orientation isn’t even over yet, and Emerson has a band. Check.

A little more than three years later, on a rainy October night in Montclair, New Jersey, Emerson and his band are lounging in one of the Wellmont Theater’s green rooms, eating mediocre Cuban sandwiches and getting ready to open for Blues Traveler, the Grammy-winning band of “Run-Around” fame...

Read the full story from the Brown Alumni Magazine.