Michael Riech

MICHAEL RIECH

bass
vocals

Bassist Michel Alan Riech is the most accomplished musician of ENGLISH MOTORBIKE. He is a talented singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer with a long resume of star-studded associations. Michael uses all of these talents to lead ENGLISH MOTORBIKE’s rhythm section.

Born in the city of Orange, California to a family of musicians. Father Bert was a guitar picker who was a semi-professional musician himself and encouraged Michael in his musical pursuits. At the tender age of 12 Michael started his own band Methelene Blue, a group that included future Berlin (Take My Breath Away, Sex ( I’m a…) producer Dan VanPatten. Michael worked in various groups playing blues-rock, which even at an early age, was the type of music that held the most attraction for him. Other bands included Purple Haze and Strange Brew, which showed their affection for Jimi Hendrix and Cream. Mike has always had affection for English blues-rock music and his playing exhibits his influences of Jack Bruce, John Entwistle, Chris Squire, and Felix Pappalardi.

As a teen Michael began pursuing his own experimental art rock projects with a group known as Zicko Glick whose members included guitarist Chris Velasco and old mate Dan VanPatten. Ultimately Zicko Glick added bassist John Crawford and vocalist Terri Nunn and became the internationally famous techno pop band Berlin but not before Mike departed to pursue his own musical directions.

Around this time Michael began to do a lot of session work with artists including Peter Banks of Yes and Flash (Two Sides of Peter Banks with Phil Collins & Steve Hackett of Genesis, John Wetton from King Crimson, and Jan Ackerman of the yodeling Dutch band Focus) Al Stewart (Year of the Cat), Dominique Diamico of the progressive rock band PFM, 80’s bubble gum popster, Rick Springfield (Jessie’s Girl), and, even though he won’t admit it, Bo Donaldson (Billy Don’t Be a Hero).


The cover of Michaels solo album	In the studio working on “Within Riech”

Between all of this session work, Michael found time to work on his own projects and released the solo album Within Riech (Fat Lizzard Records). The album was recorded in five weeks at Devonsound Studios. All songs were written, arranged, and produced by Michael with Herb Nation on Ludwig drums. To this day Within Riech is still sought by collectors and earned Mike a local cult following after being featured on underground radio programs.

Time following the promotion of Within Riech was spent working on the unreleased Out of Riech at the Casbah Recorders sharing production duties with John St. James (Stacy Q). The album was never completed but three singles were released including the apocalyptic I.C.B.M (A Matter of Time), Out of Riech, and .38 Kill the Pain. Michael also produced a video for the latter.

Besides working with ENGLISH MOTORBIKE Michael has been busy writing and recording in his own studio and performing occasionally in the The Riech Brothers with his brother Craig (who has played with the John Nichols Band and The Malt Men fronted by Rusty Anderson of Paul McCartney’s Band). Michael is equally qualified as a guitarist and has provided these talents on ENGLISH MOTORBIKE recordings playing acoustic guitars and 12 string electrics. However, his chosen role with ENGLISH MOTORBIKE is as bassist where he has the freedom to inject his improvisational and melodic bass lines using his vintage Gibson EB-1 bass. Michael is able to use all of his musical talent and experience to provide the solid bottom end that is the anchor of the ENGLISH MOTORBIKE sound.