Aspen DeRosa: Riffs And Recovery Builds A Sober Home For The Richmond Music Scene
By Kayleigh Crandell · October 14, 2026 · 41:24 read
Category: Local News
Show: Creator Spotlight
Riffs and Recovery founder Aspen talks sobriety, music photography, and building a shame-free scene for Richmond musicians. Aspen is a music photographer who has shot artists ranging from Julien Baker
Riffs and Recovery founder Aspen talks sobriety, music photography, and building a shame-free scene for Richmond musicians.
Aspen is a music photographer who has shot artists ranging from Julien Baker to Earl Sweatshirt to Zack Fox, and she is also the founder of Riffs and Recovery, a Monday meeting at Gallery5 built for musicians, stage hands, producers, and anyone connected to the music scene who is sober, sober curious, or practicing harm reduction.
On this episode of Creator Spotlight, they walk through how getting sober in 2020 changed the way they works shows, why they trusts their instincts more behind the camera now, and how a conversation with her co-host Matt Wild at a Ben’s Friends meeting turned into a recurring space that has grown from twelve people to a full community.
From what it actually takes to rebuild a social life after cutting people off, to trading the club for the gym and the library to learning how to say “I don’t drink” without over-explaining it, these two cover a ton of topics.
Aspen also talks about why they think sober curiosity has grown in Richmond: more people naming intergenerational trauma for what it is, more mental health language in general use, and more venues building out real zero-proof menus instead of treating water as the only alternative to alcohol.
Aspen and Kayleigh get into the difference between AA and spaces like Riffs and Recovery, including why structure works for some people and not others, and why Riffs was built around cross-talk and shame-free re-entry rather than strict tracking. Aspen closes the episode with practical starting points for anyone considering a change, like trying three days without a substance and paying attention to what comes up, plus a list of other sober creators and DJs working in Richmond right now.
Timestamps
Resources + Shout Outs
Aspen’s photography: aspenderosa.com
Riffs and Recovery: https://www.instagram.com/riffsandrecovery/
Gallery5: https://gallery5arts.org/
https://www.instagram.com/ghost_in_human_shape/
https://www.instagram.com/domvart
https://www.instagram.com/torturetwinn
https://www.instagram.com/rawclubarmando/
https://www.instagram.com/nightcr_wler/
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