Controversy
Ricci is one of the only openly gay male performers touring on the blues circuit today. This has been a professional obstacle as well as an opportunity for Ricci to challenge both gay stereotypes and traditional Blues expectations:
"The community doesn't like drum sets and guitars and actual live music. They're used to lip-synching, and dudes in dresses, and Madonna, and Cher, and techno beats. Those are the things that kept me from coming out earlier. I felt like I had nothing in common with the gay community, and I still don't feel like I have a lot in common with the community. I'm hoping that changes, but the majority of their icons are press-friendly little Mickey Mouse-doll figureheads that you're more likely to see on a show redecorating somebody's house than onstage at a blues festival...When I came out of the closet as a gay white male from an upper-middle-class suburban home, I came out as not just gay, but as a white guy, and as a guy who likes punk, and as a guy who didn't come from total poverty, and all those things that we associate with being 'blues' things. And when I did that, I wanted to sing about that. I wanted to write songs about what my life was like, and I wanted to use terminology that was modern."
Though Ricci does not generally wear his sexuality on his sleeve on stage, his openness with being gay has occasionally been a difficult issue in the traditionally conservative Blues world, as he's been "disinvited" from a number of venues and events.
"Done With The Devil" signaled a new direction in Ricci's musical inspiration, as his study of the occult strongly influenced the writing on the album. Ricci has become a student of Thelema and the writings of Aleister Crowley, and Ricci has gone so far as to call him "a great holy man." This has prompted more controversy for an already controversial artist, prompting an extended online mea culpa from Ricci himself, in which he fervently denied accusations of Satanic worship.
Read more about this topic: Jason Ricci
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