INTERVIEW: Jobi Riccio Shows Up As Her Authentic Self
Nashville’s Jobi Riccio spoke with us to detail her influences, the importance of performing as her true queer self, and what to expect from her upcoming album Whiplash, out September 8 on Yep Roc Records. The 24-year-old songwriter grapples directly with a variety of topics on the record, including coming to terms with being queer and facing past wounds, as she bares her truest self with raw candor, brutal honesty, and an infectious sense of humor.
“When I was writing these songs, I kept coming back to this image of someone slamming on the breaks in a car crash and this idea of emotional whiplash,” Riccio explains. “That rush of stress and adrenaline felt similar to what I was experiencing as I emotionally processed my adolescence—almost as if I was being jerked around by one big life change after another.”
Written over the course of several formative and tumultuous years in Riccio’s late teens and early
twenties, Whiplash is a profoundly vulnerable work delivered by an artist navigating the complicated
transition into adulthood with remarkable grace and maturity. With the announcement, Riccio has
unveiled the title track “Whiplash,” which she calls the “thesis” for the forthcoming album. “I think
most people’s late teens and early 20’s are a really difficult, confusing, and isolating time,” she
explains. “ ‘Whiplash,’ the song and album, is a reflection on that.”
Name a perfect song and tell us why you feel that way
Amelia – Joni Mitchell
To me, the best songs are those you return to over and over that take on new meaning as you grow, and “Amelia” has been in rotation for me since I first heard it as a teenager. On the surface this song seems highly specific to her, but I think it touches upon a very universal theme of the difficult choice people often have to make between their lifes’ work and their life’s love. I think the ability to make something personal universal is the mark of a great writer, and Joni is a master of this. I’ve always felt both seen and challenged by her one of a kind perspective.
How do you manage having a good time at shows, but also trying to stay mentally and physically fit?
This is the age-old question of a touring musician. I often cut back or cut out drinking on tour and it goes a long way in improving my overall well being. I’m still trying to figure out a better way to incorporate movement and healthy-ish eating as it’s very hard to find fresh food or even a single vegetable on a shoestring touring budget. Let’s just say I’ve subsisted on a little too much gas station Chex Mix.
What are some of the best venues you’ve played? Why?
Club Passim in Boston is one of my all time favorite venues to play. Full disclosure, I used to work as a server at Passim in college, and it’s the venue I’ve played the most in some configuration or another. There’s just nothing like a small room of people who are there to really listen to your songs. What you give to the Passim audience, you always get back tenfold, because of the club’s committed members that regularly attend most shows, buy merch, and are a deeply important part of the musical community that’s been fostered there by Matt Smith and Abby Altman who run the club. Both Matt and Abby have been huge champions of mine and other young songwriters in Boston, many of whom have become lifelong friends, and Passim was integral in bringing us all together. It feels like being home to play there.
Recent release you cannot stop listening to?
Caroline Rose – The Art of Forgetting
Is there a professional “bucket list” item you would love to check off?
This is a big one that’s likely a long way off if it happens, but playing my own set at Red Rocks Amphitheater. I actually grew up in Morrison where the amphitheater is located. I have so many memories of not only concerts there, but hiking the surrounding trails, driving through the park blasting angsty music with friends in high school, eating french toast amidst the taxidermied animals at Red Rocks Grill in town on half days in elementary school— it would be a hometown show in the truest sense for me. I got the opportunity to sing harmonies on a song with my friend Erin Rae there in 2021, which was a childhood dream come true in itself and I’m hoping to get to play the stage myself someday. Playing Newport Folk Festival is probably second on this list.
What’s the best way a fan can support you?
Attending my live shows and purchasing merch at the show is more important than ever. If you don’t see your city on my upcoming tour dates schedule and know of a good venue I could be a fit at, send them an email! This actually goes a long way and is something I don’t think fans realize they can do. If you live in a city or town with a non commercial and or NPR affiliated radio station, calling or writing in via email to them asking to play my stuff is also pretty huge. These stations are very plugged into the cool happenings in the local music scene and often present their own live shows/concert series.
How do you feel your queer identity ties into your performance style or music?
Being queer is an important part of who I am so it will always be a part of the art I make whether or not I am directly referencing it in every song or talking about it at every show. Before I came out publicly as a queer artist (I was out to friends and family first), I wasn’t fully able to show up as myself as a performer. I often felt like I was playing a character because it felt less risky than being my authentic self. I literally used to joke to friends I was getting in my “bluegrass folky girl drag”.
Growing up listening to country radio in the early 2000’s I definitely internalized the “shut up and sing” mentality while simultaneously being drawn to and admiring the artists who weren’t willing to do that like The Chicks and Kacey Musgraves. I found this rebellious spirit eventually worked its way into my songs as I became more comfortable with myself and my queerness, such as on my song “Sweet” (releasing next month during Pride). I think especially on my new forthcoming record, there’s a link between my music becoming less and less bound by one genre after coming out with the fact that I came out as, and identify specifically as, queer. To me the label queer encompasses a fluidity I really identify with and have always possessed but had been unable to express.
Whiplash will be out on September 8, 2023 via Yep Rock Records. You can pre-order the album and save the title track here.
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