Jon Ricci is my name. Brilliant!

We play all over Boston and will soon be setting out on a college tour.

The best thing that ever happened to the distribution of music.

Absolutely. My goal is to reach as many people as I can with my music, and having a label behind you can make that goal a reality.

I'm thinking I don't really want to have a traditional biography on here.

I'm also thinking you guys might be ok with that.

In my experience as a music fan, it seems like the bio just tends to be an advertisement that'll get us all to revere the artist or group in some grand light, which will then inspire us to go out and buy all their stuff... That's no good.

Don't get me wrong, I want you guys to dig in and pick up the goods, part of the money goes to a great cause, but I want you to buy my record and come to shows because you're into the music, not because "Jon Ricci is a star waiting to happen, a gift from God, a hero of music, blah blah blah."
You get the point.

So, here we go.

These are the two most important things you need to know about me:

1) I write songs
2) I love it more than anything else

Cool so far? Alright let's keep going...

I wrote my first song when I was 14, and I wrote it solely because I went to this talent show at school, and listened to a performance that made me feel incredible. I'm talking just-got-kissed-by-the-hottest-girl-in-school-told-all-my-friends-incredible. These two seniors, one with a piano, the other with an acoustic guitar, covered Cat Stevens' Father And Son. I'd never heard of it, didn't really know who Cat Stevens was, but the amount of emotion and genuine passion that went into that performance really changed me. For the first time I felt like I had something that inspired me; truly and deeply inspired me. So, after the concert I rushed home and started writing on one of those yellow legal pads with a dull yellow pencil, and when I was done I had a song, and a tune to go with it. That song is called Without You and is the second song on the CD.

I don't play an instrument, maybe someday but not today, and freshman year of high school was the last time I've ever sat down specifically to write a song. All of the other stuff I've written up to now has been a coincidence of timing and fortune. I'll be falling asleep and suddenly this song starts playing in me, and I've never heard it before. So, I tend to lose a lot of sleep sitting at my desk with paper and a tape recorder. I've been walking to class and I'll hear this melody in my head, then the words will start coming together, and before you know it I've turned myself around and I'm skipping class to get it all down on paper and record the tune onto my answering machine. This happens a lot, and my professors send me e-mails wondering if I'm still in their classes, so I tell them I have the flu or whatever sounds good at the time... I must be the most unwell, misfortunate student on campus to these people. It's ok though because you all get to hear what the worst attendance record in collegiate history sounds like! Nice.

Now I'm thinking I might be responsible for all of you not going to class anymore. You should totally go to class, class is great... just make sure you don't have something better to do first. Yeah, not convincing, sorry.

On top of music, I'm really into promoting the awareness of human rights, specifically in making sure that people are able to exercise them. I'm deeply involved with Amnesty International, an organization that works towards freeing non-violent social and political activists who have been imprisoned and/or tortured, among other crimes, and an anti-sexual assault group that promotes awareness and educates on it.

I've also bore witness to domestic violence in my own life and it's really got me motivated to fight that bullshit. The hardest thing is to watch a family member or a friend live in an abusive situation, and even worse when you're unable to help them see that the situation is dangerous. It sounds cliché, but the saying, "You can't help someone until they're ready to help themselves," is a reality. There was a point in my life a couple years ago when I had a friend who just couldn't see that the person she loved and that "loved" her was hurting her. I felt so helpless and frustrated that I couldn't just step in and fix everything. One night I was getting off the phone with her and didn't know what to do, so I wrote a song about it, called Emma.

This song is the reason that I'm going to donate 50 cents of every record sale to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a nation-wide effort to help those who are struggling with abuse in their lives. I think it's tremendously important to use the luxuries of our freedom to help those who may not be able or willing to help themselves, and this is how I've chosen to do it.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read about me, and please remember that pride has no place in passion, to believe in your dreams, and to hug your mom ;o)

feel free to get in touch at JonRicciMusic@gmail.com

Goo Goo Dolls, Tonic, Jeff Buckley, Better Than Ezra, David Gray, Fiona Apple, The Gufs, Led Zeppelin, Matt Nathanson, Howie Day, John Mayer, DMB, Martin Sexton, Dashboard Confessional, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Radiohead, Colin Hay, Teitur, Damien Rice

Faneuil Hall in Boston

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