Fire dancer and musician Spogga has had a tough year, but he performs tomorrow night at Twin River and has a European tour coming up.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / KRIS CRAIG

The rock singer and songwriter Spogga is probably best known as the “one-dreaded, bald-headed” fire dancer who’s become a fixture at WaterFire and other functions around Rhode Island. But he’s just come out with his third CD of original music, and if it’s the herald of his most ambitious project to date, it was also a difficult birth.

Giant Leap of Faith is a mixture of “families” of songs and production styles – rock, rap, electronica, funk and more, all with Spogga’s twisted sense of humor on display in songs such as “AngelinA,” in which he pleads with movie star Angelina Jolie not to go off with Brad Pitt. The album ranges as far over the map as the Wood River Junction resident’s personality does, and he’s got big-time production help from Mike Sahagian, a Rhode Islander who has performed in Britney Spears’ band, as well as turntablism from Mike Hoska and keyboards from Hypnotuba.

And it’s just the beginning: It acts as a sampler of the Spogga Four Album Release Remix 2008, in which the various sides of his musical personality will be revealed and explored, with some of the songs on Giant Leap of Faith reappearing in re-recorded and remixed styles.

It wasn’t easy, though. It’s been a rough year-plus for Spogga. First he sprained his foot at a WaterFire performance; he threw an arm out of joint fire-dancing at a private party; he cut his face on a conch shell during a show (“It was a good night, though,” he says); he lost his brother to cancer early this year.

This summer, he stepped on a broken bottle and cut several tendons in his foot, and in August cut his hand on a broken bottle, severing tendons in his left hand – the one he frets the guitar with.

He was out of action for about two months and still has almost no movement in the finger, but he intends not only to celebrate the release of Giant Leap of Faith tomorrow night but to fulfill a tour of Europe starting later this month. He intends to do some small shows and record in various remote European locations, such as old cathedrals. Jim Morrison’s gravesite would be “pretty trippy” too, he says.

The doctors’ prognosis is reasonably optimistic: Eventually, he’ll get back 90 percent of the movement in the finger, and about 65 percent of the sensation. That’s still pretty low for a guitar player, and there are some songs he can’t do right now.

The injury delayed the release of one of the four planned albums, and while Spogga’s played a couple of shows in the past couple of weeks, it’s affecting his playing. Of a private show last weekend, he says, “People liked it. It hurt. … Ultimately it’s good therapy for my hand. It’s painful but I’m squeezing them out. I used to be such a proficient guitar player.”

Medical bills have also been a problem – what, no health insurance for guitar-player/fire-dancers? – as he was hit by the double whammy of large medical bills and the loss of the ability to play gigs and make money. It’s opened his eyes to the hazards of being uninsured, and one of his reactions has been to donate a dollar from the sale of each of his Fire on the Water fire-dancing DVDs (also for sale tomorrow night) to Ocean State Action, a coalition of progressive community organizations and labor unions.

Still, the irrepressible Spogga used the time off to work in his home studio with Sahagian and put the finishing touches on Giant Leap of Faith.

“I love how everything’s happening,” he says. “I look to the next thing; I could use this as a crutch, but I put out an album [instead].”

And the bad breaks, he says, are just another side of the good ones.

“The same energy that’s gotten me all these injuries is the same reason I fire-dance, and why I play the music that I do. The fearlessness. The inability to think before I act, maybe,” he says with a laugh. “I’m always improvising.

“I don’t want someone to tell me I can’t fly. I want to learn for myself. And if that means cutting myself a few times by the time I’m 80, no problem.”

Spogga plays at the Lighthouse, at Twin River, in Lincoln, tomorrow night at 9. The show is free.

rmassimo@projo.com