While Jon Lajoie might be better known as the comedian who raps satirically on YouTube using the name “Everyday Normal Guy,” his latest single under his alt-rock moniker, Wolfie’s Just Fine, strays far from the everyday. The Canadian actor turned singer/songwriter takes an arguably abnormal approach with “Break My Back” and its accompanying visual, premiering exclusively through Billboard today (May 18).
“‘Break My Back’ started out as an experiment. A fun experiment,” Lajoie tells Billboard. “One morning I went down to my studio after months of experimenting with different sounds and approaches to songwriting, and I thought to myself, ‘What if I just allow myself to have fun with no restrictions?” Having grown up on early- to mid-nineties hip-hop…the ?rst thing I did was program a big, heavy, raw sounding drum beat.”
The rattling, industrial percussion is perhaps one of the track’s standout elements, making the perfect soundtrack for its cinematic video. The clip begins with a man — wrists tied and face covered — breaking out of the trunk of an old hatchback cruising through a desolate desert. Viewers are then revealed the identity of the car in question’s driver: a clone of the escapee.
The victim-antagonist pair is portrayed by close friend Xander Berkely, whose performance is described by Lajoie as “mind-blowingly hypnotic.”
“I was overjoyed when he agreed to be in it,” Lajoie raves. “I’m such a big fan of his work…it was so generous of him.”
As one might suspect by the haunting dual-personas of the visual, “Break My Back” portrays the trials and tribulations that naturally unfold by being someone as multi-talented at Lajoie.
“The song is about how I have a tendency to compartmentalize the di?erent parts of myself, and the accompanying struggle for dominance that inevitably ensues,” he explains. “On the one hand I’m the ‘Everyday Normal Guy’ and was Taco from the TV show The League, and here I am being all, ‘Take me seriously, because I’m a deep, introspective, super serious artist!’ I think maybe this song is a way for me to see if some of these di?erent Jons can dance together and not kill each other.”
As the video reaches its startling end, viewers can only watch for themselves to see how Lajoie implies his contrasting characters might intermingle. “Break My Back” comes from Wolfie’s Just Fine’s forthcoming EP, set for release June 22.
Watch the “Break My Back” clip below.