WOLFIE’S JUST FINE, THE MONIKER OF MUSICIAN / COMEDIAN JON LAJOIE, TO RELEASE NEW LP, EVERYONE IS DEAD EXCEPT US, VIA NORMAL GUY RECORDS ON JUNE 16, 2023
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Hulk Hogan Slammed Andre The Giant Video Still
Wolfie’s Just Fine, the moniker of LA-based Montreal-native artist and sometimes-comedian Jon Lajoie, released today his brand new single titled “Hulk Hogan Slammed Andre The Giant”. The latest song to be unveiled off his forthcoming album Everyone Is Dead Except Us out June 16 on Normal Guy Records. The song recalls a simple moment of euphoria as a child while watching the iconic match between the two titans during 1987’s Wrestlemania III.
“This song is an ode to a window of time in my childhood when the world felt simple, and unfettered and unfiltered joy was still easily accessible,” said Lajoie. “A time when Hulk Hogan defeating Andre the Giant meant that everything was going to be okay for ever and ever. When playing with my WWF wrestling figurines in my backyard with my older brother was more thrilling and exciting than any roller coaster ride or $200 million dollar blockbuster film. As an adult, I rarely have access to that kind of emotional exhilaration because, you know, life. However, that pure, blissful, unadulterated, child-like joy is so powerful, that even the memory of it can cause a small portion to travel through time to the present and put a silly smile on my much-too-serious forty-two year-old face.”
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His first new studio release in over five years, Lajoie leans into the sweet spot of Wolfie’s Just Fine with songs that evoke nostalgic remembrances of pop culture relics and coming of age touchstones alongside piercing insights about what it means to be alive. Recorded in Nashville with producer Jordan Lehning (Caitlin Rose, Andrew Combs), Everyone Is Dead Except Us turns the glorious, undeniable, and devastating territory of human existence and the pain of loss and grief, into something to examine and unpack in the span of four-minute-long deeply felt, emotional songs. It’s an album in the key of mortality, one that tends more towards wry observations than melodrama. Across its ten tracks, Lajoie treats the brief nature of life as a stone to be turned over and examined in the palm of his hand, paying careful attention to the cracks and jagged edges of it.
The album’s lead single and title track “Everyone Is Dead Except Us” is out now as well, along with a poignant video written and directed by Lajoie. Inspired by Taoism, Jon turns the seemingly dark phrase into a statement of gratitude: "Everyone is dead, the only people who aren’t dead are those of us who are currently alive. And eventually (and inevitably) we will join them, and then, others after us will be the ones who are alive, and so on. This thought somehow feels very comforting to me, and forces me to recognize how insanely lucky I am to be one of the alive people on earth in this moment.”
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Lajoie is never maudlin, even when he’s being “terribly unfunny.” There’s an undercurrent of levity that touches so much of humanity within his songs. The things that mean so much to us, the things that helped us understand who we are or what we’re good at, the things that once brought us a feeling of indescribable joy, aren’t always “important” things. They’re pop culture relics of our past, video games, action movies, and historic events on TV which makes them admittedly a little funny in hindsight. But Lajoie treats the seemingly unserious with the utmost respect and dignity, never allowing a song to sound like an outright joke—each songs’ arrangements call to mind tunes from the likes of Aimee Mann or Nick Cave—all while acknowledging that our memories are fallible and subject to embellishment.
It’s not funny, except that it is. It’s serious, except that it isn’t. It’s tearful, but it’s also the laughter that comes after the heaving sobs. It’s joyful—an embracement of the rush of impossibly strong feelings we were once able to tap into so easily. And it’s heartbreaking—an elegy to a time of purity of spirit we’ll never possess again.
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MORE ABOUT JON LAJOIE
Known for his satirical albums like You Want Some of This and I Kill People, for his role as “Taco” on the comedy series The League, and as the writer behind some of the catchiest original songs in film and television, in 2016 Lajoie surprised his fans with thoughtful, introspective music made under the moniker Wolfie’s Just Fine. In addition to finding an audience as a comedian and actor, Lajoie has also written numerous songs for film and television, with credits including original songs for The League, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, The Afterparty, and the newly announced long-awaited Clone High reboot on HBO Max. His first album as Wolfie’s Just Fine, I Remembered but Then I Forgot, was praised as “thoughtful and musically soulful” (Billboard) and “a fine collection of neo-folk” (A.V. Club), while PopMatters singled out Lajoie’s specialty of writing songs through the perspectives of film characters to arrive at “genuine and heartfelt catharsis.” His 2018 follow-up EP, Perfection, Nevada, (Produced by Bright Eyes’s Mike Mogis) further established Lajoie’s unique point of view, with Bloody Disgusting noting that, “Lajoie sure does have a way of bringing beauty and fresh perspective…[that] hits on something we can probably all relate to: sympathy for the monster.”
Album Art Credit : Jesse Treece // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
EVERYONE IS DEAD EXCEPT US TRACKLIST
01 Everyone Is Dead Except Us
02 Mortal Kombat 2
03 Good Enough
04 Staying With The Bomb
05 Get Away
06 Hulk Hogan Slammed Andre The Giant
07 Saint - Paul
08 Song For Dad
09 Nothing Goes Away
10 When You Go
