Ever since popular music first recognized young people as its bread and butter, rejecting the siren song of “grown-up” servility has been part and parcel of its message. Now imagine the cathartic thrill of hearing an entire musical family of 9-to-5 refugees telling the workaday world where it can go.
The members of Nova Scotia alternative power-pop act Juicebox do just that on their nose-thumbing new single, “I Don’t Wanna Be Like You.” Brothers Zackery and Morgan Zwicker and their third cousin, Benny O’Toole, all ditched superficially promising “responsible” gigs to follow their creative muse—and to hopefully send a message to an entire generation of listeners that they can do the same.
“I think it’s important for young people to recognize who they want to be like, and who they don’t want to be like,” O’Toole says. “People need to be able to say ‘NO’ in order to carve out their own identity.”
The identity Juicebox has chosen is that of “a sassy Beatles with punk energy and brutally honest lyrics.” They’re speaking of the White Album specifically, a template that leaves them plenty of room to experiment stylistically within their three-man framework. But on an even more granular level, “I Don’t Wanna Be Like You” comes across like The Flaming Lips meeting the Five-Man Electrical Band to rewrite the diary of Johnny Paycheck. The groundwork is laid by the song’s sarcastically twangy verses, which spell out the flimsy arguments for cubicle-dwelling drone-dom:
They say I should retire who I am
Get a job as fast as I can
Give up and work for the man
Uh huh
They say that life is a drag for us all
That we all gotta silence our call
To wear a suit and work in a mall
That’s when the chorus comes in to tear down the temptations of lobotomized respectability, with trashcan drumming, pummeling chords and a defiant vocal chant of “I don’t wanna be like you” that’s delivered four times. (The second chorus makes it eight times, just in case anybody misunderstood.)
Juicebox have more than earned the right to their nonconformist stance. Singer/songwriter/guitarist O’Toole is a former advertising copywriter who left the world of paid persuasion to pursue music and teach high-school math. (“You kill your dreams for a desk, then the desk kills you,” he says. “When I realized the only thing I might be remembered for was a cheeky tagline on a chocolate bar, I knew I had to go.”) Bassist/vocalist Zack Zwicker worked in a factory, and for a time, drummer Morgan Zwicker abandoned his musical aspirations entirely to join the suit-and-tie set as well.
“All of us were in jobs that didn’t align with who we are,” the band says. “This song is about taking a stance against that outcome and not letting others decide your life for you.”
They make the point with typical wry humor in the accompanying music video, a parody of TV’s The Office that the group shot with scavenged props and a cast of friends playing characters from the show. The DIY aesthetic of the shoot perfectly matched the approach they had taken to the recording itself, which was done independently at the group’s home studio in rural Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Two less paydays for The Man!
The band’s individual pedigrees show that this music business isn’t just some escapist hobby. Outside of Juicebox, Morgan Zwicker is an accomplished jazz percussionist and composer who has performed at mainstream festivals like the East Coast Music Awards and the TD Halifax Jazz Fest. O’Toole was trained in classical guitar at Acadia University and has performed in several ensembles and as a solo artist. And Zackery Zwicker has been experimenting with contemporary sounds and harmonies since he was given his first sampler at the age of 15; he was an early adopter of the open-source digital audio editor Audacity.
The three learned to play music together, gradually moving on from their pop-punk roots to forge a more eclectic style that could blend jazz, classical and contemporary influences within a rock framework. The fruits of that evolution resulted in something more serious, harmonically complex and emotional—a hybrid sound first displayed to the world on the band’s 2019 debut, Wasted Youth. The next year, their single “Social Distance” saw some chart action thanks to an assist from radio host Alan Cross. Their 2022 EP, Blame it on the Bleach, landed on multiple indie playlists, setting the stage for 2023’s summer single “Ice Cream” to be added by long-running Canadian entertainment periodical Exclaim!
A new, as-yet-untitled album is coming in the spring of 2025. In the interim, Juicebox have some live shows booked to remind audiences how good they all look when they aren’t wearing company ID badges. Dates are as follows:
July 13 – Radstorm, Halifax, NS
July 19 – Gutterfest ‘24, Windsor, NS
July 25 – Xeroz Arcade, Moncton, NS
July 26 – Baba’s Lounge, Charlottetown, PEI
July 27 – Shoebox Catalina, New Glasgow, NS
Aug. 9 – The Seahorse, Halifax, NS
“As musicians in early adulthood, we feel like we have a duty to pass on knowledge through music,” the band says. “For the three of us, music was as much a teacher as parents or schooling. It’s always been our dream to do for young people what our forefathers did for us.”
And if that means helping them dodge the drudgery of an office job—well, there are far worse ways to make a living.
