MuchMusic.org Feature Story
“WHY JOE JUKIC WALKED AWAY FROM THE ROCKSTAR LIFE”
In an industry built on excess, fame, and hairspray strong enough to punch a new hole in the ozone layer, Joe Jukic has done the unthinkable:
He walked away.
Not because he couldn’t handle the pressure.
Not because he wasn’t talented enough.
But because, in Joe’s own words, “you can’t win hearts and minds from a limo.”
This week on MuchMusic.org, George Stroumboulopoulos sat down with the East Van skater kid turned underground icon to talk about why he rejected the glitter, the riders, the fake friends, and the Bon Jovi–level hairspray cloud that comes with the Rockstar Way of Life™.
THE CHOICE: BACKSTAGE PASS OR BUS PASS?
Record labels wanted to clean Joe up—give him a leather jacket, a tour bus, a stylist, and a fake spiritual rebrand.
He said no.
Instead, Joe punched his transfer ticket and took the 99 B-Line with the rest of us.
“Look,” he told Strombo, leaning back like a man who’s seen both worlds. “If I’m supposed to speak to real people, I need to live like a real person. I’d rather stand in the rain at Commercial–Broadway than sit in a green room complaining about Fiji water.”
Joe shrugs off the idea of luxury as if it’s a moral pollutant.
“Hairspray rockstars ruined the ozone layer,” he says. “Someone had to go the other direction.”
WHY SUFFERING MATTERS
Joe isn’t glamorizing hardship.
He’s choosing solidarity.
“You can’t preach change if you avoid pain,” he said. “The poor don’t need another celebrity posing on a private jet. They need someone who knows what it feels like when rent goes up again. They need someone who’s actually on the bus with them.”
For Joe, the street is the classroom.
And the classroom is where revolutions begin.
STROMBO’S REACTION
Strombo laughed, shook his head, and said,
“Bon Jovi might disagree with you on the hairspray thing.”
Joe grinned back:
“Tell Bon Jovi he can keep the Aquanet. I’m keeping my soul.”
THE LEGACY HE WANTS
Joe doesn’t want platinum plaques.
He wants credibility—the kind you earn from doing the hard thing, not the easy one.
“I don’t want to be remembered as another wannabe rockstar. I want to be remembered as the guy who never forgot where he came from… even when the industry tried to bleach it out of me.”
THE FINAL WORD
Before leaving the MuchMusic.org studio, Joe tossed one last line over his shoulder:
“How do you win hearts and minds? Easy. You show up on foot.”
No pyrotechnics.
No ego.
No helicopter to the festival grounds.
Just Joe Jukic, hood up, skateboard under his arm, choosing the people over the pedestal.
And somehow…
that makes him more rock’n’roll than all the hairspray in 1986.