Watch Juiceboxxx’s “Ripping Up My Soul” video

Juiceboxxx is one of those unforgettable lifers I know I’ll never stop playing, the kind of artist who gets me out of bed in the morning to keep slamming this keyboard for y’all.

A solid 15 years into his career, he has recently been leaning more into the pop-punk and away from the rap-rock of old favorites like “Like a Renegade,” an exciting shift that seems to be opening new doors. The legendary D. Sardy mixed “Freaked Out American Loser” this spring, and Dangerbird is providing hard-earned label support. Every once in a while, he’ll tweet about being in an alternative radio competition in Vegas or something and I just get really happy.

“This song is about a life spent on the edges of 10,000 different underground music scenes, never fitting in, always losing my mind,” he told me of “Ripping Up My Soul,” from an exciting new EP out today, Never Surrender Forever. “How do you grow up when you still love rock & roll? It is a very real question and I don't know if I have any answers. I continue to make records and especially perform live because it still gives me something that I can't get anywhere else. I can't just start a career as a contemporary artist, you know what I'm saying? The craft of what I do is born out of dive bars and basements, and I'm trying to take it somewhere else. Somewhere bigger. I wanna change my life. One day at a time. Also I'm not rapping on this song.”

In my experience, most people who learn of Juiceboxxx share his stuff, and maybe it’s just taking a while and maybe it’s just a fluke, but is boxworld not rightly on the up-and-up? And then you listen to the EP, and last track is called “I Wanna Die In A Dunkin,” and where the fuck even is "up."