CANADIAN HONKY TONK HERO JOHNNY 99 (AKA CITY AND COLOUR’S JOHN SPONARSKI) SHARES FIRST SINGLE OF 2025 “JUST LIKE YOU”
NORTH COUNTRY COLLECTIVE
After giving us the gift of “It Can’t Be Christmas” a few months ago, Johnny 99 is back with another instant modern honky tonk classic, “Just Like You,” a further taste of the new music he’s got up his rhinestoned sleeve for 2025.
“Just Like You” is available now on all digital platforms via North Country Collective HERE.
Johnny 99 is the alter ego of John Sponarski, guitarist in City and Colour, but as Johnny 99 he has been carrying the torch for classic country music for many years, as heard on the 2021 Johnny 99 debut album Words Left Unsaid. The long-overdue follow-up is slated for later in 2025, and “Just Like You” provides a rousing preview with its two-step twang and pedal steel-driven sound.
Once again, City and Colour fans will likely be surprised to hear how naturally Johnny, multi-instrumentalist Matt Kelly, bassist Erik Nielsen and drummer Leon Power immerse themselves in vintage country, with the icing on the cake added by fiddler Michael Cleveland and Georgia Harmer on backing vocals. And like many classic country songs, there’s more going on in the lyrics than the infectious rhythm might suggest.
Sponarski says, “‘Just Like You’ is an upbeat song, but it has a darker theme at its core. It’s about finding yourself stuck on the hamster wheel, going from one toxic relationship to the next. You’re thinking you’re learning from your mistakes, but you’re really just repeating them over and over again. You’re fully aware of the types of people that are ‘bad for you,’ but they still draw you in. I guess the underlying question the song asks is, when our desires undermine our happiness, why is it so hard to try something new?”
While getting to perform with Dallas Green on a nightly basis has fulfilled one of his primary ambitions, it is under the guise of Johnny 99 that Sponarski has been able to forge his own musical identity. After relocating to Toronto from Vancouver in 2023, he and Matt Kelly began working on a new batch of tunes, essentially music they’ve dreamt of making together for years: Songs that paint pictures of lovable losers, fallen friends, and the broken-hearted, set to the soundtrack of country music from a bygone age. It’s country music that was made to dance to. Honky tonk music. And right now, few artists in Canada are doing it better than Johnny 99.
Johnny 99
[Single]
(North Country Collective)
Release Date: February 21, 2025
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Background Photo Credit: Jill Harris
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