BUSTLE – The 2003 film’s joyful take on learning to play music inspired the Stranger Things star to pick up instruments and make music as Djo.

When Joe Keery played his first Lollapalooza set this summer as his wig-wearing musical alter ego Djo, he brought a memento on stage. “My dad gave me this great photo of him on his 30th birthday holding me,” the Stranger Things star tells Bustle at a rooftop bar in downtown Chicago the day after his set. Seeing it taped next to his pedalboard while performing grounded him. “I was playing, looking down, and seeing this little picture. I’ve never allowed myself to be comfortable like that. It was a way to be like, ‘Oh, I feel a little bit more at home.’”

The past six years have been a whirlwind for 30-year-old Keery, whose turn as heartthrob Steve Harrington in Stranger Things made him a literal overnight sensation in 2016. Four seasons in, the Netflix’s series fandom is as rabid as ever: A fan at Keery’s Lollapalooza show carried a poster that read, “Listening to Djo keeps Vecna away,” a reference to Stranger Things’ latest monster.

Unassuming in his tattered shirt and generous with the bear hugs that bookend our conversation, Keery admits that releasing music after initially gaining popularity as an actor in a hit Netflix show is a double-edged sword. “I was pretty insecure about it,” he says over a plate of raw oysters. Though he’d been making music with the band Post Animal since 2014, it was only after he got the Netflix gig that he decided to go solo, releasing his debut album as Djo in 2019 and his sophomore album Decide on Sept. 16. “You want people to listen to the music and have an open mind. But it’s not lost on me that the majority of people are coming because they know of my work on the show and they’re interested to see what it’s all about.”

The pseudonym — pronounced “Joe” — is Keery’s way of distancing himself from the show. Djo’s synth pop track “On And On” describes “the feeling of general doom and gloom and my relationship with social media and the Internet,” says Keery, who escapes Stranger Things madness and online noise by occasionally disabling his social accounts or blasting Djo’s songs in his car. “I like to drive and listen to music, so I’ve listened to this album a lot when I was driving,” he says. Get to know more about Keery’s musical influences — including his favorite Beatle — below.
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