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.
Continue reading School of Rock Changed Joe’s Life Forever

SPIN – The ‘Stranger Things’ actor and indie rocker on his new album ‘DECIDE,’ ties to the Chicago music scene and why he’ll never be a full-time musician

It’s just after midnight and Chicago’s Bottom Lounge is packed. Some kids are wearing ‘Hellfire’ merch shirts, referring to the fictional Dungeons and Dragons club from Netflix’s multi-Emmy nominated thriller Stranger Things. It’s the rare occasion where love for a TV show spills into support for a real band — Joe Keery’s psychedelic rock project called DJO (pronounced “Joe.”) At that moment, Keery, who plays heartthrob-with-a-heart of gold Steve Harrington on the series, steps onto the stage looking like the antithesis of his character in wiry glasses and matted brown hair. The room erupts.

Before Stranger Things swept him up to Los Angeles, Keery lived in Chicago until 2018. Before fame, he was somewhat of a fixture in the Chicago DIY scene, performing in an indie band called Post Animal by night while hustling for acting gigs by day. But as much as his life changed over the course of three years, Keery never abandoned his passion for making music.

In 2019, Keery released a standalone track called “Roddy”  with keyboardist Adam Thein, under the pseudonym DJO. Their first album, Twenty Twenty arrived that fall, amassing a few hundred thousand monthly listeners. But since Season Four’s return, DJO’s listeners have more than quintupled to a whopping 2.6 million monthly listeners. The boom has led to prime music festival placements at Lollapalooza, Boston Calling, See.Hear.Now and Austin City Limits to tease a highly anticipated sophomore album, DECIDE (out September 16).

The morning after DJO’s first Lolla set, Keery was sitting in the corner of a restaurant at the Chicago Athletic Association with the remnants of a Bloody Mary in front of him. As we looked out onto Millennium Park, he sounded nostalgic. “Coming to Chicago is like location memory,” Keery says between sips of an iced coffee. “I remember touring DePaul with my dad, we stayed down here, and we walked through Millennium Park.”
Continue reading Joe Keery’s Saturn Return as DJO