Joe Keery was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts and throughout
his childhood he did theater, attended performing arts camps, and acted in high
school. This led to him studying theater at DePaul University where he
graduated in 2014 with a degree in acting. After graduating from DePaul, Keery
went to hundreds of auditions before finally landing his breakout role as Steve
Harrington in Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things. While Keery is easily
recognizable on screen, many people don’t know that he is also a talented
musician and has been releasing music for years under the moniker Djo.
Keery started his music career as the guitarist and drummer for psych-rock band Post Animal. He released two albums with them in 2015 and 2018. Soon after the release of Post Animal’s second album, Keery had to part ways with the band due to acting commitments. However, he did not stay away from making music for long as in July of 2019 he self-released the single “Roddy” under the name Djo. Shortly after in August of 2019, he released his debut album titled Twenty Twenty.
His second album titled Decide was released in September of 2022 and was delayed much more than Keery had originally planned with more than three years in between albums due to his filming schedules and COVID slowing down production. However, due to this large time delay between albums, Decide really marks his evolution as an artist. This album showcases a more personal approach to songwriting, as described by Keery himself, it serves as “an oral history of his twenties”. Keery used this album as a way to make sense of the crazy journey he has been one from being a broke college student to a sudden rise in fame. He states that he did not try to edit himself in this album and instead tried to embrace the ugly side of himself as he felt it was more authentic. When commenting on his music writing process, Keery said that his favorite part is the arranging and producing process of music.
The moniker of Djo comes in the picture as Keery says
he did not want his name to be so closely linked to his career as an actor. He
states his goal with the stage persona is as a way to disassociate the music
from the character that everyone knows him as on Stranger Things. While
he is grateful for the boost in listeners from his success in acting, he wants
the quality of his music to stand up for itself. This demonstrates his intrinsic
motivation for producing and creating music. He likes to create something that
is personal and stands up to his measures of success not extrinsic quantifiers
of success. Additionally, he says there is a difference between his directing
brain and performance brain and he is constantly switching between the two and
learning to compromise. If Joe Keery and his unique persona of Djo can continue
to push the boundaries of psych-pop, I believe he could be seen as a pro-C
creative one day.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsne0Gd9qKo
https://www.nme.com/features/tv-interviews/joe-keery-stranger-things-interview-djo-music-3287081
I enjoyed Djo’s Decide when it came out last year and found his synth-pop, pseudo-psychedelic sound entertaining (though admittedly I am a bigger fan of Post Animal). I think it’s interesting that Keery uses his “Djo” persona as a means of separating himself from his career as an actor because you can certainly see how the two versions of Keery overlap in terms of charisma and sometimes humor.
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