Actor on Djo, ‘End of Beginning’ & More
It’s a crisp Tuesday afternoon in New York and Joe Keery is happy to be home. As he clears the remnants of a late lunch from Sugarfish off the breakfast nook in his apartment and begins to prepare a green tea, he laments how little time he’s been able to spend here this year. He offers up the obligatory “Sorry that the place may look like a mess,” but in reality, his West Village apartment is charming and cozy, with shoes neatly collected by the door, several guitars sprawled about the living room, an impressive VHS collection, various memorabilia adorning the handcrafted shelves that shield just a fraction of the space’s plentiful exposed brick and a drawing board with a handwritten message from his nieces that hangs near the kitchen. Keery, 33, will head back out on the road in a mere matter of days, though, as he prepares for a jam-packed fall schedule. Of course, there’s the three-part final season of Stranger Things — in which he plays the beloved bully-turned babysitter Steve Harrington — premiering in late November that will require plenty of press. But first, he’s focused on the role that has defined his year so far: touring as the alt-rock artist Djo. On the heels of a year in which his dreamy, synth-pop song “End of Beginning” went viral and peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 (his first entry on the chart), Keery returned this April with The Crux, his classic rock-influenced full-length recorded at New York’s famed Electric Lady Studios. The album’s lead single, “Basic Being Basic,” became his first No. 1 on a Billboard chart when it topped Alternative Airplay in July. And he’s been touring relentlessly in support of the project, including Down Under at the Laneway Festival, in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans at Lollapalooza in Chicago and at his own headlining dates across the globe. As he gears up for his next string of shows beginning later this month — billed as his Another Bite Tour — he’s first treating fans to a batch of entirely new music, with the arrival of The Crux Deluxe out today (Sept. 12), a 12-track surprise release that extends the universe of his third album. “The songs are all from the same period — it’s like a companion piece,” says Keery. “It can be like the punk little brother of The Crux, where it’s just a little bit more all over the place.” When Keery whittled down the tracklist for the original album, there were more than two dozen contenders in the mix, thanks in large part to a concerted focus on seeing ideas through during the recording process. “We had an imperative to be like, ‘Let’s not leave the song unless it’s 80% done,’ ” he says. “Or else the song doesn’t really exist.” Plans for the surprise release were solidified as early as May, when Keery and his steady co-writing/co-producing partner Adam Thein had a chance to revisit Electric Lady between legs of tour for some touch-ups — fixing a vocal issue on “Who You Are,” adding a second verse to “They Don’t Know What’s Right,” removing a few items from “Thich Nhat Hanh,” named after the Vietnamese monk, peace activist and poet. Crucially, the aim was to avoid any sweeping changes during those sessions. “We didn’t want to do too much,” says Keery. “It should be a snapshot of that time period.” Piers Greenan The result is a deluxe album that sees Keery continuing to lean into his strongest influences: “Love Can’t Break the Spell” unspools the five stages of grief following a break-up in the style of Fleetwood Mac; the rebellious flair of “Grime of the World” slides seamlessly into any collection of garage rock-fueled favorites; “Purgatory Silverstar” is a quintessential example of Keery turning a song on its head, sometimes more than once, at a whim — a plucking guitar intro gives way to a Red Hot Chili Peppers-esque rock bridge that then opens into an odyssey with twists and turns reminiscent of Rush or The Who. The Crux Deluxe also showcases his growing comfortability with experimentation: album closer “Awake” boasts both rollicking guitar ready to blow your hair back and, notably, a set of lyrics solely focused on syllabic fit over substance. “I had read something about John Lennon for ‘I Am the Walrus,’ and [how] those are nonsense lyrics,” Keery says. “[‘Awake’] was going to be on the album originally. A lot of people were like, ‘Those are my favorite lyrics you’ve ever written.’ It’s like, ‘There you f–king go. Maybe you should let your subconscious do a little bit more of the work.’ You want to write something that’s profound or that connects with people, but there are a million different ways to do that.” Then there’s “Mr. Mountebank,” a late swap with “Egg” from the album’s first installment. It’s the deluxe’s biggest dip into electro-pop, and Keery’s response in part to the success of “End of Beginning,” which he jokes makes him “kind of up my own ass.” (“Climb fast, money talks/ Then they want to sell you on what you’re all about,” he sings before reassuring his own standing with “Not afraid, not for sale/ Long game class acts never fail.”) In contrast to “Awake,” “Mr. Mountebank” is Keery at his most vulnerable on the deluxe, which can often flit between abstract metaphors and unfiltered lyrics about relationships, the industry and his own well-being. “I want to be open,” he implores. “It’s just, sometimes you’re like, ‘What the hell am I trying to say? What the hell is this song about? Am I repeating myself?’ It’s less of being scared as it is figuring out what you really feel and trying to get honest with yourself.” Piers Greenan Keery acknowledges that in the aftermath of “End of Beginning” having its viral moment in 2024, there was a sense of added stress — potentially even subconsciously — leading into
