On Tour with Djo

About two years ago, Joe Keery was going through a metamorphosis. He was bulking up and eating lots of steak to play the villainous sheriff’s deputy Gator Tillman on Season 5 of FX’s Fargo, which filmed in Canada. He also was just starting to write his third album, as his alt-pop project Djo, in the wake of his breakup with fellow actor Maika Monroe. “I was dealing with my own personal sh*t, living in Calgary, basically only had two friends, was working out a ton,” he says. “It was like my chrysalis phase.” He even had his own awkward transitional haircut, thanks to Gator’s half-buzzed, half-slicked-back do. “The worst part is when it wasn’t glued down, because it was so long on top,” he says. “I looked like if you were to peel a cheese stick. I wore hats for six months. I was very excited to get a nice haircut.” He laughs. “But the haircut I got after was equally horrible!”

Don’t worry: When I meet Keery at his East Village hotel in early March, his hair is back to its shaggy, resplendent glory. And he’s on the other side of an even bigger evolution. In December, the 32-year-old wrapped filming on the final season of Stranger Things and said goodbye to Steve Harrington, the lovable jock he’s played for nearly a decade. Between filming, Keery also finished up that album: The Crux, out now, was recorded at New York’s famed Electric Lady Studios and accordingly departs from the bedroom-pop feel of his previous two albums. After a string of Australia and New Zealand dates — captured in these exclusive photos by Pooneh Ghana — he’s going back on tour across North America and Europe, with Friday slots at Coachella ahead of headliner Lady Gaga. “We’re her backup band,” he deadpans. “I don’t know how to read music. She’s sending me all these notes. I’m like, ‘F*ck, Lady Gaga, I can barely play my own songs, let alone your songs.’”

Don’t expect him to be raging in celebration this summer. Keery — surprisingly soft-spoken in person — plans on keeping it low-key with his band. “A lot of cough drops, a lot of relaxing. I’m doing my little vocal lessons. We’re trying to keep it quite fit. We eat a lot of yogurt,” he says. “It just comes from a place of: ‘People paid a lot of money and took a lot of time out of their life to come see this show.’ We want to make it worth their while, not let anyone down, and make it an escape for people.”

The Crux sounds really different from your last two albums. You feel more present — your voice, your personality.

When I listened to music, I’d say up until maybe my mid-20s, I was really a music-first guy. I feel like there are two types of people: lyrics or music. And I wanted to make a concerted effort to have the lyrics be my primary focus going into this project. That fell by the wayside as it went on, but it had an effect on the whole thing. I was on the road, working on different projects, and I would have a voice recorder like we’re using right now, and I would try to get little ideas from wherever I was. And then once I got to the studio, we would kind of flesh them out.

Were there any particular sonic references you had in mind?

I was going through a breakup when I started writing this album, and I feel like a big part of that process is going back to who you are — or who you were before. I did a lot of that musically, going all the way back to when I was a kid and rediscovering some of the artists that I had forgotten or hadn’t listened to for a while.

When you were on Jimmy Fallon recently, you said a theme of the album is being “one of many.” What do you mean by that?

I thought it was just going to be a breakup album, which it was, until maybe about a year out from it being released. The songs started changing a little bit. It goes back to what is important: my friends, my family, the people around me who have seen me through the changes in my life. So, that’s how I feel like I’m one of many. I’m on my little journey in my little boat going down the stream. Everyone in my life, and everyone outside of that circle, too, is also doing that thing as well. It is a unifying thought.

“End of Beginning,” from your 2022 album DECIDE, went massively viral on TikTok last year. What was that like? You see the numbers, the streams, but what goes viral on there can feel so detached from its source.

It’s super weird and very intangible. It’s right on the edge of what’s going on in the music industry right now, where people are seeking these viral moments. And I stumbled into one by accident by doing nothing. I mean, there’s a fear that people are going to know you for one thing, but I’m already known for just one thing, so that’s OK. Until we played live recently — we did this [traveling Australia and New Zealand] festival called Laneway, and a couple thousand people sang the song. I was like, “OK, now I guess I understand. We’re halfway around the world. I’ve never been here.”

People are probably going to mine the lyrics of the album like you’re Taylor Swift. Is that a weird thing to think about?

Not for me, because you are agreeing to that when you’re writing. This is a thing that I like to do as a journal. It’s the way that I interpret what’s going on in my own life. If you can boil some of these feelings down, it can really affect people — if you do it correctly. I mean, that’s the point of songwriting: People can see themselves in a song. Someone could say, “How the hell did Julian Casablancas know exactly how I was feeling?” It’s because he’s good at putting his finger on whatever that is.

“Charlie’s Garden” is such a lovely song, and your Stranger Things co-star Charlie Heaton’s on it.

I had to put that song on the record because it is a snapshot of July 2024 for me. It just represents my time in Atlanta, hanging out, waiting to film, chilling with Natalia [Dyer]. The further I got in on the whole thing, the more I wanted to use these songs to memorialize either a person in my life, a relationship, or an event in my life. When I’m 70 years old — and who knows what’ll happen in my life — I’ll always at least have this little thing, no matter what happens. And that brought me a lot of joy.

That brings us to the end of Stranger Things. How do you feel now that it’s over?

I’ve stayed quite busy, honestly, since we’ve wrapped. It was the last week that was the most emotionally charged, just thinking like, “This is the last time that this group of people will get to do something like this together.” It was bittersweet. All the emotions that you’d think, pretty much, were on display.

Millie Bobby Brown has been speaking up recently about the media scrutiny she receives, and it was interesting to hear her say that she feels like people expect her to be frozen in time. Do you relate to that?

Those kids probably bear the brunt of the negative side, just because I was in my 20s. Maybe there’s a bit of that. I feel for them. That’s something that I don’t think anyone can truly relate to unless you’ve been in that situation. You just hope that the support system is there for people. And I think everybody who’s on the show is lucky to have had everybody [who went through it] at the same time.

Were there any rituals or celebrations you guys did to mark the end of the show?

I wrote little letters to everyone, which was fun. It was happening so fast that we wanted to [give each other] more than some crazy gift. I wanted to spend time with everybody and be present and enjoy it.

Do you feel satisfied with how Steve’s arc ended?

Yeah, I do. I don’t think I can really say more than that.

Last year, you were on Fargo and played Gator, a total creep who’s such a different character from what you’ve previously done.

It was a big learning experience for me. After it came out, I watched the first few bits of it, and then couldn’t quite finish it because I felt like I had located the character and what I wanted to do, but there were some parts that I almost could have taken further. You can’t let fear dominate your decisions. You have to be willing to look like a fool and look like you don’t know what you’re doing. Or look like you’re bad. I think nobody wants to look like they’re bad. It’s been really hard, honestly, with some of these live shows.

I’m sure doing things like Fallon is like a new level.

To be honest with you, that was a pretty difficult experience. I love the opportunity and I really love Jimmy. But that was our first time playing live as of this band. So it was kind of like, “We gotta hurry up and figure all this out!” I guess I’m such a perfectionist that I dip my toe into the stream of people who are maybe hating on it and let myself be influenced by those people. It’s kind of unfair to let that maybe knock me off course, when I should just try to keep of sound mind. At least that’s what my friends text me to do.

In terms of acting work, are there types of projects you want to do more of? I’m sure you’ve probably already been working on other stuff.

No, I haven’t.

Really?

I finished [Stranger Things] in December. It’s good to take a second and take stock of what happened to me. Not to be dramatic, but it’s like, “Wow, that was a f*cking insane experience!” Maybe I’ll do a play. Opportunities will present themselves when they’re supposed to. So, yeah, I’m in no rush to do a million things right now. I feel more happy with finding the right things.

That feels like a great place to end. Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Hi, Mom. That’s it.

Photographs by Pooneh Ghana