How Djo, AKA ‘Stranger Things’ Star Joe Keery, Used His Exploding Acting Career to Write Better Music

Stranger Things star Joe Keery is also a rising musician under the name Djo (Joe), and oftentimes an artist trying to balance both pursuits struggles to find the time, but Djo discovered a bit of a hack.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Direct from Hollywood with Ryan Seacrest.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Stranger Things. Actor Joe Keery, who plays Steve Arrington, has
a bona fide hit on his hands with his evocative
single end of Beginning, released under his stage name Joe
but spelled Djo and while the song's success is uncharted,
territory dabbling in music not the new for him. Joe
was actually in an indie band in Chicago before getting
cast on Stranger Things when he decided to put his
focus into acting. Thing is He's now in demand for both,

(00:26):
but acting actually isn't getting in the way of his songwriting.
In fact, it's helped him to carve out time for it.
He tells nmy, I've got a lot of songs from
my new album, probably more than I've ever had to
pick from. I had a lot of acting work last year.
I went from job to job to job for a year.
With acting, you moved to a new city, don't have
a community other than people that you're working with. You
generally have a lot of downtime. And in that downtime,
it chose to buckle down, play guitar and focus on songwriting.

(00:47):
If his song sounds good with just guitar and singing.
Chances are it's a good song. Expect to hear some
of that new music soon. Until then, Joe's End of
Beginning is out now.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
That's direct from Hollywood.