Joe Keery is known by many names. Some you may have heard, others maybe not. To some, he’s known as Djo, as Steve Harrington, as the guy who sings “End of Beginning” or even as Cool Cool Cool. I’m willing to bet you recognize him from at least one of those.
Keery was born on April 24, 1992, in Newburyport Massachusetts. He later moved to Chicago, Illinois to attend DePaul University. Throughout his life, he’s been both an actor and a musician, but his rise as a music artist was anything but immediate. He’s been releasing music for nearly a decade, with each release receiving more attention than the last. Now, at the current peak of his popularity, he’s announced his next album.
With a single titled “Basic Being Basic” and a world tour announcement, the countdown to The Crux has officially started. Releasing on April 4, 2025, we are just a few short months away from hearing Keery’s new 12-track project. Before that comes out, let’s take a look through what got him to where he is today.
Cool Cool Cool
Although Keery’s talked about his experience jamming with his garage band throughout high school, and mentioned a one-time performance of “really bad” covers at a family friend’s party, there isn’t a ton of information about his start in music. What we do know is that he first started releasing music under the name Cool Cool Cool sometime in his early twenties.
Unfortunately, most of the music he recorded in his time using this moniker has been largely wiped from the internet. The only relics remaining are fan uploads of the songs “Slowbro” and “I’m Not Smart” which are available on YouTube. Fun fact, “Slowbro” was named after the Pokémon, but in a 2016 interview Keery revealed that his favourite Pocket Monster is actually Golduck instead. The odds that any music from this era ever sees the light of day is slim, but you never know.
However, what we can look back on and listen to is the music he released under his next title:
Post Animal
After graduating from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting, Keery decided to take a background role in his next musical venture. After stalling in his solo musical career, he would join the Chicago-based psychedelic rock band Post Animal, as both a vocalist and guitarist in 2015.
He was a part of the band for about four years, touring and releasing two albums while part of the group. His work with Post Animal was somewhat short-lived, but he considers them all very good friends. The good news for fans of the band is that Keery is reuniting with them for the upcoming Back On You Tour, where Post Animal is performing as the opening act for Djo.
Eventually, Keery decided to leave the band in order to put his university degree to use and further pursue his acting career.
Hollywood
Television is where Keery really started to get attention. His breakout role was as Steve Harrington on the hit Netflix original show Stranger Things. He got the role after initially auditioning for a different main character, Jonathan Byers. His character started out as one of the most-disliked on the show, yet eventually became a fan favourite– to the point that Keery is now a leading cast member for the upcoming fifth and final season. I’ve been a fan from the start, and I’m excited to see how they finish his character’s story.
Outside of Stranger Things he was one of the leading cast members in 2021’s Free Guy, starring alongside Ryan Reynolds, and was the main character of the indie comedy-horror Spree in 2020. To help promote the movie, Keery released 18 videos in character as the wannabe influencer Kurt Kunkle on a YouTube channel titled KurtsWorld96. He also ran various accounts sharing the same name on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter (or X, I guess, whatever). He would even continue to sporadically post on these accounts for a couple of years after the movie was released, as he found the character very interesting to play.
Djo
Djo (which is pronounced “Joe”—that confused me for a while too) has become Keery’s creative outlet when acting has let him down in that area. Personally, I don’t mind that his acting career is on the back burner if it means we get more of the great music he’s been putting out. Keery released his first album as Djo back in 2019; confusingly titled Twenty Twenty, it didn’t make a huge impact on the charts but was received very positively. Regardless of chart performance, what Twenty Twenty can be recognized for is helping to make Keery be seen as something other than an actor—a musician.
Following Twenty Twenty, Keery released DECIDE in 2022. While it also didn’t get a ton of attention upon its release, it still garnered positive reviews, with bigger music magazines like Pitchfork taking notice. Most of you probably heard Djo for the first time through the song “End of Beginning,” sometime in 2024. The song went viral on TikTok. Its popularity on TikTok led to the track breaking into The Billboard Hot 100 at No. 11, contributing greatly to the 1.3 billion streams it has today. Keery also released D-Sides in 2023, a two-song collection of the tracks that didn’t quite make it onto the finished album.
If you’re looking to venture into his discography before the new album, I recommend checking out “I Want Your Video”, “Flash Mountain” and “On and On”. Those are some of my personal favourites of his, but be sure to check out “Basic Being Basic” to see what Djo has in store for us on The Crux.