Before he was everyone’s favorite babysitter on Stranger Things, Joe Keery wanted to enroll in School of Rock. As a tween in the early 2000s, he felt drawn to the feel-good comedy, in which Jack Black plays a headbanging substitute who forms a band with his elementary school students. “I felt a magnetic pull to be a part of something like that,” he says, “so a friend and I started playing music together.”
Keery recalls this formative memory with buoyant nostalgia in the dining room of a swanky hotel in downtown Manhattan. He’s sporting a motorcycle T-shirt with a hole in the armpit and a dad hat that smothers his famously lush hair. He comes off charming but humble, somehow animated and understated at the same time.
Though he’s one of the few Stranger Things cast members who has yet to have a show-stopping musical moment in the series, Keery is quick to note that music is something he’s loved “forever and ever.” He grew up enveloped in his parents’ faves: the Beatles, who he can listen to “over and over again, always finding something new,” and Bruce Springsteen, who was his first concert at age 11.
In high school, he practiced guitar in his freezing garage in Boston, frequently jammed out with buddies, and once performed “really bad” covers at a family friend’s party. He started to take music more seriously in college, and went on to release records with Chicago rock band Post Animal in the mid-2010s, while Stranger Things became one of the most popular shows on Earth.
In 2019, Keery introduced his solo project Djo (pronounced, simply, “Joe”) with the psych-rock record Twenty Twenty. At this point, the 30-year-old’s musical obsessions are eclectic and unpredictable, but one element he always values is balance. “You can be super artistic and down the rabbit hole, but it only connects to a select few people, or you can be super mainstream and it connects to a bunch of people, but it doesn’t say as much,” he says. “The best art to me is the combination of those two things.” He tries to find this sweet spot in his own work, including his upcoming sophomore record Decide, which offers up bright synths, hiccupping new wave vocals, and cheeky self-reflection.
When Keery is not on set (he’s due to star in an upcoming deadly virus thriller alongside Liam Neeson as well as the next season of FX’s Fargo) or onstage (he just played this year’s Lollapalooza), you can find him cooking while listening to Hawaiian music or kicking back with an old favorite like Wings’ Band on the Run. “Paul McCartney is a freak,” he says. “He’s got a lust for life.”
As he talks about the records he’s into at the moment, Keery leans forward with visible reverence, quickly taking out his phone whenever he needs to confirm a detail or make a recommendation. He often cuts himself off while gushing about a particular record, doubling back to insert a specific footnote. He asks me just as many questions as I ask him, and insists that it was nearly impossible to narrow things down to just a handful of albums.
Todd Terje: It’s Album Time (2014)
Joe Keery: This is a cheeky record—something I love in music is a little wink at the audience, and Todd Terje does a good job of that. He’s going to a lot of different places, but it all sounds like it’s coming through him. I love that song “Swing Star, Pt. 2,” but the best part about a really great album is that your favorite song is always changing.
The guy who did the art for this album is named Bendik Kaltenborn. He is amazing, and his work looks like turn-of-the-century interstellar space art. Beautiful shapes. He did the art for my single “Keep Your Head Up,” and I got to ask him what it was like working with Terje. Apparently the guy’s a car aficionado now. Maybe he’ll come back to music, but he released this unbelievable album and then bounced. I love when people do that.
Justice: Justice (2007)
When I lived in Chicago, I would bike to the restaurant that I worked at and listen to this very loudly. It was actually the reason that I got doored—afterward, my adrenaline was so high that I said, “I’m totally fine,” and then went to work super bruised.
This album changed the way that I thought about heaviness and drama in music. It’s got “film score” written all over it. It just opened a whole new door for what I thought was cool. I’ve never been somebody who will go to a concert and mosh, but this makes me feel like I could mosh and dance and close my eyes and lose myself. It’s got power. It’s got gravitas. The first track, “Genesis,” is the pièce de résistance.
Charli XCX: Charli (2019)
When this Charli album came out, my friend was playing it at a party, and everybody was dancing and having a good time. I didn’t think anything special of it, but then a year later, during the pandemic, for whatever reason, that song “Silver Cross” just popped into my head. I was like, “What is that song?” I went back and listened to the entire album, and was properly blown away by the production and how unique, but relatable, the whole thing was. Charli’s just sick. She’s a great pop star. She’s taken something and recycled it and made it her own.
The Strokes: Room on Fire (2003)
The Strokes capture this raw electric energy like no one else. It’s not clean; it’s grimy. It makes you feel like you’re a part of a brotherhood when you’re listening. You can’t help but just be like, “Wow, these guys are cool.” It was hard to choose a Strokes album, but with Room on Fire, there are just songs that feel like they’re mine, like “What Ever Happened?” or “Meet Me in the Bathroom.” It’s like an old baseball glove that you can go back to.
I got a chance to do a podcast with Albert Hammond Jr. and it was so hard to keep my shit together. The entire time I was completely starstruck.
Tim Maia: Tim Maia (1973)
We were doing some press in Rio, and there was somebody down there who put on [“Réu Confesso”] as we were driving, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, what is this?” Tim Maia is like the Frank Sinatra of Brazil. He’s very old world, and the thing is, he’s just writing really good songs. That’s what shines through. He’s not leaning on anything other than having a really unique and great voice, and writing really interesting songs that get stuck in your head. It’s as simple as that.
