(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Joe Keery is famous. He plays Steve Harrington, the jock with amazing hair and a good heart on Netflix's "Stranger Things." But he's also an average Djo. Just be sure to spell that D-J-O.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASIC BEING BASIC")
JOE KEERY: (Singing) How'd it feel to take the light from my life?
SIMON: Performing as Djo, Joe Keery is just out with his second album "The Crux" - a collage of songs he came up with when not in front of the camera.
KEERY: I had a lot of downtime, and I didn't honestly have too much of a social life. So I made it a point to kind of every day try to write anything.
SIMON: Joe Keery's music is playful. There are observations from daily life, a tribute to friend and "Stranger Things" co-star Charlie Heaton. And in the song, "Basic Being Basic" there's even a riff on Gen Z slang like cheugy-phobe.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASIC BEING BASIC")
KEERY: (Singing) You're so funny. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Change your body. Change your face. Curl your hair then make it straight. Take a picture of your plate. Tarantino movie taste. Rah-rah, cheugy-phobe. Vera Bradley's back in vogue. It's a flash photograph. What an empty epitaph that is. That's basic.
SIMON: Can I, like, follow up on a couple of things just as a journalist?
KEERY: Sure, yeah.
SIMON: What's cheugy-phobe?
KEERY: Well, cheugy is, like - I guess it's a term, technically, that we've coined. People think about those live, laugh, love posters that people have in their house or...
SIMON: I don't have a live, laugh, love poster. But all right, go ahead. Yeah.
KEERY: To me, that is just people who are afraid of people who are not cool.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASIC BEING BASIC")
KEERY: (Singing) Being basic.
Somebody who is a cheugy-phobe is somebody who's, you know, afraid of somebody who's not cool is actually sort of the least cool thing you can be. Better to be really openly uncool.
SIMON: Oh. All right, that makes me feel better. We don't have a live, love, laugh poster, but we do have a poster for pumpkin spice latte.
KEERY: That might make you a little bit cheugy, I guess.
SIMON: Ah. All right. Thank you.
KEERY: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASIC BEING BASIC")
KEERY: (Singing) That's funny. I'm not funny.
SIMON: This dual life you lead, in a sense, as a musician, but also, of course, an acting career that's really taken off with "Stranger Things."
KEERY: I feel very lucky, obviously, to be able to do just one thing that is a dream of mine. So now to be able to kind of do this second thing - you know, the acting stuff is my job job. And for a while, this music was just something that was for me and really something I would do in between days of shooting when I was in Atlanta filming "Stranger Things" - kind of has, like, a little bit snowballed now into being its own career. It'll be interesting to see in the future how to juggle it. So far, they've just worked really well off each other.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LONESOME IS A STATE OF MIND")
KEERY: (Singing) It's one on one. Two for life. Thought that you were on my side. Lonesome is a state of mind.
SIMON: "Lonesome Is A State Of Mind," that's a really beautiful song.
KEERY: (Singing) I swear I've had this dinner before. I know I've heard that song. My future's not what I thought. I think I thought it wrong.
SIMON: What do we read into your line, my future's not what I thought, I think I thought it wrong?
KEERY: I guess, like, I personally spend so much time thinking of different eventualities and things that could happen and planning out different scenarios and just dreaming and thinking about the future. And I guess that's just a reflection on how much wasted time there is doing that, because there's no way you could predict it, and what you think is never the thing that happens. So trying to live in the moment might be the best antidote for that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LONESOME IS A STATE OF MIND")
KEERY: ...(Singing) State of mind. No, you're not lonely when you're hanging with yourself. Let's do - let's listen back on you and I'll just stand here.
SIMON: "Charlie's Garden." Refer to Charlie Heaton, your co-star?
KEERY: That is. Yeah. In Atlanta, I was Charlie's neighbor this year, and he's got a little house down there. He's got a beautiful backyard and built this amazing structure that he does pottery in, and he does music in there. He's got like a - this little wood-burning tub. We played ping pong back there, so he's got this whole setup. You know, the song is, I guess, like an homage to my time down there and my time behind the scenes on that show and what, like, my life was kind of like, and it's cool to have, like, a little tribute to my buddy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHARLIE'S GARDEN")
KEERY: (Singing) One more day in Charlie's garden. Oh, one more day.
SIMON: Do we hear a kind of musical quotation from "Octopus's Garden" in this song?
KEERY: Yes, certainly. I'm a massive fan. The arrangement and the instrumentation and the musicality and the whimsy of a lot of their music is really interesting to me and kind of lacking in modern music. I really like things that don't take themselves too seriously, so hard to shake that influence, for sure.
SIMON: Real voicemail at the end of the song?
KEERY: Not a real voicemail. I wrote it down there at his house. And then we happened to be in New York at the same time, and I said, you have to - we got to get you on this somehow. You have to be on the song. So he came in.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHARLIE'S GARDEN")
KEERY: (Singing) Charlie's garden. Heart the paws scratch the back of the door. The sun is out.
CHARLIE HEATON: Hey, Djo, would you mind calling me back? Unfortunately, we're going to need you. If you could just let us know if you're coming in. Yeah, sorry. It was a bit of a mix-up.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIAL TONE)
SIMON: Do you ever think you're going to have to choose between acting and music?
KEERY: I really hope not. A lot of people have been asking me this question. I don't know. It's not lost on me that it's a difficult bridge to jump. But I guess I just can't contain my curiosity for both of these things, and they really serve each other. And I'll do my best work, I know, if I'm interested in it.
SIMON: Well, you get to choose in the end, don't you?
KEERY: Yeah, it's true. It is true. It'll be interesting to see what happens next. I have no idea.
SIMON: Joe Keery, who performs as Djo. His new album, "The Crux, " out now. Thanks so much for being with us.
KEERY: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POTION")
KEERY: (Singing) I'll try for all of my life just to find someone who leaves on the light for me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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