Yes, Joe Keery is sick of talking about his hair
Thrust into fame in his early twenties, thanks to his dopey grin, floppy hair, and crush-worthy charisma on Stranger Things, Keery has now adopted the stage name of “Djo” for his music career.https://t.co/4BrnLQKsei
- The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) August 15, 2022
- He's definitely sick of talking about his hair and how it feels like his persona has been reduced to that despite his work: “It’s really ridiculous. It’s not something I have control over,” he says, shouting out his Stranger Things stylist. “It’s just internet fodder that’s carried over and is now attached to me. I can’t really knock it. I have a career, so I have to be like, “Who cares? I’ll take it.” But it’s also not something I care about at all. Still, people seem to really care about it and fixate on it, for whatever reason. It’s so stupid, honestly.”
- Currently his idols are Stanley Tucci and Charlie XCX. He loves Stanley's book which combined recipes and autobiography. Thinks it's unique and loves when people are able to blend and bend genres and do it well: "Then, there’s Tucci’s new memoir, Taste, a mix of recipes and autobiography, which has brought Keery to the idea of a cookbook-album concoction-as in maybe one day, somehow, creating a project that blends recipes and his music.“Well, not a cookbook,” Keery says. “How can you blend genres? What he does there, in a really great way, is: How do you blend a cookbook and a story about your life? Nobody’s done that in the same way, not that I have read.”
- Is itching to direct. Says he'd love to make films in the vein of things like Nightcrawler and Big Night.
- Lots of references and influences from pop culture on his new album. Stranger Things is not one of them. He mentions the aesthetic from severance being a big one, which you can see in his promo material for this album, as well as these weird viral billboards, which you can clearly see in the promo materials.
- "Djo" is his way of separating himself from the general public's characterization of him. Says his music is coming directly from him, his life and experiences. Not his character's: “It’s not like I’m singing all of this music from the perspective of a character. It’s all me,” Keery says. “It was just a way to disassociate from myself. I feel like, with the show, I’m kind of a character, because of the internet. I didn’t want that character to affect people when they’re listening to the music-so releasing it with its own character is a way to give it its own space.”
- More on how while acting and music are two different projects for him although they do feed off each other: “You do the acting stuff and you’re a small piece of a large puzzle. You get to release some control,” he says. “While that bar is being depleted, the music bar is filling up on the other side. It’s like, ‘Okay, I want to do this now, have full control and take this into my own hands and see it through all the way, and figure it out.’ So they do feed off each other.”
- Says it's difficult playing someone 10 years younger than he actually is. Conflicting feelings of missing that time in his life and moving on from it are a big theme on the new album: “It’s sad to me in a lot of ways, looking back at things that have passed and realizing they’ll never come back,” he says. “It took me a long time, especially thinking about Chicago, to be like, ‘Man, it was amazing being a part of that crew and community. It’s not going to be the same.’ It’s a sad realization. But it’s also the way that life works, and it’s a beautiful thing too.”