Djo, a musical project helmed by Stranger Things star Joe Keery, appeared on The Tonight Show to showcase his recent track “Basic Being Basic.” Appearing with a full band, Keery played the falsetto-tinged song, which takes aim at modern-day online posturing.
Keery dropped the single last week ahead of Djo’s forthcoming LP, The Crux, out April 4. The album was co-produced by Keery and his long-time collaborator Adam Thein at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. A press release describes the effort as “written all over the world in a particularly fertile period for Keery — where he was grappling with the transience of his other job, being untethered and away from his friends and family.”
Ahead of the performance, Keery sat down with host Jimmy Fallon to discuss the album and the final season of Stranger Things, which will premiere later this year.
“It was a long year,” the actor said of shooting the end of the series, which coincided with him making The Crux. “We shot for about a year, and it’s while I was working on all this stuff. But to wrap it all up and the anticipation of working on something for so long — I mean, it’s been one third of my life, really. So, yeah, it was emotional.”
He added, “We sort of got to that last day and it was like everything really hit on that last day of shooting. And then I stuck around and watched the other cast members wrap, and it was just emotional and great. And, you know, those people are family for life for me.”
Keery also discussed the album art, which he said is full of “Easter eggs,” and recording at Electric Lady. As for his upcoming tour and Coachella performance, Keery said “it’s going to be a dream-fulfillment moment.”
Djo will embark on the Back on You tour on April 4 in Portland. With his former band Post Animal as support, Djo will make stops in Vancouver, Salt Lake City, Detroit, Toronto, Boston, Brooklyn, and more.
“In a way, I feel like I kind of got dragged away from this group of friends and allowed myself to live in a different world for a while,” Keery told Rolling Stone in 2024 about leaving Post Animal to join the cast of Stranger Things. “But now where I’m at, I realized that group of people is one of the most important things in my life.”
