“It was a crazy situation – this song that I wrote was being linked to the head of the Catholic church!” Joe Keery sounds incredulous as he recalls his latest viral moment. The track in question was End of Beginning, the wistful indie anthem from his 2022 album Decide. It first became an online hit last year, taking on a new life soundtracking TikTok users’ videos of their home towns. As it happens, the home town – or university town, in Keery’s case – that he sings about in the song is Chicago. Fast forward to this May, when Illinois native Robert Francis Prevost was elected as the new pope. The song began to do the rounds all over, with fans overlaying the lyrics (“And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it!”) over videos of the new pontiff.
It was just the latest surreal chapter in the 33-year-old’s career, which has seen him juggle musical success with acting megastardom, thanks to his breakout role as villainous jock, and later beloved fan favourite, Steve Harrington in Netflix’s retro sci-fi smash Stranger Things. Performing under the name Djo, he has released two albums of hazy psychedelic rock and angular electro respectively, plus that aforementioned, absolutely inescapable viral hit, which peaked at No 4 in the UK charts. He’s now on tour in support of recent third album The Crux, aptly named as he reaches the end of a nine-year stint in Stranger Things, whose extremely long-awaited final season will be released on 26 November.
