“You are taking the person out of town, not town out the person.”
These lyrics, from Djo’s “Finish of Starting,” have by no means been more true as musician and actor Joe Keery prepares to return to the Windy Metropolis for a set at Lollapalooza.
Many followers will acknowledge Keery from the Netflix present “Stranger Issues,” wherein he stars as Steve Harrington, or from Season 5 of FX’s “Fargo” as Gator Tillman.
However for the higher a part of 2025, it’s been all about music for Keery. And since Chicago is the place he got here up as a musician, as guitarist and vocalist of the indie rock band Submit Animal, there’s no higher venue than Grant Park.
In a current interview, the Newburyport, Massachusetts, native mentioned he’s “excited” to get again to Chicago, the place he studied theater at DePaul College.
Moreover acting at Lollapalooza, he mentioned he has plans to meet up with previous mates and should even hit up Allende Restaurant, simply steps away from the Lincoln Park campus. And on the prime of his thoughts is a dip into Lake Michigan at Montrose Seaside.
“When it comes to a spot to be throughout summer time, Chicago is such a tremendous spot,” Keery mentioned.
Djo’s music soared in reputation final yr with “Finish of Starting.”
The final time the Solar-Occasions spoke with Keery, “Finish of Starting” was one of the vital in style sounds on TikTok. Although the music was launched in 2022, followers made edits utilizing the favored verse: “And after I’m again in Chicago, I really feel it.”
It’s a music about closing the chapter on his life in Chicago earlier than shifting to New York Metropolis.
The final time Keery was within the metropolis for his first Lollapalooza, he mentioned the second was “an actual blur.”
“Singing that music, particularly in Chicago, was an actual out-of-body expertise that I really feel like I went elsewhere for,” Keery mentioned final yr of singing “Finish of the Starting” at Lollapalooza in 2022.
Three albums later (together with Submit Animal’s “Iron,” which dropped Friday), Keery mentioned he appears like he and the band have “much more expertise.”
Enjoying festivals is all the time troublesome, Keery mentioned, as a result of attendees transfer from stage to stage, hoping to catch a little bit of every part.
However he’s desiring to “chill out slightly bit extra” this time round, absorbing the expertise for the “particular weekend.”
It’s the primary album Submit Animal has dropped since Keery left in 2019, and it contains vocals and instrumentation from all six unique members.
“We wrote the entire thing collectively,” Keery mentioned.
Submit Animal’s “Iron” is playful, collaborative and showcases the deep friendship amongst all six musicians. It blends the classics and explores genres like classic rock and folks music on the 10-track file.
Keery and Submit Animal can even kick off the One other Chunk Tour, with stops all throughout North America, together with Thalia Corridor in Pilsen, this fall. Djo is not going to be at that present.
The undertaking felt like a reunion, Keery mentioned, including they picked up proper the place they left off on the band’s 2018 album (the final one Keery labored on with the group), “After I Consider You in a Fort.” To file that album, all of them traveled to a pal’s lake home in Michigan.
This time, Keery and his bandmates equally packed up their issues and headed to Bloomington, Indiana, to work on “Iron” with music producers Charles Glanders and Dalton Allison.
“We simply needed to make music once more collectively,” he mentioned. “They usually have been completely satisfied sufficient to have me alongside. … It felt like much more than ever, the egos have been type of put apart, and all people was enjoying completely different devices. And it was essentially the most fluid I believe it ever felt.”
In April, Keery dropped his third solo studio album, “The Crux.” His first two albums have been recorded in his bed room after which throughout the pandemic, respectively, so by his third album, he needed to jot down and be within the studio as a lot as doable.
The third album focuses on themes of identification, disorientation and the rising pains that include beginning a brand new chapter in life. Keery’s vocals cowl a variety of types, however Djo’s synthy pop-rock sound stays the musician’s signature.
“The Crux” took about two years to return collectively, particularly between filming for his varied performing commitments. Along with his tv obligations, Keery was additionally within the 2023 Italian interval drama “Finalmente L’Alba,” which turned accessible for viewing within the U.S. on streaming platforms in July.
For now, Keery is specializing in his music however hasn’t dominated out returning to his theater roots.
“I’d love to try this,” he mentioned. “I spent all my time at DePaul doing theater, so it’d be nice to perhaps hop again into that. And it might be, I’m positive, extraordinarily terrifying after taking a fairly lengthy break from doing that, however that might be a pleasant method to type of shake issues up.”
And although Keery couldn’t dish out particulars of what occurs within the remaining season of “Stranger Issues,” he mentioned closing out this chapter of his life feels “bittersweet.”
“It’s all the time exhausting to say goodbye to issues,” he mentioned, noting that that is the tip of an period. “However the friendships and the work relationships that I really feel like I’ve made all through the method of doing this present usually are not one thing which might be going to go away.”
Netflix is about to drop the primary a part of the ultimate season of “Stranger Issues” on Nov. 26.
Djo will carry out at 6:40 p.m. Friday on the T-Cell Stage.
