Djo Isn’t Impressed by Illusions on New Single ‘Basic Being Basic’ From Upcoming Album ‘The Crux’

Joe Keery isn’t falling for the illusion of money, fame, or extended screen time on “Basic Being Basic,” his hot-tempered new single as Djo. The record will appear on the forthcoming album The Crux, his third under the moniker, scheduled for release on April 4.

“It’s kind of a shot fired to anyone who’s trying to be of the moment,” Keery said of the song, which opens with a sound reminiscent of arcade aliens being annihilated in Space Invaders. What follows is an obliteration of its own. “I think you’re scared of being basic,” he sings. “That’s ironic, because it’s reading like you’re even more basic/It’s not funny, it’s so funny.” The takedown continues as he highlights his target audience’s “understated nothingness” and attracting to numbers on a screen rather than something real and tangible.

Djo will lean into the kind of real-life connections he’s seeing on “Basic Being Basic” when he heads out on the international Back on You tour later this year. The North America leg will begin in Portland on April 4, coinciding with the album release. 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,” he 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.”

The Crux marks the first full-length LP from Djo since 2022’s Decide, which included the viral single “End of Beginning.” “I’ve been so lucky to be on Stranger Things. That’s obviously touched a lot of people. But I wasn’t involved in the writing process, so to have something I actually wrote do that is a really unique experience,” he said about the song being embraced on TikTok before it was even released as a single.
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The new album was produced by Keery and Adam Thein, who also assisted on Decide.

The Crux Track List
“Lonesome Is A State of Mind”
“Basic Being Basic”
“Link”
“Potion”
“Delete Ya”
“Egg”
“Fly”
“Charlie’s Garden”
“Gap Tooth Smile”
“Golden Line”
“Back On You”
“Crux”

Djo 2025 Back On You North American Tour Dates
April 4 — Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
April 5 — Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
April 7 — Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
April 8 — Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
April 10 — Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
April 11 — Indio, CA @ Coachella
April 18 — Indio, CA @ Coachella
April 19 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
April 21 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Rockwell at the Complex
April 23 — Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
April 25 — Madison, WI @ The Sylvee
April 26 — Saint Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
April 28 — Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
April 29 — Toronto, ON @ History
May 1 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
May 2 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
May 3 — Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall
May 5 — Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
May 6 — Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel