While his performance as Steve Harrington turned him into an instantly recognisable face around the world, his musical output has steadily grown from a side-project curiosity into a fully formed artistic statement, winning praise for its warmth, introspection and immersive ’70s-inspired production.
Now, as his single “End of Beginning” enjoys a second life and a new official re-release, The Lunchbox wirh Stephen Steps Lowe on RTL Today Radio has landed something rare: Keery himself offering an exclusive look into the song’s meaning and why it continues to resonate globally.
This is different from Stranger Things because I wrote it — it feels personal in a way acting never can
Initillay finding a large audience on social media, with creators using the song in reels and edits, the track captures that universal pivot point where nostalgia rests at your feet, but adulthood demands your attention.
Despite the dreamy synth haze and spacious guitar lines, there’s a grounded simplicity in the message: live now, not only in the glow of what was.
The song first emerged when Keery was 23, still waiting tables, making music with friends and imagining, not yet living, a creative life, a time before Steve, Dustin and warding off Vecna. He tells us it was written during a period of camaraderie and restless optimism, “a time when I really felt like I found my group of people.” Those friendships, he notes, still anchor him today.
I thought the experience I wrote about was niche, but a lot of people feel this way about a place in their life.
The renewed success of the track, millions of new streams, TikTok edits, fan covers and chart climbs that were higher even than the WSQK Tower, signals a moment where the fandom around Keery the musician is no longer secondary to the actor. Huge tours across the UK and Europe indicate that DJO is standing firmly on its own artistic feet.
Keery is clrearly grateful for the listeners finding themselves in his work and that this reach has occured with no big promotional push or in your face marketing campaigns. Though you could reasonably argue that his initial platform was considerably larger than most ‘new’ music acts.
The song may have been born in a small apartment years ago, but today it belongs to audiences from Chicago to Luxembourg. And for an artist who straddles two worlds (three if you count the Upside Down), the global franchise star and the introspective songwriter, “End of Beginning” represents something rare: a piece of music that’s both entirely his and no longer his at all.
With thanks to Sony Belgium and Atlantic.
