Joe Keery Says Taylor Swift Gave Her Early Stamp of Approval for His Song, “End of Beginning”

Joe Keery got a key, early endorsement from Taylor Swift for his hit song, “End of Beginning.”

During an appearance on The Spout Podcast, the actor-musician shared an anecdote from the day he and Swift were both spotted at the Electric Lady recording studio in New York City. The Tortured Poets Department singer-songwriter told the Stranger Things star she “really liked the track.”

“I just happened to be there the day that she was there. And she’s really nice. I mean, I’ve met her a couple of times. Before anything happened with this track, she said, ‘Hey, I really love that track of yours, ‘End Of Beginning,’” Keery said on the podcast. “She just said that she had heard the song and, you know, obviously I’m like, ‘What? You heard that song? How the hell did you hear that song?’”

He continued, “But she’s like a music lover, really. And she’s also so hip to new music and things that are coming out. And so, I guess it’s not shocking to me because she’s like a big fan of music and just digs around and finds stuff. So, somehow it came across her desk, and she listened to it and then said that she liked it. Really, really nice of her.”

Aside from his musical endeavors, Keery is deep in Hawkins, Indiana, filming the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, where he portrays the lovable Steve Harrington. The cast of the hit Netflix series has been on set since January and still has at least a few months of production ahead of them.

While the Free Guy actor couldn’t say much about the upcoming season, he did promise fans “insanity” that will “scratch the itch.” For the time being, Keerty said his spirits are high.

“It doesn’t necessarily feel like the impending end every day or anything like that. I’m sure once we get a little further along, the reality will kind of like, sort of sink in, but for right now, business as usual,” he said. “We’re just plunking away and trying to serve these scripts that these guys have written and do our best job because once again they’ve like come through in a cool way and written some unbelievable stuff, so just trying to do the material justice.”

Stranger Things season five will pick up sometime after the events of the fourth season, which — spoiler alert! — saw big bad Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) succeed in splitting Hawkins into four pieces, as the group looks down at their home as the villain’s final chapter begins.

However, how long after season four the final installment picks up is unknown — Ross Duffer told TVLine in June 2022 that he was sure they would be doing a time jump.

“Ideally, we’d have shot [seasons four and five] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that,” he said. “So these are all discussions we’re going to have with our writers when we start the room up.”