With the final season of the Netflix show upon us, our inescapable intrigue into what the cast get up to outside of their busy acting schedules comes to natural fruition. Don’t worry, Millie Bobby Brown’s viral singing video isn’t anywhere to be seen.

The final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things is finally upon us, which means I can delve into a subject I love: actors who just so happen to be musicians.

First off, yes, it did take me a good six years to finally get around to watching Stranger Things and, yes, I had to look away for a handful of scenes because I am, in fact, a scaredy-cat. This season, now that I’m in my late twenties, I’m never looking away from the screen. I’ve changed. Phew.

As I’m sure many will understand, once you binge-watch a new (to you, at least) TV show and it just happens to have a huge following, you find yourself watching interviews, behind the scenes and falling down a rabbit hole that leads you to discover that the dude who plays Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) has a whole baby. Like, a child.

Naturally, as somebody passionate about championing and discovering new music, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that a few of the cast were musicians as well as talented actors. From donning wigs to collaborating with famous fathers, this cast has it all.

Finn Wolfhard (aka Mike Wheeler)

Yes, everyone knows that the actor who plays Mike is a musician. No thanks to his popularity or that he has close links to bands like Weezer (he was in their music video for that cover of Take On Me) and has even performed with Mac DeMarco.

It was next to impossible not to have heard of Calpurnia in 2018. If you scrolled for a few minutes on any app, you were sure to come across a plethora of teenagers sharing videos of the band. I first watched Stranger Things in the summer of 2021, and yet I had already been inundated with random information about the young actor without so much as watching a second of him on screen. If you’re in a TV show this huge, it’s to be expected.

Creating the band a year into his newfound fame as Nancy Wheeler’s (Natalia Dyer) adventurous younger brother, their first offering was a cover of Wanted You by Twin Peaks (which, btw, is one of my favourite songs, so no biggie). Interestingly, they roped in Cadien James, a member of the aforementioned Twin Peaks, to produce and engineer their debut EP Scout. Cool, right? That’s one way to do it, I guess.

Amongst the songs they released during their time together, they covered numerous edgy white boy classics: from Mac DeMarco’s My Kind of Woman to Pixies’ Where Is My Mind?. But, despite going on tour together and being signed to Transgressive (Foals, Hippo Campus, Alvvays), the band decided they wanted to go on and do different things, so they naturally announced their split in 2019, when Finn was only seventeen.

Although that isn’t quite it for Finn’s music career, as he joined forces with fellow Calpurnia member, drummer Malcolm Craig, to form the indie-pop duo The Aubreys.

On Valentines Day of 2021, the duo released Sand in My Bed, a testament to youth and a strikingly unforgiving song with boisterous vocals from the energetic frontman. It’s a delightful surprise, I won’t lie. I hadn’t expected much — not in a bad way, just because being popular doesn’t equate to making good music. It’s even earned itself a spot on my Spotify likes.

If you’re into Mac DeMarco (or you were at the time he was the cool thing to be into), then you’ll certainly gel with The Aubreys’ distinctive sound.

In 2021, the duo dropped their debut album, Karaoke Alone, and, since then, released two singles in 2023 — Kato and Running — before going silent, presumably pressing pause on this project for the time being.

That’s not all for the 23-year-old. After years of focusing on acting — namely Saturday Night, Pinocchio and Hell of a Summer — he announced his solo career in March of this year with debut single Choose the latter. Wasting no time, in June he dropped his first full-length solo venture, Happy Birthday, and hopped over to the UK to play a headline tour in October.

Finn has credited castmate Joe Keery (aka Steve Harrington) and his musical project Djo as being a big inspiration for his own music career.

Aside from music, Finn has just dipped his toes into directing, taking the post for the late George Harrison’s Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth). On the new music video, Wolfhard said, “To work with the Harrison family and bring this video to life with a team of incredible young Canadian artists has been a great honor. It’s hard to put into words how grateful I am for this opportunity. George Harrison has and will continue to be a huge inspiration to me, and his work will live on forever.”

2. Gaten Matarazzo (aka Dustin Henderson)

Shortly after the release of Calpurnia’s debut, Gaten’s band Work in Progress (consisting of a real family affair) shared their debut tracks Dream Eater and Waste My Time. Although they haven’t released music since then, the promise of a debut EP seems alien, and the band haven’t made a peep since 2019.

Notably, Gaten is a trained singer, with experience on Broadway in productions such as Les Misérables and Sweeney Todd.

In Season 3 of Stranger Things, Gaten famously performed Never Ending Story alongside castmate Gabriella Pizzolo.

Gaten’s upcoming projects include Animal Farm as the voice of Lucky and The Untitled BriTANicK Pizza Movie.

3. Caleb McLaughlin (aka Lucas Sinclair)

Teasing music in 2021 and releasing Neighborhood in November of that year, Caleb is one of the last of his castmates to branch out into music. The late start means that his second single, Soul Travel, was released in early 2022.

Since then, the actor hasn’t teased any new music, but with Stranger Things coming to an end, maybe we’ll be seeing more of the musician-side.

Caleb’s upcoming projects include the animated film GOAT and the Audible podcast thriller Sacrilege: Curse of the Mbirwi.

4. Charlie Heaton (aka Jonathan Byers)

If you’re a fan of Stranger Things or know anything about Charlie Heaton, then you may know that — at sixteen — he moved from Leeds to London with the goal of pursuing a career in music. He joined noise-rock band Comanechi as their drummer and played alongside them for over a year, including a world tour.

On Instagram, he briefly mentioned he had previously played in Half Loon, a psychedelic-rock band, but now tends to stick to jamming sessions. Whether that’s solo or with a band, we’re excited to see if he decides to get back to playing shows in between filming.

He’s mostly known in the music-verse for being a drummer, and has lent his talents to bands like Comedown and Luxury Apartments. In 2025, he hopped on co-star Joe Keery’s tracks Gap Tooth Smile and Charlie’s Garden, with the latter a spoken word contribution in the form of a voicemail.

Interestingly, his sister, Levi Heaton, is a fellow musician and actor, and is currently part of Self Esteem’s live band.

And yes, I am still in shock that Jonathan Byers is played by a Northern man.

5. Maya Hawke (aka Robin Buckley)

The daughter of iconic actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, Maya is taking the route of actor-cum-musician, while leaving her famous father to be the author of the family, and her younger brother, Levon, to follow her path as an actor.

Initially struggling during her earlier years at school due to being dyslexic, Maya was sent to a school that didn’t grade but focussed on creative subjects instead (sounds like a dream). From there, she decided to follow in her parents’ footsteps and dip her toes in the pool of acting.

Two years after accepting her first role in the BBC adaptation of Little Women, she shared two songs: To Love a Boy and Stay Open. In March of 2020, she announced her debut album, Blush, with the lead track By Myself, and a music video directed by her father.

Since the release of her debut album, Maya has shared second album, MOSS (2022), and third album, Chaos Angel, in 2024, with hits Big Idea and Missing Out on the tracklisting. Her last release was the Clipped Wings EP in October of 2024. There’s no surprise she hasn’t released anything in 2025, considering the two-year gap between releases, and her roles in Inside Out 2, Asteroid City, The Kill Room and the upcoming The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, due for release on 20th November 2026.

Maya states folk music and Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, and Joni Mitchell as her inspirations.

6. Joe Keery (aka Steve Harrington)

Joe has an unfair advantage: similar to Charlie, he’s got a few years on his castmates and has therefore been making noise for longer.

He started releasing music under the pseudonym Cool Cool Cool before playing the guitar in psychedelic-rock band Post Animal. Although he lent his vocals to their second album a year after he left to focus on a solo career, and his new role in Stranger Things, which forced him to relocate to Atlanta, Georgia, away from Chicago and the band.

After leaving, he self-released his debut single, Roddy, under new pseudonym Djo, graduating to a psych-pop sound. That same year (2019), he released his debut album — the same album he’d written while working at a restaurant before securing the coveted role of Steve Harrington in 2015.

Since the release of his debut album, Joe Keery has seriously left his mark on the music industry, with his third album, The Crux, receiving critical acclaim and making it onto our top 10 albums of 2025. In 2023, Djo achieved virality on TikTok and other social media with his single End of Beginning, catapulting him to the next level and further proving himself as the talented musician he is.

With a headline tour under his belt and a deluxe version of The Crux released in September with twelve new songs, it can only get better as we move into the New Year.

6. Jamie Campbell Bower (aka Henry Creel / One / Vecna)

*Photo: Jamie Campbell Bower in Season 5 of Stranger Things (Credit: Netflix)*

For those of you not there to witness Jamie Campbell Bower’s iconic role as Jace Wayland in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, you may recognise Jamie from roles in Sweeney Todd, The Twilight Saga and Harry Potter. The British actor was one of the last to join the cast, with his first appearance in Season 4 gaining him critical acclaim. JCB makes covering essentially what is three roles in one huge TV show look like child’s play.

Growing up with a mother who worked as a music manager and a father who worked for the Gibson Guitar Corporation, it’s no surprise that Jamie decided to learn violin as a child and take a path into music, but he turned his head to rock music as he grew older. Jamie started as the drummer for a band called William K, then became the lead singer of The Darling Buds (they dissolved in 2015), before becoming the frontman and singer of COUNTERFEIT., who would go on to release their debut album in 2017 and tour the USA.

Announcing their split through Instagram in 2020, Jamie decided to go it solo and released his first single after the band parted ways. Although known for his work in rock music, Jamie spoke to vulture about his preference for writing country songs because of their structure. He told them, “As far back as I can remember, whenever I picked up a microphone, it was harder for me to sing wholly in a British accent than to just wail away and drop my T’s or bend notes so it almost sounds American”.

In 2024, Jamie wiped his Instagram of all posts and announced the formation of BloodMagic, a new band featuring drummer Kyle Adams. They released their first track, Death / Rebirth, in April of 2024, but, since then, have been radio silent.

No matter what he seems to do, or how busy he is, it always seems to come back to music. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll collaborate with one of his Stranger Things co-stars and take a step into a whole new sound.

The cast of Stranger Things are unsurprisingly talented musicians

With the final season of the Netflix show upon us, our inescapable intrigue into what the cast get up to outside of their busy acting schedules comes to natural fruition. Don’t worry, Millie Bobby Brown’s viral singing video isn’t anywhere to be seen.

Finn Wolfhard (aka Mike Wheeler)