Ahead of His New Album, Finn Wolfhard Goes Record Shopping With Vogue

On a gloomy May afternoon in New York, Finn Wolfhard is still in disbelief of having just attended his first Met Gala.

The 23-year-old actor and musician attended this year’s event as a guest of designer Thom Browne, wearing his deconstructed black wool and white silk faille jacket, and textural white wool trousers. “I had no clue what to expect,” says Wolfhard of the whirlwind experience. “I knew that [the Met Gala] was an iconic thing, so it was an honor to be asked. But it’s one of those events that’s sort of weird if you don’t know anyone—I was solo.”

It’s now 48 hours post-Met, and we’re at Williamsburg’s Human Head music shop; Wolfhard is record shopping with Vogue in a decidedly more dressed-down look. The star, known best for his breakout role as Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things, rolls in wearing his best chevron-printed fleece jacket and Toronto Blue Jays hat (Wolfhard is Canadian, after all), and the low-key outfit makes sense for the moment: Wolfhard is now an off-duty musician, no longer in superstar-actor mode, and he’s ready to rifle and chat about the release of his second album, Fire From The Hip, out tomorrow.

Since wrapping on Stranger Things back in 2024, making music has been Wolfhard’s focus. Last year, he released his debut album, Happy Birthday, and his follow-up record expands his sonic and thematic explorations as a solo artist—his current sound existing something in between the genres of indie-rock, pop, folk, and even country. “To me, this album was a bit of a playground, in the sense that I wanted to make what I wanted to make,” says Wolfhard. “It’s definitely an album to hang out to.”

If his music has a garage-band feel to it (it does!), that’s because it’s synonymous with his upbringing: Wolfhard has been playing instruments since he was young, having dabbled in bands Calpurnia and The Aubreys. But with his sophomore album, he says he has solidified his voice as an artist more than ever before. (In fact, he wrote most of Fire From The Hip before his first album even came out.) The new tracks reflect his personal experiences over the past year or so, many of them touching on various coming-of-age learnings that came at him fast. “A lot of it was saying goodbye to different parts of my life,” says Wolfhard. “It’s a time capsule of where I was.”

In his raw, guitar-driven song “Tunnels,” Wolfhard sings a poetic farewell to Atlanta, the city he lived while making much of the Stranger Things series, and a city that shaped him. “That song is about walking aimlessly through Atlanta, and being depressed about that chapter coming to an end,” says Wolfhard. His slightly-sweeter and upbeat song “Nice to Meet You Again,” is about recently relocating back to Canada. “It’s about me moving back home, and reintroducing myself to people that I've known my whole life,” says Wolfhard.

Wolfhard’s sound has also unfurled anew. Much of the record was produced with the live band that he toured with during his first tour, and it features an eclectic mix of everything from heavy guitars to fiddles (as heard on “Lights Go Down”) and synths. “I wanted to blend some of that lo-fi-ness of the first record, and make it a little more high-quality,” says Wolfhard. “But if you play them back to back, they’re sister albums.”

As we roam through the record shop, it’s clear that Wolfhard clearly knows his music references and history. We stop by the country section, where Wolfhard fans out over a few of his biggest influences. “I’ve been in a big outlaw country phase,” says Wolfhard. “There were these amazing anti-establishment country artists, like Johnny Paycheck. His big hit was ‘Take This Job and Shove It’—it kind of became an American anthem.”

In the rock section, Wolfhard is drawn to bands like Wilco and The Rolling Stones. “Beggars Banquet and Exile on Main St. are my two favorite Stones records,” he says. “I love that they have an insane amount of blues influence, because that’s how they started.” In the pop section, Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend catches his eye—”I met her at SNL, she was super nice!”—and, of course, ABBA’s Greatest Hits. A must-buy, he says: “ABBA is a big influence for me, just based on their euphoric production. Have you been to ABBA Voyage? [The London virtual concert] It’s super cool—but it’s also horrifying, because they’re holograms!”

Forgoing the modern-day holographic show model, the singer will keep things analogue to the road this summer. Kicking off on July 17 in Washington, Wolfhard and his band will be playing live shows—and the new album!—throughout the month, then picking the tour back up in October. “I’m definitely looking forward to it,” says Wolfhard. “Touring is a muscle that I need to exercise every time. It’s really fucking hard, because you’re traveling and not really sleeping. That’s been the most difficult part, balancing mental health, performing, and having to be on.”

Having done a tour last year, though, Wolfhard has found his hacks for making life on the road as normal as possible. He and his bandmates, for one, love to skateboard in whichever cities they stop in. “Me and my drummer Josh, a close friend of mine, bought skateboards on tour,” he says. “We’ll hop out of the van and whatever rest stop we’re at, and just cruise around.” Another source of joy while on tour? Vintage and record shopping—Vogue is glad to be along for the latter. “We found an amazing antique store in Wisconsin once,” says Wolfhard. “I found some weird plaid pants.”

His summer may be booked-and-busy with his gigs, but fans of Stranger Things can also expect to see Wolfhard on the big screen sometime soon: He isn’t hanging up his acting hat just yet. But for now, the star says he is prioritizing music, and seeking out acting roles that feel more substantial. “I’m in a very lucky position where I just finished this show, and now I can afford to not act for a living,” says Wolfhard. “I’m only interested in acting when I’m truly passionate about it—I’m not going to act just to act. It’s important to get out of your comfort zone, and I want to play characters that are so different from me.”

After listening to a few more records—Wolfhard puts on Wendy Carlos’s A Clockwork Orange score, and Hybrid’s True to Form—Wolfhard has to head out the door, as he’s going back home to Canada. When asked how he hopes people will respond to his own record, Wolfhard simply wants to bring people a moment of joy. “Honestly, I just really want people to be happy and feel good, and be able to get up and move and be entertained by it, and dance,” he says. “If it makes people dance, it’s the best possible thing.” We agree.