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.
Photo: Lauren Cassot
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.”
