You can’t argue with Finn Wolfhard’s star appeal. The guy’s got charisma coming out of the wazoo. It turns outs he’s also got one of the coolest record collections in Hollywood. During a recent interview, the young star delved into his record collection, opening up about some of the tracks that got him into music.
When Stranger Things burst onto our screen in the summer of 2016, it was immediately apparent that Finn Wolfhard was the show’s breakout star. The internet’s (occasionally sinister) adoration of the now 19-year-old actor hasn’t let up in six years, and it shows every sign of continuing, especially with a new season of the show currently wowing audiences all over the world.
By the age of 14, Wolfhard had already starred in a trio of videos for Canadian punk outfit PUP. Around the time Wolhard made it big, fellow Canadian Mac Demarco was galvanising indie kids by the bucketload. Wolfhard never missed an opportunity to express his love for the singer-songwriter. As hubbub around the actor’s oddly mature music taste reached its peak, news emerged that Wolfhard was fronting his own group, Calpurnia. The group released their debut single, ‘City Boy,’ in the spring of 2018 and announced their debut EP a month later. Calpurnia decided to part ways in 2019, but Wolfhard continues to make music with his new outfit, The Aubreys, who released their debut LP, Karaoke Alone in 2021.
When asked if there were any specific songs or artists that inspired him to become a musician himself, Wolfhard immediately answered:” ‘Help’ by The Beatles” Released alongside the film of the same name, this 1965 single is the most lyrically dense song of The Beatles career. Despite boasting a runtime of only two minutes and 18 seconds, Lennon and company manage to squeeze 267 words into the track. Ironically, it’s only one of two tracks named using a single word, the other being ‘Yesterday’.
Lennon would later reveal that this song was actually a very real call for help. Talking to David Sheff in 1980, he said: “When ‘Help!’ came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it’s just a fast rock ‘n’ roll song. I didn’t realise it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. So it was my fat Elvis period. You see the movie: he – I – is very fat, very insecure, and he’s completely lost himself. And I am singing about when I was so much younger and all the rest, looking back at how easy it was.
In picking this Beatles classic, Wolfhard unwittingly made himself popular among one of the most zealous, loyal and obsessive fanbases on the planet: Beatles fans. Still, it could be worse. He could have said he liked Tool.
