As he releases his first solo album Happy Birthday, actor and songwriter Finn Wolfhard talks Steven Loftin through the songs that inspired a lifelong love of music.
Finn Wolfhard's name has rarely stood alone.
Whether flanked by actors and friends in his star-making turn in Stranger Things, or the other blockbusting acting projects he's shone in, or even since embarking on a musical career in 2017 with his first musical outing, Calpurnia, collaboration and kinship has been key to his artistic path.
Following the release of their debut, Scout, in 2018, Calpurnia decided to take a pause in 2019. Wolfhard quickly followed this up with his next outfit, The Aubreys, with Calpurnia’s drummer Malcolm Craig. Throughout his musical story, it's always been Wolfhard and co. That is, until now.
With his debut solo record Happy Birthday, Wolfhard is striking out on his own, and he's relishing the opportunity. A collection of lo-fi but brightly packaged songs that mines his love of the jingle jangle, it’s both a homage of his influences, and a perfect amalgamation of his musical career to date.
He tells me that he actually had this collection of songs pencilled in for another unnamed project, but after discussing the direction of his next musical steps with his network of kindred spirits, he knew he had to break the cycle of collaboration and face a solo path head-on.
“I realised that I was a little bit gun-shy about doing something under my own name, because that's the most vulnerable way," Wolfhard explains. "If you're hiding behind a band name, then it might not be you if people don't like your music, but I thought, screw it." He was doubly interested in this endeavour, with the songs exploring the nature of vulnerability, detailing his growth and maturation as Finn Wolfhard the human, not Finn Wolfhard the Hollywood actor.
With this came its own set of pressures. Where his previous collaborations came with equal shoulders to carry the burden, Happy Birthday naturally carried a heftier expectation. “When you're by yourself, I feel like it's easier to get a little more self-critical," he explains.
"But I was lucky, because I ended up recording the album with a bunch of incredible musicians. It wasn't like I did this completely on my own, I was surrounded by really great people when we recorded it.”
With a blitz sprint of press for Happy Birthday, Wolfhard’s focus is on music and its endless possibilities. The musical side of Wolfhard contains extensive knowledge of music past and present.
He's a student of his craft who has carried his parents' musical taste and blossomed with it, forging his own paths and avenues, entrenched in embracing the tangible, analogue natures of bands gone by.
The throughline of his Nine Songs selections forms cuts from stringently individual artists, who did exactly what they wanted to regardless of the commercial strategy, and teens who also swept to global fame.
Wolfhard’s musical puzzle pieces paint a picture of a passionate, enthusiastic fan, who is in love with the art of storytelling and artistry. And it’s his tale to finally be told.
“1234” by Feist
FINN WOLFHARD: That came into my life when I was pretty young, I must have been like five or six when that song came out. I remember it was in an iPod commercial, I think it was introduced to a lot of people through that.
When I found out at that young age that she's Canadian, that was appealing, because growing up, obviously there's incredible Canadian music, and musicians like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, all these people, but at the time, when I was young, in my head, really famous musicians only existed in English rock and roll, like the British Invasion, or in America. And the fact that this came out and it was a Canadian artist, and this song was doing well – and it was super catchy – was cool.
I would say Feist is a huge inspiration for me. She knows how to write the most catchy hooks that get in your head forever, like they'll never leave, and that's something that I look for in a song. The thing that I look for is vocal melody, if you took all the music away, you could sing the lyrics, and it can be enough through the melody.
As a little kid, I would listen to that song and feel so happy, and now, when I listen to that song, I still feel really happy.
She knows how to make music that is super triumphant, and that put something in me from a young age, where I wanted to make stuff that not only was melodically sound but also something that moves people and makes them feel like they've won something. I don't know how else to describe it... whenever I listen to Feist, I feel like I've won something.
BEST FIT: Is it that timeless feeling, where it transports you back to when you're younger?
Yes, exactly, I love it for all those reasons.
Is that what you search for when writing your own songs?
Yes, absolutely, that's exclusively how I write songs or decide which ones are going to go on the album. It's like, ‘Do I get this feeling when I listen to it? Or can someone get this feeling when I listen to it?’ I'll usually know when I'm writing it. If that's not happening, then I don't end up carrying through with the song. For me, it's always about chasing a feeling through music.
“Bastards Of Young” by The Replacements
Paul Westerberg is one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
This is another one that I heard from a pretty young age. My parents loved The Replacements. I remember hearing "Bastards Of Young" in the movie Adventureland, and when I watched that movie for the first time, it really affected me. When the song first starts and he screams, I'll never get tired of that. It's such a powerful opening.
It's a youth anthem of that generation who grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s; post-Vietnam, Rust Belt kids who grew up in the Midwest. I feel like it's another time capsule; it captures a feeling of what it was like to be a young person in that time, and it translates even now when you listen to it. It's such a cool song, even production-wise – it's dirty, but it's also unbelievably catchy.
That's what I love and try to chase, something that's lo-fi, but also at the same time kind of hi-fi, trying to have this perfect marriage between shitty, dirty, recording techniques, and also dialling in some cleaner stuff. And to me, that's the sweet spot; that song is amazing.
It's like a call to arms, isn't it? Does that make you want to write your own one to rouse a rebellion?
Yes, I mean, no one could ever write another "Bastards of Young", but all these songs in some way have this feeling. I kind of touched on it with the Feist song, where it's a feeling of triumph, or a victory in some way, or that you're connecting with this thing for whatever reason, that a song is making you feel empowered.
This song makes me feel unbelievably empowered.
“Butterfly” by Twin Peaks
A friend showed this to me when I was 13 or 14, and this is the time when I was into more of the California punk/pop-rock scene, like Fidlar, The Frights and stuff like that. Then I saw the music video for "Butterfly" and that was the moment that my music taste matured a little more.
I could feel their influences through the music, and I ended up listening to so many more genres of music through listening to this song – it just opened up something in me. It completely blew my mind listening to it for the first time. I thought, ‘These are the coolest guys ever, literally, this is the best modern rock band in the world’, and I still believe that. In my top five, The Beatles are first, and Twin Peaks are second.
That's big acclaim.
They're amazing. Obviously, I can't compare their music. The Beatles are here [Wolfhard raises his arm in comparison], it's not like they're neck and neck, but personally, they opened up something in me. There's this real sense of adventure when you listen to it, it's music that makes you feel cool. It makes you feel like you are on stage with them, jamming out.
I remember seeing live videos of Clay [Frankel (vocals, guitar)] and Cadien [Lake James (vocals, guitar)], and I've been inspired by frontmen in the past, but Clay from Twin Peaks...I wouldn't be the performer I am on stage without him.
I was lucky enough, through my friend Joe Keery, to meet Cadien. Joe grew up in the Chicago scene that Twin Peaks grew up in, he was in the band Post Animal, and they and Twin Peaks played a bunch of shows together, so Joe introduced me to Cadien and got me his number, and he became a mentor figure.
He has ended up recording a bunch of my music, and he plays on this album, on the song "Objection", and co-produced that song. So lifelong friendships also came with the band and with Clay as well; he did the album cover. It's this full circle moment where I have my heroes, who are also my good friends, and that's why this song was very important for me.
“Bye Bye Basil” by Sharp Pins
I heard this in the summer of 2023, and this is also a perfect segue. I was visiting Chicago, seeing Caiden from Twin Peaks, and was staying with him. He said, ‘Hey, there's this band that just signed with Matador named Lifeguard, they're playing an in-store at Sugar Records, and they're your age, or a little younger.’ I think Kai [Slater, guitarist and vocalist] had just been out of high school.
So I went to see them, and they were so loud and impressive – it was amazing. Afterwards, I struck up a conversation with Asher [Case, bassist] and Kai, and then we had lunch together and hit it off. Kai and I kept in contact and kept talking, and he told me that he had a solo project called Sharp Pins. He was like, ‘I have these songs that are more inspired by the first two Beatles records.’
I ended up listening to his album, and this song specifically, I listened to it over and over and over and over and over again – I was obsessed with it. I realised I loved everything about it. I love the melody. Again, it’s the same thing, the triumphance of the song.
It opened this thing up in me, where I had all these songs that I had recorded that I didn't know what I was going to do with them, and I heard this record, and I went, ‘Oh, whatever this feeling is I'm getting from this album, I want to try to recreate that.’ Obviously, I don't want to bite Kai's thing in any way, but I know that it's activating something within me.
We were already friends and talking, and I just said, ‘Hey, man, do you want to record this album together?’ So I went to Chicago, and we recorded it all to four-track and eight-track cassette – which is how Kai records Sharp Pins. It has this lo-fi quality to it, but I also feel like the production and the songwriting complement each other.
“Pot Kettle Black” by Wilco
I am a gigantic Wilco fan. Jeff Tweedy is an amazing songwriter, and this was the song from that album that was the one that I listened to the most. I love absolutely everything about it.
What is it about Jeff Tweedy's songwriting that draws you in?
His lyrics are very wise and intelligent, but they're also funny and self-deprecating sometimes. I love it when you can feel the songwriter's personality through their songs. Jeff Tweedy is a really good example of someone who you can very clearly see their point of view and very clearly see or hear what they're trying to say through the song through beauty and comedy.
I love that album. I love how they experimented, and I love the story behind it. If anyone's never seen the documentary about making that album [I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco] it's so good and an inspiring story.
Does seeing a story like that help you as an artist realise your own potential?
Watching what that band has accomplished over the years, they've remained themselves, they've never sacrificed their style or songwriting technique for the industry. It shows you what a specific artist's identity can bring you.
They were dropped by their label, and they had no idea what was going to happen. There are a lot of people and a lot of artists who end up just saying, ‘You know, okay, fine. I'll conform’, and sometimes that can help them advance their career, but in the long run, it maybe wouldn't feel as right, because you're compromising your art.
This was the thing that hit big for them, and it shows that no one knows anything. With The Replacements, to me, not only was it their downfall, but it was also the thing that made them, which was that they didn't want to play the game; they didn't want to compromise what they wanted to do.
They didn't do the R.E.M. thing - they're amazing, but it's one of those things where they didn't want to be R.E.M. They didn't want to be like any of these bands. They wanted to be The Replacements. They wanted to be individuals. That's why I respect Wilco so much.
“Thirteen” by Big Star
Another band that never compromised. Alex Chilton is also one of the most amazing songwriters... everyone in that band is unbelievable.
Again, I love these people and albums where you can feel their personality through it, like through Big Star and Alex Chilton. I don't know how to describe it, where I feel like they're saying to lame people, like, ‘No, I'm not making a [Chilton's first chart-topping group] Box Top's song, I'm not making "The Letter" again and fuck you – I'm making the song that I want to make.’
To me, that's what makes music the best, when you have an authentic perspective from a songwriter. Even though The Replacements and Big Star are both examples of artists that were pretty self-destructive, to me, their self-destruction came from a place of protectiveness. If they didn't have that self-destruction, then they probably wouldn't have written the songs that they wrote, because it made them make better music.
Not that I believe that you need to be messed up to write great music. I don't mean that in any way. I mean, when you go back to the history of the Replacements or Big Star, and you look at these opportunities they blew up for themselves, they wouldn't have written the songs that they would have written if they compromised.
That's when I think about music and the way that the industry has always had an exploitative quality to it... I wouldn't say exploitative, but it's the classic commerce versus art thing, where you have these people who are unbelievable songwriters, but the whole reason why they started writing songs was that they didn't want to do the nine-to-five, normal life things.
You show up to this place on time, you have this responsibility, and then you start writing these songs, and you are rewarded for these songs. But at the same time you're compromising, and the whole reason you got into music was that so you didn't have to do these things.
It's this vicious circle where you could be the best songwriter in the world, but it doesn't mean that you can handle being super famous, or you can handle playing a show every night, or you can handle being on MTV, and I think Big Star is a great example of a band that did what they wanted to do.
“In Spite Of All The Danger” by The Quarrymen
I'm very interested to hear the reasoning behind this hidden gem.
I love this song because it's a piece of history. You're hearing The Beatles as kids, as teenagers, and because they're shrouded in such a legend, you forget that they were once kids. Growing up, they weren't the most famous band of all time and weren't insanely rich and absolute legends.
There's something so fun and great about this song. They were more of a skiffle group, they loved Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and I think it's a little inspired by that. But you can hear the beginnings of how amazing they were going to be, and it reminds you that these people started somewhere.
It exposes that raw talent that just existed.
I also love that it's this really crappy recording from some random reel-to-reel that they did. There's just something about it that's so charming and great.
“It’s A Wonderful Life” by Sparklehorse
My friend showed this album to me years ago. It's so beautiful, and Sparklehorse were genius. I love this album obviously for its songwriting, but I also love its production. Specifically with this song, it feels sad, but also comforting in a way.
Mark Linkous was a brilliant songwriter who, because of the way that he passed away, I think people look at all of his music and think that it's morbid or super-duper sad.
That's a thing with Elliot Smith as well. People who have ended their own lives, people look back at their music and look at it through that lens. I think there are hilarious, happy moments in this album – and weird, fun production that's not just a bummer – it's beautiful.
This one's slower, but I don't think that it's a sad song; what he's saying is happy, and the lyrics are funny. I love it when songs have a sad instrumental but then have happy lyrics.
It's always a shame when things get re-contextualised after something external happens to the music. It deviates from the initial artistic intention.
I agree. That is the worst thing, when you just want your music to speak for itself, not the problems that you had in your personal life or whatever.
“What You Do to Me” by Teenage Fanclub
“What You Do To Me" is amazing. I love Teenage Fanclub. They're another band that has made unbelievable music over the years, and pretty continuously. I still think that they make great music. I love them.
What drew you to this song in particular?
When a song can say the same thing over and over and over again, with no bridge or no anything, and it rocks the whole time and it's in your head afterwards, that's when you know you're a talented, amazing songwriter.
It circles back to Feist, "1,2,3,4" and the timeless impact.
Totally!
Happy Birthday is released 6 June via AWAL and is available to pre-order now.
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