Stranger Things’ fifth and final season is just hours away from landing on our screens, here’s a breakdown of the cast’s creative lives beyond the hit show.
10:59, 26 Nov 2025
Stranger Things wowed sci-fi fans upon its Netflix debut in 2016, but its cast has more than stellar acting under their sleeves.
The beloved series is set to return for its fifth season tomorrow (November 27), with four fresh episodes.
However, viewers will have to wait until Boxing Day (December 26) for the second part of the final season, which consists of three more episodes. The finale will then drop on January 1, 2026.
Kicking off in autumn 1987, the forthcoming episodes follow the team as they try to track down season four villain Vecna.
“Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna,” the official synopsis teases.
As fans prepare to return to Hawkins, here’s a breakdown of the cast’s music careers.
Joe Keery as Steve Harrington
Joe Keery rocked the internet with his hit song End of Beginning(Image: Getty Images)
Joe Keery’s character started season one as a no-good jock but progressed into a beloved member of the main ensemble and an overwhelming fan-favourite.
But Keery has won viewers over with more than his on-screen performance. In early 2024, his hit song End of Beginning went viral on TikTok, propelling him into the UK charts for the first time.
It was tied to a trend which amassed over 2 million videos of users sharing travel videos, underscored by the song’s lyrics: “And when I’m back in Chicago I feel it.”
Releasing songs under the pseudonym Djo, Keery’s music career was never a secret. But this track, which came out in 2022, pushed him to the mainstream and stunned those who knew him as just Steve from Stranger Things.
Prior to the show, the 33-year-old was a member of rock band Post Animal but left the group to focus on his solo career in 2019.
Djo currently has an impressive 24 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler
Wolfhard is a band member of The Aubreys(Image: Getty Images)
Finn Wolfhard puts on an award-winning performance as main character Mike, and he has a Screen Actors Guild Award to prove it.
Off-screen the actor plays the guitar, piano, drums and has been a member of two bands. He was the lead vocalist for indie rock group Calpurnia from 2017 to 2019.
He then started a new band, The Aubreys, with his former bandmate Malcolm Craig. The duo released their debut album Karaoke Alone in 2021.
The actor has shared that he doesn’t make music in hopes of achieving fame, it is simply a passion project.
Speaking to Kerrang in 2023, he said: “I just like writing songs, putting them out, and making music accessible. As long as someone can hear it and relate to it, that’s really all that I care about.”
The Aubreys currently have over 50K monthly listeners on Spotify, while Wolfhard’s former band Calpurnia brings in over 157K listeners.
Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley
Hawke rakes in over half a million monthly listeners(Image: ENT / SplashNews.com)
Maya Hawke took on the role of Robin Buckley in season three, but it feels like she’s been part of the Stranger Things family since day one.
As the daughter of iconic actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, Maya had already worked with the likes of Quentin Tarantino before joining the Netflix show.
Her Hawkins debut came just months before her foray into the music industry. Hawke dropped two singles, To Love a Boy and Stay Open, in August 2019 then released her first album Blush the following year.
She has since dropped two more projects: MOSS (2022) and Chaos Angel (2024). The latter was produced by her now-boyfriend Christian Lee Hutson.
The actress currently rakes in 508K monthly listeners on Spotify.
Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair
Caleb McLaughlin (centre) recently started releasing music (Image: Courtesy of Netflix)
A newer face on the music scene, Caleb McLaughlin shot to fame as Lucas Sinclair on the sci-fi show. More recently, he has shared the screen with Idris Elba in Netflix’s Concrete Cowboy.
Beyond the screen, McLaughlin released his first single, Neighborhood, in 2021 and followed it with another song, Soul Travel, in 2022.
However, he has yet to drop a full body of work. Considering Stranger Things is now coming to an end, he may soon have more time to record new tracks.
Stranger Things returns to our screens tomorrow (Image: Courtesy of Netflix)
The Netflix cast’s musical talent doesn’t end there, Gaten Matarazzo (aka Dustin Henderson) is a vocalist in six-person band Work in Progress.
The group released their debut songs, Dream Eater and Waste My Time, in 2019 and haven’t dropped anything since.
They also haven’t been active on their official social media accounts since December 2019, so it’s unlikely new music will be coming out any time soon.
Charlie Heaton, who plays Jonathan Byers, also has a history in music.
He previously was a drummer for London-based rock band Comanechi and even toured with the band for 18 months, following the release of their 2013 album, You Owe Me Nothing But Love.
He also briefly played for psychedelic band Half Loon but hasn’t released any solo music.
Stranger Things 5 premieres on Netflix on November 27
