Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn really played the guitar in that epic season finale

By Patrick Cremona

Published: Monday, 04 July 2022 at 12:00 am

Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn has revealed that it really was him playing the guitar in the show’s epic season 4 finale.

In an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, the Eddie Munson actor explained that the Duffer brothers texted him towards the beginning of the pandemic asking if he could play – but it wasn’t until he saw the script that he realised how big a task he’d taken on.

“They texted me and they said, like, can you play the guitar?” he said. “I said yes. That was about two months into the pandemic, maybe three months, and then a month later, they sent me the last script.

“I was like ‘Are you serious?’ They were like, ‘Yeah.’ And I thought ‘OK.’ So I went and bought a guitar and then practised manically for months until we ended up shooting the thing.”

Asked if it was mostly him playing, he confirmed it was but added that there were certain parts where he had to rely on a little expert help.

“I was trying to be realistic with kind of what I could do,” Quinn explained. “Like I’ve been playing [guitar] since I was a kid but I’m no virtuoso. So I had most of the song down, but for the solo, we had to fly someone, a black belt metal guitarist, in to help with that. The rest of it? I had a stab at it, yeah.

“It was so thrilling to do on the day – me and Gaten [Matarazzo] were on top of the caravan in the middle of the Upside Down playing Metallica. And it was great fun!”