Stranger Things Star Joseph Quinn Explains How Heavy Metal Bands Influenced Eddie Munson

Eddie Munson is a character that quickly grabbed social media by storm, becoming the favorite of many after his first appearance in Stranger Things Season 4. Joseph Quinn, the actor behind the beloved character, put a sizable amount of prep work into getting ready for the role, dipping his toes in Dungeons and Dragons while listening to his fair share of metal music.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Quinn admitted that while he wasn't hooked on D&D, he did happen to listen to a tremendous amount of era-specific metal music.

"Little bits, but I'm not going to pretend I did a huge amount. I tried grappling with Dungeons & Dragons, but accepted that wasn't going to happen," Quinn told the paper. "Music was my main way in. I listened to a lot of heavy metal – Black Sabbath, Metallica, Dio – and I worked with a brilliant vocal coach called Mary Howland. But 99.7% of the work is that wig."

Earlier this month, Ross Duffer revealed he and his brother Matt partially modeled Munson after Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three, a group of teens in the early convicted of murder at the height of the Satanic Panic in the early 1990s. All three have since been released from prison following a 2010 ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

"In this case, something we really wanted to get into this year was the satanic panic. So that brought us back to the Paradise Lost documentary series with the [West] Memphis Three, and it brought us back to Damien Echols," Duffer said in an interview on the Netflix website. "We really wanted that character who's a metalhead, he's into Dungeons & Dragons, he's ultimately a true nerd at heart. But from an outsider's point of view, they may go, "This is someone that is scary." So that's really where the idea for Eddie came in."

The writer added the production searched far and wide before landing on Quinn for the role.

"But again, it was such a long search to find Joe Quinn. And honestly, we didn't fully know who Eddie was 100% until we saw Joe's audition tape," he continued. "Then we went, 'OK, wait a minute. I think this can work,' because ultimately that character doesn't work if it's cast incorrectly. [If it's cast incorrectly,] I think the season falls flat."

The first chunk of Stranger Things Season Four is now streaming on Netflix. The last two episodes of the season drop on the streamer July 1st.

What did you think of Stranger Things 4? Are you looking forward to the final episodes arriving in a couple of weeks? Let us know in the comments!