EDITORS NOTE: This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2.
Leading up to the Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 season finale there was a lot of speculation over what song Joseph Quinn's Eddie Munson would be playing in the shot from the trailer, and who he would be saving from Vecna. In the end, Eddie saved them all in a Demobat-swirl of nightmarish proportions, blasting the Upside Down with a head-banging rendition of Metallica's "Master of Puppets," and it was guitar double Aidan Fisher who made possible that frenzied solo that will absolutely go down in Stranger Things history.
In his interview with Collider, Quinn described Fisher as a "black belt metal guitarist," explaining that though he himself had put in the practice and performed most of the song, it was Fisher who took over for the solo that really upped the ante of the moment. Between the wider shots of Quinn as Eddie shredding on his guitar from the Upside Down, it's Fisher's hands that are playing for the fates of the Party during the solo. Fisher posted a few behind-the-scenes photos to Twitter, including one side-by-side with Quinn where they're both dressed for Eddie's epic finale. Dubbed "Eddie Guitar Hand Double," Fisher let his fingers fly in a relentless barrage of Metallica's "Master of Puppets," taking the Upside Down up to Eleven.
Quinn told Collider:
"It was a combination of both, really. I played guitar since I was very young, so I was lucky that I had a foundation there. But as I said, when I read the scripts, the next morning I went out and bought a guitar and manically started learning "Master of Puppets." On the day, me and Gaten just got up on top of the camper van, and just got into it. It was very fun. I played most of it. We got a kind of black belt metal guitarist to come in and do the solo because I'm a human being. It's very fast, but the rest of it, I tried my best to understand that. It was very fun."
Fisher began early on in Omaha, Nebraska at the age of six, learning the foundation of what would become his career on piano. By seven, he transitioned to bass, and six months later turned that in for the electric guitar. At the age of nine, Fisher had his first live performance for an audience of about eight thousand at an Omaha Storm Chasers Minor League Baseball game. Like Eddie Munson, Fisher took inspiration from '70s and '80s rock artists like Guns N' Roses, Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. The guitarist's first claim to fame came in 2013 when Fisher was invited onto the stage for a Steel Panther concert in response to a sign he and his father had made, challenging Satchel to a guitar solo. The video went viral with over 100 million views, launching Fisher into a guitar-for-hire career. His performance for Stranger Things marks Fisher's first onscreen work, and in another post to Twitter he offers fans a chance to see him as himself, playing the breathless solo effortlessly.
In the pinnacle moment that fans of the show were anticipating since the release of the Volume 2 trailer, Eddie and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) mount their RV fort, complete with all of Eddie's amps, and set to work performing a Demobat-signal. The long-awaited song was revealed to be the frighteningly-accurate "Master of Puppets" by Metallica, used to lure a horde of Vecna's creatures from his lair to allow the others time to execute their plan. As the scene's tension builds and the Party's fate is looking grimmer by the second, a close-up of Eddie show's his ring-laden fingers furiously fretting the crescendo of "the most metal concert in the history of the world." It was a heroic send-off and gut-wrenching battle between Vecna the Master of Puppets and the Dungeon Master and bard-turned-hero Eddie Munson.
You can watch Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 exclusively on Netflix. Check out Fisher's posts below: