Caleb McLaughlin has that rare kind of calm confidence that makes you forget he’s only in his early twenties. Maybe it’s the years of stage work, maybe it’s Stranger Things, or maybe it’s just that Broadway-trained poise still kicking around from when he was singing in The Lion King. Either way, the guy sounds like he knows exactly what he’s doing—even when he admits he’s figuring it out as he goes.
“Yeah, it’s my first single,” he says, smiling. “But I’ve been working on music for four years. Been cooking in the kitchen for a while.” The kitchen, in this case, being studios across New York and L.A., where McLaughlin quietly built a catalog of fifty-plus songs before finally releasing “Neighborhood,” a smooth, soulful track about the anxiety that hits right after the butterflies: can I bring this person home to meet my family?
“People don’t think about that part,” he says. “Everyone’s got that thought—‘Can I bring them home to my mom? My grandma? My friends?’ If you can’t, that’s it. Game over.”
It’s a deceptively grown-up concept from a guy who’s been on-screen since he was a kid, but McLaughlin’s quick to remind you he didn’t start in sci-fi. “I grew up in performing arts,” he says. “Broadway, opera, community theater. I did an opera called Lost in the Stars twice—once in upstate New York, once at the Kennedy Center. So I was trained. I know how to sing.”
But training and truth aren’t always the same thing. “Broadway taught me to enunciate, to project, to make sure everyone understands me,” he says. “Pop and R&B? That’s about finding your swag. It took me years to unlearn the training and just sing like me.” He laughs. “Now I’m not singing somebody else’s story—I’m singing mine. That was harder than I thought.”
“Neighborhood” has the sleek warmth of classic neo-soul with a hint of contemporary pop shimmer, but McLaughlin refuses to settle on a genre. “This is the only song that sounds like that right now,” he says. “The next one’s totally different energy. I don’t want to box myself in.” He hints at reggae, rock, maybe something else entirely. “I know my voice now, I know what it can do. I just want to have fun with it.”
That open-door approach runs in the family. His dad’s a trained opera singer; his mom and siblings sing, dance, or both. “Performing’s just part of us,” he says. “We were that family.”
On Concrete Cowboy, McLaughlin found a musical mentor in Idris Elba. “I showed him some of my songs,” he says. “He loved them. Told me we need to get in the studio. One day, for sure.” He laughs. “When the time’s right.”
And of course, there’s Stranger Things, the 80s nostalgia trip that made him a star—and surrounded him with a bunch of other closet musicians. “Everyone on that set does music,” he says. “Finn’s got his band, Joe’s doing his thing, Gaten sings, Millie and Sadie sing. Even Maya—she’s an artist too. We all support each other. I’d play them my stuff on set and they were hyped. That meant a lot.”
For a guy who’s spent most of his teenage years in Hawkins, Indiana, it’s almost ironic that his first song isn’t about monsters or neon nostalgia—it’s about real life, family, and the unglamorous truth of love. “This isn’t acting,” he says. “This is me.”
There’s a full plan, he says—a rollout, an EP, more singles. “We’ve got everything mapped out. I’m just excited for people to tune in and vibe out.”
And for those wondering about Stranger Things season four—don’t ask. “Maybe,” he says, with the kind of smirk you can only learn from years of spoiler training. “We’ve been practicing that answer for seven years.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
