Noah Kahan – 'I love that about music, it brings you back'
By James Garbett
“A great song is one that takes me out of the reality I am in completely. Great songs transport me to a place only I know, where for a couple minutes I’m completely embedded in the lyrics, the melodies, the instruments. It’s that moment of undeniable magic that even the hardest cynic can’t deny.”
Back in early 2017, Noah Kahan released “Young Blood”, an acoustic, pensive track that was as anthemic as it was melodic. It was one of the very few tracks that made me snatch up my phone, google the artist and then drop him a message, congratulating him on the record.
Since then, Noah Kahan has released a selection of EPs, an album and now garners an impressively hefty 6 million Spotify listeners a month, a statistic that is continuing to grow with some of his songs reaching an impressing total of 180 million streams.
Yet despite all the success, the unique style that originally caught my ear remains steadfast. They’re tracks that surround difficult topics such as mental health and deep-rooted pessimism but is done so in a way that will give you a new reassuring perspective on these complex topics. We at Run That Again couldn’t wait to discuss his new EP “Cape Elizabeth” and how far he’s come.
Interview
We start by asking him about “Young Blood”, how it came to be and why he chose it as a debut album.
“I wrote Young Blood in about two hours in my parent’s barn in Vermont.” Noah reveals. “It was a song that poured out of me and onto the paper that I immediately knew was going to be important for me. It’s a song about entering a new world and trying to navigate its unfamiliar terrain, and that was the challenge in my life at that time. It felt right to release it first”.
I ask him how performing his debut song live has changed and if his self-proclaimed lyrical mantra has continued to influence him three years on: “I try to continue to heed my own advice,” Noah answers. “It’s been hard recently, but I try my best. It’s a song that never loses it’s meaning for me, and every time I play it I’m able to bring myself back to that 18-year-old kid who wrote it. I love that about music, it brings you back”.
“Every time I play it I’m able to bring myself back to that 18-year-old kid who wrote it.”
Noah Kahan’s tracks could easily be placed alongside other soulful acoustic artists such as Mumford & Sons, James Bay and Passenger. When discussing influences, he gushes about his love of Cat Stevens, he explains the impression that the legendary artist left on him, saying, “my dad and I used to sing Father and Son together. Our first ever show was at a nursing home. Probably not the best song choice as that tune is really about the alienation the younger generation feels from the old. But fuck it who cares”.
I talk to him more about mental health as such a topic in his career; his songs are acclaimed for being able to musicalize the intense and often-indescribable feelings of anxiety and depression. “Well, when you suffer with something for long enough you develop an intimate relationship with it,” Noah explains articulately. “I’ve learned the ins and outs of my insecurities, my fears, and try my best to document those ins and outs. It’s not as simple as “being sad” or “being worried”. It is a massive collection of small feelings, some conscious some not that I’m navigating every day and I want to do justice to the reality of that”.
I’m curious to know more about the lessons Noah may have learned making his debut EP: “Hurt Somebody” which he then may have applied his debut album: “Busyhead”. Noah reveals that “Hurt Somebody was of course special and important to me but it was really based around the collaboration with Julia that was coming out. (He refers to his duet with the incredible Julia Michaels, who we also love).
We knew that song was gonna be one to focus on. Busyhead was an opportunity to tell a story and to create cohesion between recordings, not focusing too hard on one song but instead letting each song play into the next. It was cool to be creative in that way”.
I ask him more about “Busyhead”, which was released last year to critical acclaim; “Busyhead was written over a number of years” Noah affirms. “We knew as the songs were written that they were meant to be released, but choosing how and where to put them was the challenge. Usually you can tell when a song sounds like a “single”. So, we used our collective intuition on which songs were meant to be supported and which were meant to be a part of the fabric of the record”.
“When you suffer with something for long enough you develop an intimate relationship with it.”
I’m keen to ask and find out more about Noah’s new EP: Cape Elizabeth which he released last month. A selection of five tracks that Noah worked on during this rather strange COVID-19 lockdown period and then spontaneously dropped onto Spotify.
It’s a wonderful and narratively driven EP that showcases the strength of Kahan in a stripped-back raw arrangement. “Cape Elizabeth came about in the first few weeks of the major global panic surrounding COVID-19. I left NYC and my brother Simon and I started singing this song I wrote, “A Troubled Mind” for my mom who posted it on a Facebook group for the local folks to stay in touch and keep positive. It got a great response, and I had some tunes that felt too folky and stripped back to really try and throw production into them so the opportunity to record those songs at a friend’s home studio kind of presented itself to me. It was kind of a “why not?” moment that has turned into something quite nice”.
Finally, I talk to Noah about what’s next for the artist, “I don’t really know” he replies. “I’m just gonna keep making music and tell some more stories. I like the idea of writing a concept album about a relationship that starts in Maine. I think the EP has laid a lot of great groundwork for an expansion of a story. We’ll see. Hopefully I can tour again and play some songs on a real stage and not in my boxers in my bedroom with my dad yelling at me to do the dishes”.