Noah Kahan

2023 has been a helluva year for singer/songwriter Noah Kahan. Just three years ago he started uploading snippets of his indie-folk songs to TikTok while waiting out the pandemic at his dad’s house in rural Vermont. Those songs quickly caught fire across social media and eventually turned into Noah’s most recent album, Stick Season.

After releasing collaborations with Kacey Musgraves, Hozier, and Post Malone, Noah has amassed 4 billion streams globally. It’s no surprise that last month he was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy.

On today’s episode Leah Rose talks to Noah Kahan about navigating his often overwhelming new-found success, and how he feels about being labeled the new “sensitive woodsman” singer/songwriter du jour. Noah also opens up about initially being embarrassed about his singing voice, and his plans for evolving his sound on his next album.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Noah Kahan songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Twenty twenty three has been a hell of a year
for singer songwriter Noah Kahn. Just three years ago, he
started uploading snippets of his indie folks songs to TikTok
while waiting out the pandemic at his dad's house in
rural Vermont. Those songs quickly caught fire across social media
and eventually turned into Noah's most recent album, Stick Season,

(00:40):
and after releasing collaborations with Casey Musgraves, Hosier and Post Malone,
Noah's amassed four billion streams globally. It's no surprise that
last month he was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy.
But while Noah's often called the breakout star of the year,
he's actually not a music industry rookie. He signed up

(01:00):
Republic Records in twenty seventeen, initially working as a songwriter
in New York, where he learned the intricacies of writing
pop music. It wasn't until the music industry shut down
in twenty twenty that he was able to apply those
techniques he learned as a songwriter to his own work
as a singer songwriter. On today's episode, Lea Rose talks
to Noa Khan about navigating his often overwhelming newfound success

(01:25):
and how he feels about being labeled the new quote
unquote sensitive Woodsman singer songwriter de Jore. Noah also opens
up about initially being embarrassed about his singing voice and
his plans for evolving his sound on his next album,
This is Broken Record. Liner notes to the digital age,
I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Lea Rose's conversation with Noah Khan.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
When you were writing Stick Season, did you have any
overarching guiding principles?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:59):
I think like in hindsight, it's always easy to say,
like I wanted to write about loneliness during a lonely time,
or I think I had been feeling lonely for a
lot of my life and that was just kind of
finding its way into my music.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
And I was in Vermont and that found this way
into my music.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
I definitely didn't walk in with any you know, intention
of like a theme. Besides that, I wanted to write
about what I was going through at that point in
my life and my relationship with my home state and
my hometown, with my family and with myself. At that time,
it was like kind of just in real life on
my mind and really like a pervasive part of my
experience day to day. And I think what my overarching

(02:38):
goal was just to have an outlet for that, and
I ended up being the start of, you know, the
concept for the record essentially.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
And so what was your situation, Like what was a
setup during the pandemic? Were you suddenly like back home
in the house that you grew up in with your family, Like.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, pretty much like I.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
You know, I grew up in New Hampshire and Vermont,
and we moved to this place in Vermont when I
was halfway through high school, and so it kind of
was like my childhood home in many ways. I we'd
had the property my entire life since long before I
was born. So it was a place that I was,
you know, considered much at home or like, you know,
a very familiar place for me that I had a
lot of, you know, my memories and different attachments too.
I was living in New York and was like really

(03:19):
lost at that point in my life, like just kind
of burning out pretty hard with music, and I for
some reason never felt like a New Yorker I lived there.
I mean, you know, I only lived there for at
that point for about a year, but I never felt
like I belonged.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I felt like it was my first day there. Every
single day I was in the city.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
And you know that the pandemic, you know that that
one week in March, I remember, you know, getting one
of those hoax texts. I was like, the governor of
the mayor is about to close the borders to the city,
Like you need to get out and keep pressing the link.
And it's like it was actually a picture of a
guy's dick, is what it was when pressed the link.
But I I I had I pressed the link. I mean,
my older brother was in town. We were like fucket.

(03:57):
We literally ran for the hills and drove to Vermont
that night, got home. We're like, okay, like they weren't
closing the borders, but it probably was a good time
to get back.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
So we we got home and uh, we don't.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
I don't go back to New York until I moved
my stuff out of August of twenty twenty, and I
was home for about a year and a half, so
I really I went right back to the my parents' house.
My parents split up and it became my dad's house
and we have like a barn with like a little
studio a little like an apartment above it.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
And my dad was like, hey, like while you're figuring
what you want to do out.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
And like, well, if the world is figuring what's going
to happen out, like you can stay up there rent free.
And so my dad let me stay up in the
barn and that kind of became like where I made
up on music and where I.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Did these Instagram live streams and where I.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
You know, started to really like digest my experience and
start making the album.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
How old were you at that point?

Speaker 4 (04:46):
So twenty twenty I was, This is twenty twenty three.
I'm twenty six. Now this is why I should have
gone to college. Kind of do the math in my head.
It's literally twenty six. Mine is three. I was twenty two,
twenty three years old. I think I was twenty three
at the start of the pandemic.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Did that feel at that point, like moving back home? Like,
how did that feel?

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Honestly? Like it felt amazing?

Speaker 4 (05:06):
Yeah, And I hate to like to be positively about
what was like such a terrible time just generally for
the world and for millions of people, but and I
kind of a fucked up way like it was just
it felt like this escape from this really monotonous style
of life I was living, and it felt so refreshing.
I think like I spent so much of my time

(05:28):
as a musician and as someone that had like a
very untraditional job, feeling like I'm living like an imposter's life,
Like everyone's going to work and I'm kind of like
grabbing a coffee at two pm and started to try
to write songs. Yeah, stepping away and going on my
phone for two hours. And I always kind of felt
like I was moving in slow motion and everybody was
moving at regular speed, and suddenly, like the pandemic felt

(05:49):
like it brought everybody to the same speed for one second.
And that's a very rare thing. And for me, it
was so rare to feel connected to people that were
around me. I felt this disconnected from everyone, from my
friends and from my family, and from even other musicians,
because I couldn't relate to my friends because they weren't
musicians and they were working, you know, different jobs than

(06:09):
a different you know, equally complicated and difficult but abstract
in me lifestyle, and I.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Couldn't relate to the musicians because for some reason.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
It always like talking to the musicians always created this
feeling of anxiety within me, like just this feeling of
other nis, just feeling of feeling left out of some
shared experience that all the other musicians were having together.
Whether that's just the insecurity, probably, but I still felt it,
and so I felt like I was stuck between two
different styles of life. And when the dynamic hit in

(06:37):
that first few months of my family being back home
and everyone being like, what the fuck are we going
to do? And the musicians being like what the fuck
are we gonna do? And the finance and tech people
being like, what the fuck are we gonna do? It
just felt unifying in like a weird way, and it
made me feel like I finally had some even footing
with the world, and that was strangely really nice for me,
despite how challenging it was for other reasons.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Is it different now the way that you feel towards
other musicians. Have you found people that you're able to
relate to more?

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yes? And I think a lot.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
It's it's it's been a result of me making the
effort and accepting that I might feel anxious or insecure
and trying to power through that. Because there's not a
lot of people that relate to what's going on in
my life right now, and some of the only people
I can relate to are people that I've been through it,
and I had to force myself to be willing to
hear them and to accept their perspectives and to try.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
To learn from it. It all came for me, you know.

Speaker 4 (07:32):
It was all me facing the insecurity of trying to
relate to people that I've typically had a hard time
relating to, and it's made it a lot easier to
kind of have those conversations now. Having those first few
conversations and being willing to sit down and talk to
somebody and be vulnerable with somebody that you know might
understand it and been a really cool and eye opening
experience for me this past year and a half two years.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
It's been very helpful, in fact, very crucial in a
lot of ways.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Did it change the way that you wrote songs when
you were back home?

Speaker 1 (08:00):
It did?

Speaker 4 (08:00):
It really did, because I was writing songs in New
York just because I wanted to fill time and I
want to feel like I had a job, and I
was You could hear it in the songs.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
It was you know, pop songwriting.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
Is just there's a real formula to it, for better
or for worse, and a lot of sessions, you know,
you sit down and you talk to somebody and you
pretend like you're having a normal conversation, but you're both
looking for a hook and what everyone's saying, or a concept,
and then you identify it and sit down and write
about it and fulfill the concept and write a verse
and a chorus, and a verse and a bridge and

(08:32):
a drop chorus and a chorus, and it just there
is a real formula to it that for me was.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Becoming monotonous and my numbing.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
And by the time I got home to Vermont, I
was so sure that the music industry would never come
back that I was like, I'm gonna write the way
I like to write, and that is, you know, not
having a concept, sitting down and writing about what I'm feeling,
trying to come up with stories, and trying to be
creative in a way that doesn't stick to a certain
concept that might not even relate to me, just writing
about anything that I feel in the moment, stepping away

(09:00):
if I don't want to fucking do it anymore, and
coming back a week later and sitting down with feeling
inspired again, going on my own pace, and being willing
to just make whatever made me happy in that moment.
It's very difficult to control a song in a songwriting
session in that way, because you're working with people that
I would have motivations of their own and have schedules
of their own, and you really have to To me,

(09:22):
it felt like I was sacrificing some of the process
for other people, and that was a terrible feeling.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yeah, were you working with like big named artists, like
anyone we would know? Are you allowed to say.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
I was working with incredible songwriters?

Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yeah, incredible songwriters, some of the best in the world
who have written beautiful songs that are clearly heartfelt and
full of emotion and full of grounded real feelings and
have written huge hits. You know, I could have written
with Max Martin. It would have sounded like I made
it with my next door neighbor or something. You know,
it didn't. Everything I was making was colored by my
own burnout right, and by my lack of passion and

(09:58):
my feeling of you know, exhaustion of being a songwriter.
It was like every song to me, you had the
same color to it, and I think that it's really
like a symptom of depression in a lot of ways, Like,
you know, every single thing feels the same. And I
look back at some of these songs, like, you know,
those songs actually had a lot of life in them
in a lot of ways, and some of those songs
are really great. And I listen back a like proud

(10:19):
of those songs, more proud than I ever was in
a moment, and I think it was just, you know,
it was really a statement about my state of my
state of my mind and my emotions of that time
that made those songs feel, you know, the same, regardless
of what I'm working with.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Would you're writing a new song, do you have an
idea of where the inspiration comes from? Like does it
feel like it comes from outside of you or does
it feel like it's more internal and making its way out.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah, I think it's more internal and making its way out.
It's very rarely a conscious thing. I feel as if
I'm writing because it feels good in the moment, and
I look back and I'm like, oh, that's because of
that thing that happened, or that's because I've been feeling
like this for the past few weeks, and I don't
realize it until after, which is kind of fun because
it feels like you don't have to do the work
of feeling bad about how you're feeling and then making

(11:06):
the song. It's like you just make the song and
then you think about how bad you're feeling later. It's
kind of a nice It's kind of like a get
out of jail free card for feeling emotions, which is
kind of cool.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
And how quickly does it cause relief? Is it like
as soon as you put a line down, do you
start to feel a little bit of the pressure release?

Speaker 1 (11:23):
No, totally.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
I think just one line can make the whole difference.
And then there are songs that I've heard that I'm like,
I don't even like the rest of the song. Is
that one line that I'm so connected to And that
happens with me all the time if I write a
you know, sometimes I'm like, this verse is fine, I
might as well keep going because it has a good
melody or a good core progression, and then the chorus
and like.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
This is why it's good.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
That line is enough for need to love the whole song,
and it really does create like an instant sense of relief,
to feel, to feel that a line can, even just
five words, can encapsulate how you're actually feeling. It's cool.
That's what's so special about songwriting.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
That's so great.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
You never know when that relief is gonna come, and
it's exciting, and it's kind of like gambling, you know,
because you know you have to put so much emotional,
so much emotion into something, and you don't know how
it's gonna turn out. But when it hits, it's like
the jackpot of feeling relief and feeling excited and feeling.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Uh, satisfied. Is is worth that that kind of torture
of making amusing?

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Does it really feel like torture? No, seems like it
comes fairly easily to you.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
Yeah, I'm not working in a fucking coal mine. Uh.
I always try to do care. Sometimes I find myself
talking about songwriting. I'm like, I sound like a fucking asshole,
Like this stuff is not that hard. What's challenging, uh,
And what makes it feel like torture sometimes is the
constant comparison. I think if I had like the Men
in Black thing where you like make people forget that
stick thing that like makes people forget their like what

(12:40):
just happened?

Speaker 1 (12:40):
If I have one of those, and I can.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
Erase all the context of my songwriting career, my life,
I think I would love songwriting so much more. I
always find myself comparing whatever I'm doing in the moment
to what I've made before. You know, the comparison. It's
a thief of all joy. Yeah, he's the most successful
thief in the fucking history of my life. Like, it's
just always I'm always comparing myself, and so you kind
of are already losing when you do that. And I

(13:03):
feel like I set myself up for failure in that way,
and it requires a real will to just sit in
that feeling of comparing herself and to let it go
to make the songwriting and feel exciting and fun. And
I've gotten better at that, but it's still something I practiced.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
What do you think is the best song you've ever written?
And you're comparing in your mind, like, what are you
putting that up against?

Speaker 4 (13:26):
I think right now, I think my favorite song I've
ever made would be Homesick, because when I listened back
to that song, I'm not only excited about the lyrics
and about the story, but also some of the risks
that I took in the instrumentation, the musicality of it.
It was one of the first songs I had that
was like rocking and like let the band play a
little bit and allowed states to happen in a way

(13:48):
that still felt compelling. A lot of times I just
stuff words over everything so that there's no one can
find out that I'm playing the same three chords over
and over again. But with Homesick, I felt like I
allowed myself to just take a risk that people were
invested enough in the song that I could have some
moments to be musical and to be experimental musically in
the context of my own music, by the way, experiment

(14:09):
and allow that to live and to not feel like
I need to smother that with lyrics so.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
That song I'm really excited to buy another song.

Speaker 4 (14:16):
A lot of times I find the songs that I
am most proud of are the ones that I still
relate two years later. A song like young Blood is
just a song I wrote when I was eighteen or
nineteen years old, and I still feel like I connect
to those lyrics so much, and they still feel mature
to me and exciting to me. And that's always cool,
you know, to look back at a song that I
was written eight years ago and to feel like it

(14:37):
was a representation of who I am.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
You know at twenty six, What.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Part in particular are you thinking?

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Eh?

Speaker 4 (14:43):
I think from like a song running standpoint, I really
like just the melody choices in that song, Like I
like that, you know, ascending melody that comes into falsetto
and comes out. You know, it's not like a vocal
run that someone's trying to be, like an impressive vocal run,
you know, or you're trying to like flex your vocal muscle.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
It's really just like.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
An emotional vocal run that I thought was really you know,
it's funny talking about myself in the past.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
I thought was clever.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
And then lyrically, I think that that kind of mantra
style of lyrics aged really well. A lot of times
mantras came just we change our principles a perspective, But
that perspective has still stuck with me and it's felt
very relevant to my career.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Now.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Is there anything you're embarrassed about or anything you've said
in a song, any lines that you thought were like
incredible when you wrote them. Your younger self wrote them
that you're like, I got it, like I figured it out,
and you listen to it now and you're like, oh
my god.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Definitely.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
I think if you gave me twenty minutes, I could
come up with a list of a thousand things I'm
embarrassed about. But I think I'm mostly embarrassed about how
much I tried to hide my singing voice. I think
I tried to be really cute and stylistic and affected
with my singing voice a lot of times, hiding because
I didn't feel like I had a very good voice

(15:54):
and that I had to be like more unique or
like indie sounding, And I think I kind of adjusted
it in some songs to feel like I was something
worth listening to. And it wasn't until I started to
kind of, you know, with taking vocal lessons but also
just allowing myself to sing more naturally that I started
to feel really proud of my voice as it is
and be comfortable with it and come to terms with that.
So I look back, I'm like, man, you should have

(16:14):
sang that part like yeah, who carries you sound a
little nasally or if like you sound a little bit
a little bit sharp in that moment we got auto
tune baby, like you should have just tried to sing it.
So sometimes I look back and I'm a little bit
ashamed of not trusting my voice a little earlier.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
Are there things that you're excited to try, like new ideas,
new ways you're going to stretch either your voice or songwriting,
or different musical ideas that you're looking forward to trying
on your next album?

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (16:45):
We uh. I was work messing out in the studio
a couple of days ago with Gabe Simon, who produced
six Season with me, and Conrad Snyder who.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Engineered it, and Carrie who played drums and all the songs.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
We were just jamming out and playing some kind of
like some of my radio Head type stuff where I
was really wail and singing, and it was really fun
to kind of.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Like wail and to not be so precious of the words.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
And to let the singing, like the actual notes, you know,
carry the emotion. Was really cool and something that I
want to, you know, try a little bit more. I like,
we place so many shows that I want every song
to be really fun to play live.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
I was going to ask you about that. When you're
writing songs. There's certain songs that you have that seem
like they were created with a live performance in mind,
like some of the songs where it starts out quiet
and then it just explodes like wall of sound, you know,
once the chorus hits or even you know, as the
verse develops. Is that something you think about when you're writing.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
One hundred percent?

Speaker 4 (17:41):
I do, Yeah, I just think about how can we
make this part as exciting as possible? And what has
happened with a lot of the songs you know, on
Stick Season, on the Deluxe and some of the stuff
that I'm writing now is that I really love doing
songs that don't have repeating parts, so it feels like
a legitimate, like roller coaster ride for the fans. Like
you have a start of something that's slow and builds
and it comes into a crazy place. It goes into
a different verse that's a different melody and different lyric

(18:04):
and do a different chorus, Just allowing myself to kind
of create a little bit of a journey and tell
a story and the music instead of feeling like, you know,
it's that pop formula verse chorus, verse, chorus, vers chorus,
bridge chorus, joh chorus versus and being able to kind
of step away from that is really fun and knowing
that live it's gonna be so exciting. You know, there
are songs like a song we have called Your Needs,

(18:24):
My Needs that does that that just starts little and
just explodes and it's the best moment of the set
live and it's you know, certainly not the most streame song,
but it's that song that really lives for the live performance,
and you know, just to anecdotally, like I when I
lived the New York one thing that I love about
New York was every week, at least.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Two or three nights a week, I go see a show.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
And sometimes I'd be at Webster Hall or Brooklyn Steele
or MSG or whatever. A lot of times it was
at you know, Ballery Ballroom or Mercury Lounge, seeing little
artists and small artists walking away and being like, I
know that artist so much better than I ever could
if I listened on Spotify, because I got it year live. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, And that was something that really inspire me.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
How much are you changing the song's live? Because I know,
as a music fan, sometimes you go and see an
artist you love and when they change the songs too much.
You're a little bit pissed because you kind of want
to sing along to what you know. So how much
are you actually changing the songs when you're performing live.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Well, we always keep the parts that are recorded in
this song, so we always make sure that we sing
every lyric and every verse and chorus gets their own moment.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
We add a lot.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Sometimes we'll add a moment from my band to solo,
like these guys, it's funny. These guys are world class
musicians that are having to play a E minor c
F And I'm like, give these dud the second to
jam out a little bit because they are.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Talented and shit showcase it.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
And so we let the band play and they have fun,
and we change it based on each crowd. Sometimes we
change we add a chorus with the crowd is screaming
every word and let them sing a little bit longer.
Sometimes we'll be like, this crowdfucking hates this song, let's
just do the regular version of it.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, it's really a crowd by crowd, show by show thing.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
What's the song that gets the biggest reaction from the crowds.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
Well, we played Northern Aitude first, which is really fun
because It just is a real sing along tune and
people are are already excited for us to be coming out,
and they're kind of like excited that it's a song.
They definitely know that song gets a great response. We
let them sing the chorus at the end, which is
super cool. It's funny like Paul Revere is a song
that gets a lot of attention live, which is just

(20:23):
like a specific song about like a New England I
guess legend, I guess you could say, or like old
It's just like an a lot of New England references
and wherever I am, that's always the fun one to play.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
We're gonna take a quick break and then come back
with more from Lea Rose and Noah Khan. We're back
with Lea Rose and Noah Khan.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
With Northern Attitude. The lyrics are very literary and it's
like you're outlining the major strokes of someone's life. Did
you have somebody specific in mind when you wrote that song?

Speaker 4 (21:00):
Yeah, I think there are elements of it that I
take from my dad, and elements that I see in
trans parents and lots of children of divorce. You know,
this feeling of what now and this is who I am,
but you kind of have to start over. And I
have so much respect for my dad and for my
mom because it takes a lot of courage to do
something like that. It's so easy to be stuck in.

(21:23):
It's so easy to stay in what's comfortable, even if
it's making miserable. I know all about it, and I
have so much respect for people that make that decision
for themselves. And I have so much respect for the
journey afterwards of discovery, rediscovery and reevaluation, and that stuff
is really hard to do at any age, but particularly
when you have lived the life a certain way for

(21:43):
a long time. So yeah, yeah, that's definitely inspiration for
my pops, and I think there's some hope in it too,
you know, like this feeling of accepting yourself and being
able to evaluate yourself critically and explaining that to somebody
as an important step and growth and change, and those
are themes I want to evaluate in that team.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
During the pandemic, when you started uploading like little snippets
of songs to TikTok, how much did you think about
how you were framed in the shot and like how
intimate and how upclose it was, especially since you were
talking about being self conscious about your voice because you're
like right up in there. You know, it's great for
the people watching it because it's like it's very vulnerable,

(22:26):
but like people really feel like they know you because
we're like so close to you so.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
You can see the fucking pores in my nose. Yeah,
I honestly didn't think about it at all. Like I
tell people, like every phone I have a nice new phone,
every photo I've ever taken on a nice phone looks
like it was taken from an iPhone too, like I have.
I have such a poor grasp on technology. I have
such a poor grasp on aesthetics. Like I was the

(22:52):
guy in high school that would post a terrible photo
of a sunset every like five months, and then that
was like my Instagram presence.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
That was it. That's all I engagement.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
There was no engagement, no like the like it myself
like that kind of thing nine likes, and I was like, oh,
you know, so I I was never very like esthetically
intuitive and social media challenge was definitely part of my
part of my life for a long time.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
So when I was making the tiktoks, I was just like,
all right, it looks.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
Like you just put the camera up here and hopefully
the acoustics sound good. And like, my biggest nightmare is
editing the lyrics on the screen, Like I cannot stand
making the lyrics on the screen because then you.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Get one wrong to wash the whole video again.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
Back then, when I started, I was kind of just like, look,
I'm making music and I'm a sucker for validation, and
so let's see what people think of this little idea.
And what was so cool was that I really did
inspire confidence in me and the response.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
You know, any response is helpful for me.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
People not liking it was like okay, like they don't
like that one, do I like it enough to keep
it going like yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
And sometimes I had to be like I don't care
what they think. And then I put the full version on.
People loved it.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
So it was a way to kind of you know,
road like the road testing when there was no road
to testimon.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, you like crowdsourcing stuff. And then how seriously do
you take the comments because I'm sure there's like a
lot of conflicting opinions, like would you actually mold stuff
based on feedback you were getting?

Speaker 1 (24:16):
No, No, not really.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
I think like I would say, okay, like there seems
to be a positive response to this. A lot of times,
I would, you know, for like a song like Homesick,
I was trying to be really specific about New England,
about my town, and.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
I was worried that it wouldn't come across.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
So when people were like, oh, like, I'm getting this
idea that you had, it inspired me to finish writing
the song with the same level of specificity instead of
being of making it more vague or trying to be
more relatable.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
It did help, you know, influence the intention.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
I never like would change lyrics or anything like that,
but I definitely feel like the input that I got
was helpful. Yeah, you know, and comments sometimes like if
I got a hurtful comment, like I would feel hurt
for sure.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, I always say, like I must.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
I do feel like hurt by hurtful comments and by
people being mean or someone you know.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
I get it, Like I get why people do that.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
You scroll across the video that like you didn't want
to see and you're like, fuck you asshole, and you're like, Okay,
you don't think about what it might be, how it
might be received.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Totally. I don't know if you ever left hurtful comments
for anybody. But now that you're like public and you're
out there and you're reading comments about yourself, has that
changed the way that you comment.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
I think in my past I probably did, like I
was just like a kid, like everybody else, and I
know what it's like to now that I know what
it's like to be hurt like that, Yeah, it really
makes you think about how you talk to people.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
I still feel I.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
Can read the hundred positive comments and one negative comment
like just fucks me up, and it sucks.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Because you're like, you're so wrong.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
I want to get into the weeds with this person
and be like, well, this is why you're an asshole,
and this is why you're wrong. I'm like, And then
you do that, and you've aloady lost you know, You've
you've lost time, and you've lost confidence.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
So I try to just do my best to not
see them and not look at them.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
Yeah, what always helps me is when I I have
been in a place where you feel the need to
lash out of people and to be hurtful people, and
I know how lonely and fucking awful that that space
feels and how empty it is, And so I think
when I see someone leave a comment like that, I
try to zoom in into their bedroom and like look
at them and be like, what are you going through

(26:23):
right now?

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Do you really need me coming back and shitting on
you right back?

Speaker 4 (26:27):
Or like do this person maybe just need to get
that anger and pain out And if I can accept
that and move on from that and it makes you
feel better, that sucks for you and that's what you're doing.
But I'm not going to stand in a way or
whatever your processing, man, like you got shit to deal with.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah, I love that, by the way, Like I bing
sure tiktoks. I watch all of them, and there was
one where I think it was some sort of like
maybe like an eating disorder awareness months post and I
just really appreciate that you talk about just struggles that
you've had or because we don't normally hear guys talk

(27:01):
about body image issues or you know, eating disorders or
anything like that. So I just really appreciated that.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Thanks.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
Yeah, that song, I never ever talked to anybody about
that still even really, and so that song was kind
of surprised me with how I felt about how real
it felt for me and how true it felt my
experience listening to that song and being like, man, I'm
I've never had an outlet for this feeling ever. I've
done with therapy for a long time, and I've made
a lot of progress in my own life, I think,

(27:30):
but that's something.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
That that still haven't been touched on.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
And so it felt like it surprised my lyrics and
like the guy, I guess, the vulnerability and some of
those lyrics surprised me. And I won't name names, but
I played that song on tour. I did it for
the first time. It's really just a heavy song. To
play it tard for me to play it. So I
played it once for a World Mental Health Day, and

(27:54):
people in my crew, guys on my tour, you know,
tough guys and guys that didn't say watch, didn't speak much,
probably took me aside to thank you for talking about that.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
And I don't want to keep the conversation video. This
is just a male problem. It's absolutely not, but yeah,
it's it is.

Speaker 4 (28:09):
I think more rare, at least in my experience and
my exposure that for men to talk about these things.
And so I saw that in real time what the
impact might be for men struggling with eating disorders, and
that was something that was really encouraging. To feel like
I had this really painful, painful song and painful feeling
that I wasn't alone in for a second was really nice.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
How has it been for you performing on TV? Like
dealing with things like that and knowing that you've had
issues in your past, Like you know, you recently played SNL,
which is fucking awesome and it sounds like it was
always a dream for you and you guys killed it.
You sounded so good and you had your hair slicked back.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
It was kind of like Samurai the Samurai Bambook.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
But how is that for you seeing yourself on TV?
Do you like pick yourself apart? Are you proud of yourself?
Like what's the reaction internally for you?

Speaker 4 (29:02):
Well, I've done a lot of them at this point now,
so I feel like I used to pick myself apart
a lot more. It's so interesting, Like I get hair
and makeup done, and the hair and makeup people and
everyone is like, that's how it looks great. We just
did your hair and makeup, Like, oh, I think that
looks awful. So I think my opinion on like what
is attractive or what is like good. It's different than
like what the greater publics is. So I like go

(29:23):
and be like, man, I should like wore my hair
down and like throw it across my face and people
are like no, like pull your hair back.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
So I feel like I try and not.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
Pick myself apart and trust that people that are in
charge of making me look good have done a good job.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
But it is it is hard to see myself on stage.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
It just is weird. It's like unnatural. I think you
observe myself, especially when I'm like in that moment in SNL,
I was trying to have fun and hang out my
band and enjoy the moment so much that like looking
at that and analyzing that like it doesn't help me
at all. I think being critical of what you look
like in a moment of letting go is probably not healthy,
so I try not to. But I was really happy

(29:59):
because I saw myself and I was like, that is
me when I'm having a good time.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Yeah, you look like you're having a great time.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
It wasn't like faux excitement or like you know, bullshit,
like smarmy, charmy shit, And it's like I was having
a fucking blast hanging out in my band and my buddies,
and that I was happy.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
To see that come through in the way that I
felt that on stage, What was like.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
The behind the scenes like at SNL, like did you
get to go to the after party? And what was
it like being the live musical act?

Speaker 1 (30:27):
SNAW was a trip. It was like a full on
the entire thing with a trip.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
I had been home from tour for about a week
and was kind of finally starting to feel like in
my human not everything it's about me mode, where like
you're no longer like promoting yourself on the road, and
I was kind of withdrawing from like this the uh
outward talking to a lot of people when I was quiet,
And then suddenly it was like down the New York
you're in the fitting in the green room, you're about

(30:53):
to do the sound the sound check, and you know,
like there's all these famous people on the walls and
you don't really even have time to process it. And
then it's like pressing promo like Noah, like how did
it feel a good? Like all these questions about me,
and I started to be like I felt like I
was like waking up from a long nap of like,
oh fuck, I gotta go back into this like talk
about Noah mode again. And so it took me a
little bit to adjust.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Is it like a week long process.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
So Wednesday night we got there and we had the
fitting order of fitting Wednesday at the hotel and then
Thursday is like the first day of a rehearsal and
sound check and they filmed the promos and oh dude,
filming the promo was so bad. I was like one
of the maybe one of the most embarrassed moments of
my career was you know, they have like a little
script they made for me that I got like literally

(31:36):
five seconds before I had to do it. Emma Stone
is right there with the other actor, Sarah Sherman, and
they were standing there in front of the camera and
I was like learning my lines on it's just shoved
on stage next to them and like wow.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
So I was so anxious and do you.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
Have acting chops? Like did you know how to deliver
a lot?

Speaker 4 (31:55):
So this is the thing I always thought that I
was like my band members, you got to get into acting,
and like I always found myself to beat I would
you know not the two man horn.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
I think I like I know my way around a joke.
I think I could be a little funny. I can.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
I got some dead pan shit going on, So I
was like, you, I could crush this acting shit. It's
it's easy to fucking just say some shit and be
funny and look funny. And I got on there and
have never felt less in my elements and more nervous.
I was reading and I felt like I was like
looking at like a power point and trying to read
off the world.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
It was so bad. I felt so unnatural.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
So I just like went in the nervous, you know,
survival mode and read the lines and didn't like improve
it all. And so that was a tough one and
it kind of made me feel like I was cursed.
I kind of felt like the whole weekend was gonna
I was like, I was like, well, I just embarrassed
myself in part of most of the crew, some of
the cast, And on Saturday, I embarrassed myself in front
of all of the crew and all the cast and
all of America as well. Like my mind, I was

(32:50):
so negative, you know, like this is a bad element. Yeah,
just a little glimpse into my confidence, just like I'm
gonna suck.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
No matter what.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
And the next day was kind of nice. I gotta
like kind of recalibrate this. The clip was posted on
social media, people were generally nice. No one was like no,
one was like.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
No, it's the worst actor. Everything.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
The expectation was not that I was gonna be a
great actor, and so I swallowed the pill of not
being a great actor.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
I was not ast to do any sketches.

Speaker 4 (33:16):
I assume they saw the promo where like, this guy's
not going in a sketch, which means I don't have
to do that again.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Let's just get my head around the performance.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
On the day of the performance, I was having trouble
my voice and was I always have trouble my voice,
and on the day of a big show, like I
always just like I feel like I'm a cold, like
I psychosomatic vibes, like my throat starts to hurt small damn.
It's like thinking about it and drinking water and like
trying to hide myself up. And I pulled up to
SNL wearing all black hat, sunglasses at the nighttime, like

(33:42):
superduche mode, like listening to push a tea in my headphones,
just trying to hype I was trying to feel confident.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
It's like the dude in succession, Kendall Roy, literally.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
Like Kendall Roy. Like they drove me in like one
of those nice town cars. The driver you like help
the door feel like, what's up?

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Brother?

Speaker 4 (33:56):
And then I get in and I'm listening to a
nostalgia I push a tea and and just trying to
make myself feel like Kendall Roy for a second. Yes,
So I was like, it's actually Kieran Colkin was actually
at the show that night, which is funny.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
I probably should have that. Uh So we all we
went out and.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
My my best friends were at the taping and I
saw them up there and we performed the first song
and we crushed it, and I think and had a
lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
And then before the second song.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
Like my little brother was like, dude, Malia Obama, Miles Taylor,
Scarlett Johansson are all right there? What a crew and
watching the show and yeah, And so I was on
the second performance just thought it was so funny to
look up and see my high school friends.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Then they'll look down and see Miles Teller.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
Like the contrast was just hilarious and it just made
it kind of fun and silly and we had a blast.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
After party was very cool, like super overwhelming.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
And where's it at, like at a like a club
or a restaurant or is it at the actual SNL.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
I think it's actually at the Illuminati headquarters.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
I think I had to I had to kind of
think on my wrist and like, I don't know, some
guy put my butt into a vial that I got
let in. Now I don't know, someone somewhere fancy and fancy.
They had like a menu with my name and almost
name on it, which is hilarious. Yeah, all sorts of
famous hot people milling around the room. Everyone looks famous,
Like it could have been the guy that like parks
the cards and like I would have assumed that he

(35:20):
was like an Oscar winning actor.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Everyone to me well successful, well groomed.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
I felt like a fucking bron walking around there, like
my whole family by.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
My side, We're all like, where should we go? And
you know it was cool.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
We're gonna pause for another quick break and then we'll
come back with more from Noah Khan. We're back with
the rest of Leo Rose's conversation with Noah Khan.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
So stick season must feel like it's like very much
in the rearview mirror, even though you're out on the road.
You just did a national tour, you're about to do
a worldwide tour playing the music. But what, like what
have you been working on? Like, what can you tell
us about new music?

Speaker 4 (36:03):
We have a new song recorded called Forever that we've
been playing on the Road's that I just happened a
ton of time.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
I've been writing new music, and I'm always writing and
working on new things.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
But you know, I like the six season being such
a natural and like creatively fulfilling, you know, journey for
me is kind of like created this complex of like
I only wanted to be like that, And so I
simply haven't had a break in about a year. I
haven't had more than like a week off in a
long long time, and so I'm just kind of giving
myself the time I do get off to try to

(36:35):
find that feeling and try to find that feeling of
freedom and create creative fulfillment that I had back then,
and keeping new music or any commitments to like.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
An album at at arm's length.

Speaker 4 (36:45):
And so I feel wrapped around something in that same way,
but still working no more collaborations and just trying to
kind of find things to keep me excited.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Any new collaborations you can talk about. I'm waiting for
the Justin Vernon song to drop.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yah Me and you both. I wish I could get
one with Justin Vernon.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Have you talked to him? Have you met him?

Speaker 1 (37:03):
I haven't met Justin.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
Yeah, it was one of the most cool, crazy nights
in my life.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
I met him at hunter Land. He's my hero.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Getting to talk to him and getting a chance to
pick his brain about music and about the industry. It
was really interesting, a really cool experience. But I never
want to be that guy that's like, dude, it's so
cool hanging out with you, Like we got to get
a collab in the work, you know, Like that's.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Isn't that what people say? Though, Like you're like, hey,
like let's do.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Something, yes, And I hate it.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Let's get a transaction in here, man, Like now that
we hung out, like, let's do something that boosts my career.
I think that's that stuff grosses me as sometimes, so
I try to be careful about but I think at
some point in the future, I would absolutely love to
collaborate with Justin.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
If you was ever interested in doing that. But we have,
you know, at least three more.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
More collaborations coming that are are really cool and with
artists that I adore and that everyone adoors, and I
am excited for the world to see them.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
How are you feeling about the way that you've been
covered or the way your story is written about. I
know the New York Times just did a big piece
on you. You were on the front cover of the Times.
I saw at least the digital version. You were like
right up there next to like Trump or something. How
are you feeling about the way your story is being told?

Speaker 4 (38:20):
I think like there's always gonna be a framework in
which people want to talk about you, just because it's
if you just get down to the complete and total story,
you lose a form of narrative. I know, people, you
know the reference if you're bringing back this era that
nobody wants anymore, and.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
To feel like that is like a negative connotation. For
some reason, it's been confusing to me.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
I know that the pendulum really swung away from that
in a musical way in terms of what was happening
on the radio after like the you know, mid early
mid twenty tens. But I always found that music to
be really well written and incredibly powerful. So to hear
that as a as maybe an attempt at an insult
or a criticism, or like a God, we're so tired

(39:07):
of this shit.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
I feel bad for.

Speaker 4 (39:08):
The people will put their livelihood into making that music
because I care about it a lot and I think
it's important, and you know, that's been my only qualm.
I am happy to be being covered. I think it's
it's cool that people will care enough.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
To talk about me.

Speaker 4 (39:23):
My friends from New Hampshire, I sa I lived in
New Hampshire and Vermont, and people from New Hampshire like,
you're not from Vermont, people from Verma, you're not.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
From New Hampshire. That's that regional tension. If definitely there.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
I've had to do better job of being clear. You know,
I'll talk to someone, you know, from California or somebody
from New York and they're.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Like, we don't give a shit, Like you're in Canada,
we don't give a buck. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Again, I think it's the nature of you know, being
a white male singer songwriter isn't exactly a unique place
to be. I think there's been many of me, at
least this kind of this kind of vibe white guy
with a guitar.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
So I think feelings with feelings, right, you know.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
They said it an article of the most Pop Music's
Newest Sensitive Woodsman.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
I think an author writer wants to find.

Speaker 4 (40:08):
A way to make your story seem specific and to
seem like it separates you.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
And so I think they're coming to a small challee,
come to my house.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
And they're talking about how that looks and how that
feels unique to my experience.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, I feel like the way I've been covered has
been very there.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
I think I shy away from making myself a story.
I just I do like to have my life be
about the music and have my career be about the music.
And if that's not enough to be on the national
headlines and I'll just play for a thousand people and
be boring, I'm fine with that. I think I've kind
of been thrust in this world of like a mass

(40:44):
exposure that I'm still learning to handle and learning how
to how to navigate.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
I don't know, it's it's hard.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
It's a really weird process to describe if you haven't
been through it. Yeah, I think what's what's hard is
just never feeling like I'm alone, Like I'm already the
guy that like when I smoke weed, I'm like everybody
looking at me, you know. And and so I'll get
off an airport in Boston and Vermont or wherever and
be like, oh everyone, I think people here actually are

(41:12):
looking at me.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
And that's like an overexposed feeling.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
And then you find yourself like acting different because you're
you know, like if people are watching you, that you
want to come across as being normal looking or like
not ticking your nose or fucking wiping your hands in your.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Shirt or whatever. Like you feel like you're performing all
the time.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
And I fucking I I don't know, I don't have
I don't have much to say.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Most of the time.

Speaker 4 (41:33):
I'm kind of just like a grumpy dude walking around
the world. Like for example, yes, two days ago, I
was in the car driving to another interview and uh
in Nashville, and this person behind you was like tailgating
me like a fucking psycho, and I was like, oh,
my god, it's just by driving like a nut job.
They passed me and they're super close and swerving in

(41:54):
and out, and like, what the fuck you doing? Look
out my window, very New England, not out my window,
but at my window, and they look over and they're
just filming me, and I was like, oh my god,
it's like I'm on the Truman Show.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
Dude.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
Like I'm like, I can't have an authentic angry experience
or like emotional response to something. I'm so worried about
it being like someone that's a fan or like hurting
their feelings. They're coming across it being a dick or whatever.
But I was so exhausting, gonna kill me. I'm exhausted,
I'm tired. I'm tired of I can't get killed in
traffic just because I want to be polite, you know.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, And then it makes you understand. I'm sure now
you have like a different level of understanding why some
people like who are in the public eye or people
who are like super famous, like end up the way
they end up.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
I've never had more respect for them.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
Yeah, you know, I've never had more respect for somebody
that says I don't want to do this anymore. It
has It's no longer about the music, it's about everything else,
and it hasn't hasn't gone to that point for me.
I have incredibly respectful fans, like I really do they
really respect me in my space and my privacy and
my boundaries. But man, like, just if you're somebody that

(42:59):
doesn't like the attention and doesn't like the demand of
everything besides making music, then I can only imagine why
anyone would want to be you know, famous or recognize
its fucking invasive as hell, right, and less so for
me than it's for being a woman and having the
success and having you know, the sexualization and the questions
about your dating life, and that's got to be fucking brutal,

(43:22):
and just like having to put up with people asking
about stuff that's not even about the music, you know,
like that's about your personal life and about.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Stuff that you don't put on display for people. Fuck
that shit.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
Sure, yeah, if you ever want to find the Boston
airport with me and see a bunch of dads and
their daughters turned around, like you listen to that guy
right then? An you want to see how it feels.
It's not bad. It's just like if you're tired or hungover, dude,
oh bro, being hungover and like having to like walk
into like having to take a shower, you just want
to not take a shower some days and like walk

(43:52):
outside and you're like you gotta be you gotta be
taking a shower.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah, yeah, you know when you talk about I just
want to be stay focused on the music. Like the
fame thing can kind of come and go and if
it burns out, cool as long as like the music
focus is there. How are you so sure that music
is the life path? Have you ever thought about, Oh,
I might want to be you know, like maybe I

(44:16):
want to be an architect, Like has there ever been
another vision or has it always just been music?

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Has never been, never been anything else.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
I think I've thought like critically and realistically, like yeah,
it doesn't happen, Like what would I want to do?
And there are things that I could do. I've always
said that I wish I could be. Uh, I'd probably
do someone like social work or psychology. Yeah, something that
like I'm really interested in just like people and their
behaviors and what makes them chick and like what makes
them what they're about and how their past affects their

(44:45):
future or whatever. That's always been really interesting to me.
But like fundamentally, no, I've never had any other plan
or vision for myself whatsoever. Like music and writing songs
has been from the very beginning, the only thing I've
ever ever wanted.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
That's so cool that you know that.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Isn't it cool?

Speaker 4 (44:59):
Yeah? It was cool when I got a record deal,
but it was not cool before where I was like,
this is all I want and I might not be
able to do it.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
That would suck, you know.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
I'm just like so aware of like the sadness it
is to see somebody that like tried to be a
musician and like it didn't work out, and to see
them like working a cubicle afterwards and be like, Yeah,
that sucks, dude, because I know every single day you're
like looking at the picture of you and the Talent
Show and wishing that with you now. And I could
like see that picture in my head. Even when I
was like fifteen, I was like, oh, dude, I'm gonna
be the guy in the Cuba gole like no, no, no,

(45:27):
and uh. I was very grateful to have had the drive,
but also the opportunity and the frank with the privilege
of being in a place so allowed me to go
to a recording studio and to you know, parents that
were like willing to say you don't have to go
to college, you know, like you can go make take
the record deal. I grew up in a wicked nice
area that I think contributed a lot to the opportunity

(45:50):
and the ability to take the opportunity combined with like
what really was like even as a kid, like a
super crazy work ethic for music, Like I wouldn't do
my homework, I would get fucking c's and B minuses,
but like I would every day be writing a song
or working on something.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Like it was an every day for years and years
grind for me.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
How did your parents think about you writing songs? Like,
were they like, wow, we have like a musically gifted son,
or was it just sort of like thought of as
a hobby.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
My mom was an author, and so she was very
I think from a certain point. She definitely saw some
like potential and talent I think, and helped me hone
it and was like.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
A really amazing resource for me growing up.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
Just having someone that knows their way around writer's block
and writing process and you know, creative struggles, you know
they any number of them and knows how to like
kind of have been there before because writer's block, that
shit's hard, and like to get through that it's really hard,
and it happens at every level.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
You know.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
Some people say there's no such thing as right a block,
and maybe that's true, but I think we can all
agree that sometimes you just don't have anything to say
and you feel like you can't get the words out.
And my mom would just sit me down, give me
a blanks of paper and say, right, for thirty minutes,
write anything that comes to your head, doesn't matter what
it is. Write things down because the musclem he kind
of does kick in. After a little while you start
to like remember how to work it. I think if

(47:13):
you go into that mode of like I'm gonna wait
till I'm inspired to make music or to write something,
is when you can get into some real trouble because
the time since you last broke your thing gets greater
and greater, and your your muscle isn't as isn't as
worked out, and you're frustrated at yourself for not being
as good as you were the last time. And I
think if you build slowly each day, trying to put
a pended paper, that you can really work your way

(47:34):
out of those things.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Do you have like a specific set of conditions that
you've found lead to writing a good song. Like I
interviewed Matt Berninger, the lead singer of The National, and
he said his thing is like weed and iced tea
in the afternoon, like that combo. That's it's kind of perfect.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
I think the most consistent thing has been weed.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Honestly, like I do really work right well and I'm
like smoking weed are getting high. I don't know, it
just kind of takes me away from like my inner
dialogue for a second, or like at least changes it.
Vermont really is like, you know, here goes the sensative
Woodsman again. Vermont really is a place that is conducing
to like inspiration for me. I feel really like myself there.

(48:21):
I feel very comfortable there. I think the biggest common
denominator between all the good songs that I've made have
come from a fuck it mindset, whether that be like
this will never go to any this will never be released,
so I might as well write it, or I've been
writing all day, I've made absolutely fucking nothing good. I'm
angry at myself, I'm upset, and then suddenly like there
it is, you know, just that release of just being

(48:44):
like I'm just gonna give myself up. To whatever comes
out of my mouth or my whatever gets written down next.
So I think we need a level of like disinterest
and being in Vermont it's helpful.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
And then how high are you getting? Are you like
getting dumb high? Are you like micro dosing high?

Speaker 4 (49:03):
Well, typically micro dosing, but like sometimes I'll get like
dumb high. I always say to my friends like, I
wish I could be, you know, like an hour after
you smoked weed.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
That's what I wish I could be.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
The entire time, like the first like five minutes of
being like, oh well lookick, I gotta call my mom,
like I shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
I should be in the car right now it's happening.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
And then and then like the hour later when you'd
like gotten over the hill of being too high and
you're like, oh, I just feel like relaxed and chill
and like funny and good to be around. Yeah, that's
kind of where I need to get to. It's never
like right away. The stuff i'm right away it is
like so bad. I feel like I'm doing like Sergeant
Peppers and just like making like weird, like fucking like
stuff that sounds.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Off tune and bad.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
And maybe that song Peppers is zo sad amazing, but
like the experimental stuff, I'm like, that's not that's getting
back to ce An f for jazz, I trended to
get Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
You mentioned earlier listening to push a t Like, since
people love music recommendations, like, what else do you listen to?
Like what you're loving?

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yes, I'm loving lots of stuff right now, but let
me pull up what I'm listening to.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
Yeah, okay, I'm listening to this Walks of Hochi song
Problem with It, which I really like.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
This guy, Craig Finn made this song out of Chicago.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
U Sam Fender recommended him to me, and uh, it's
really fucking awesome.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
The new Hosey record I think is incredible. I'm getting
into outs ge.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
On my moody shit that's on Poison Route. I really
enjoy He's super cool, so fucking cool. That shit, dude,
so cool.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
I love that. I love that freedom of just being
like super loose with the genres, Like yeah, I don't know,
I'm getting the vibe that you might that might be
in your future at some point.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
I think that's kind of the thing where like all
these cool things have happened this year is I'm like
checking off all these amazing boxes so that on my
next thing, I'm not like, well, I gotta play the
song that gets I gotta write the song that gets
do on SNL, I already did SNL thought, Yeah, well
I gotta got a Grammy nomination. I'm gonna go make
the music that I want. Like whatever, I've had all
these I've achieved all these cool things, and uh, now
i feel like I'm the freedom to uh do whatever

(50:56):
I want because I'm not trying to. I'm pretty much
done everything I've ever wanted to do in my career.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
You know. I feel like that's some people say before
they get hit by a car or something. But so
I'm not gonna would.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
But the bad omens again.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yeah, you're gonna really sid into my brain. It just
makes very good podcast perfect.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Are you already starting to think about what you would
say if you win the Grammy?

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Yeah, I'm gonna thank my mama for sure.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
If I want a Grammy, I would thank my mentor
music mentor that I met when I was a younger
kid who taught me how to be in a band
and put me in a band and taught me everything
about recording.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
That guy changed my life. He showed me, taught me
what it was like to be a rock star.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
I would think tons of people, all the label and
the man and every person that's gotten me here. But
I think I would do a little shout out for
my younger self because when I was a kid, I
would practice my Grammy speech to make myself fall asleep
when I was a little kid. And when I got
my Grammy nomination, I was like, fuck, yeah, my eight
year old self from a ten year old self, he's
probably pumped right now.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Is that huge validation for you?

Speaker 1 (51:54):
It actually is, yeah.

Speaker 4 (51:55):
And I I'm not somebody that feels the need for
like total validation from like the greater music community or whatever.
But for some reason, the Grammy just like man, it
just was really was one of the greatest moments of
my life. And I felt like nothing can can erase
the fact that I got nominated for Grammy, and no
level of failure or irrelevancy or whatever happens in my career,

(52:18):
Like I always go to look back and say, hey,
at one point got nominated for Grammy, And that's one
that I can say the rest of my life. And
that's that's fun to have those thinks. They're very few
and far between at a musician's career.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Hell yeah, congratulations on all the success, but also like
I can't wait to hear what you put out.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
Well, thank you and thank you for all the thoughtful
questions and for you know, give me things to think
about on my own. Honestly, it was fun to talk
to you and h just think that you're great, So
thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Thanks to no Ocon for taking us through his incredible year.
You can hear the deluxe version of his latest album,
Stick Season, along with some of his other music, on
a playlist at broken.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Record podcast dot com.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
broken record Podcast, where you can find all of our
new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.

(53:20):
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
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(53:40):
Our theme music's bay Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.