The Deeper Dig is a biweekly podcast from the VTDigger newsroom, hosted and produced by Sam Gale Rosen. Listen below, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Noah Kahan remembers getting excited when a song he put on SoundCloud hit a thousand plays.
Now, his songs have been streamed more than one billion times.
Kahan’s metaphorical use of “stick season,” the time between Vermont foliage and proper snow, went viral on TikTok last year and sparked covers by Zach Bryan, Chelsea Cutler, Maisie Peters and countless fans who recorded themselves strumming in their bedrooms.
The album that followed, recorded in Guilford, debuted at #14 on the Billboard 200 Chart and has been Kahan’s most successful to date. He performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live and the Kelly Clarkson Show and sold out venues coast to coast.
And then, after the first leg of his tour, he returned home to the Upper Valley and the isolated, between-villages places he crystallized on his third full-length album, Stick Season. With lyrics that describe “dirt roads named after high school friends’ grandfathers,” the record is, in Kahan’s words, “a love letter to New England.”
Turns out returning to a place you’ve described so candidly can feel a bit strange. He’s had to reconcile his romanticized version of Vermont with the reality: He’s just home, and it’s cold, and he has to go outside and clean up after the dog.
There’s a “weirdness of existing in a place that you’ve just written about,” he said.
Kahan is going back on tour later this month. He’ll return to Vermont this summer, for two sold-out shows on the Burlington waterfront.
He joined VTDigger on Zoom earlier this month.
Below is a partial transcript, edited for length and clarity.
Riley Robinson: I’m gonna start at the beginning. Can you tell what you were like as a kid, in Strafford, and how you got started writing music?
Noah Kahan: I would play the songs for my mom, and she would give me pretty good criticism on them. She was never mean, or too harsh, but she would be like, “Yeah, this is why you need to fix this,” or, “I don’t like that one for this reason,” or, “I like this for this reason.” I think at the time, I wanted to be told everything was really good. But when I look back, I’m really grateful for that advice, because it helped me get better at writing. I was just writing every day.
In school, I was always kind of like a class clown, an idiot. Didn’t really feel like I was representing myself very well in school. But I would go home and write songs. And that’s kind of when I felt like the most me, I guess. I wrote songs every day for years, and then I started, when I was like 12 or 13, doing open mics in town in Hanover. I’ll do open mics at a restaurant called Jesse’s every Thursday. It was what I’d look forward to all the time. I would play my own original songs with a bunch of people that weren’t listening, just trying to eat baked potatoes and shit.
I kept writing and started introducing my musical self into my school life, which I think was cool, because I think it provided me with a little bit of security in myself. I think I was always trying to just be somebody I wasn’t, trying to be funny, and I could be kind of a dick. It was nice — when I started to play music, I started to play the school talent shows, and joined a capella — that I started to kind of like, “Oh, this is not just an asshole. He can make music and he’s got something else to him.” That really helped give me some confidence in my music. And I did more open mics.
I started working with a producer that was a senior when I was a sophomore, and he was really cool. He did all this kind of like electronic stuff. And so I would bring these folky songs. This is like when Avicii was huge, and this kind of folk-EDM stuff was happening. So we would make that kind of music, and it was really cool, and it started to get some traction online. And that’s kind of where the professional career started. The music was found by a record label and a manager. My senior year, I got offered a record deal, and I decided to not go to college.
I had to decide between Tulane and taking the record deal. My parents were like, “You hate school. You’re not a great student. You’re definitely going to, like, join a fraternity, and just drink your way through college.” They basically didn’t want to spend $63,000 a year for me to drop out and be a musician anyway. So they were like, “Take the record deal.” And I ended up doing that. That’s kind of how the music career started.
Riley Robinson: When you say you were found, how were you found? Was this on YouTube, or—
Noah Kahan: It was SoundCloud, actually. We did a song with another producer, a guy from Norwich, Vermont, who was kind of a legend. He had a couple songs and had, like, hundreds of thousands of streams. He had toured a little bit with his older brother, and I was really excited to get to work with him. We just produced a song I made called “Sink,” that he didn’t really put a crazy EDM thing to — we kind of just made it like a nice, acoustic, Ed Sheeran-style song. And then we put it on SoundCloud.
I remember like one day it was, like, a thousand plays, and for me it was so cool. I would count down until it got to a thousand and be so excited, and we would call each other and be excited. But then it started getting, like, a thousand a day, for like a week, and it was at like 10,000. I was like “Oh, this is really cool. Something’s going on.” And then I guess these A&R’s (artists and repertoire) were just prowling on SoundCloud or whatever, and just found the music. It was kind of right before Spotify. I didn’t know how to put us on Spotify. So it’s all on SoundCloud.
Labels found it and connected me to this manager who came to New Hampshire. Wwe went and got dinner at the Hanover Inn, in Hanover, and he met my parents. We were all afraid that he was actually going to be, like, a pedophile, because he reached out to me on SoundCloud, and I was like, “Who’s this weird guy who wants to come to Vermont, come to New Hampshire, to meet me? That’s really creepy and weird.” And so we were like, “You have to meet us in a public place.” We had him meet us at this restaurant. He ended up being a really cool guy. He talked to my parents. And yeah, I went out to LA and recorded “Sink.”
And then I went to New York and I played “Sink” for Republic Records. And a couple hours later, they offered me a record deal.
Riley Robinson: I’m going to fast forward in the story a little bit. Tell me what your life was like right when the pandemic hit, in early 2020.
Noah Kahan: I was living in New York, in the East Village. I didn’t realize when I started music that it’s really just what you make it. It’s kind of like, no one’s going to tell you to wake up every day and make music. I was in Vermont, between tours, and I was just waking up and not doing anything. I was so frustrated at feeling like I had writer’s block for, like, years, and I wasn’t making anything that I cared about. So I moved to New York.
I wanted to get in the studio and get into sessions every day and feel like I was working, which is probably the wrong approach. I thought, I just need to dig through this feeling, this lack of inspiration that I had, and just go into the studio and work a bunch. I was doing that, and I really felt like it became a job. I was making music every day, but it wasn’t music that I really loved. I was working every day, but I didn’t feel proud of any of it. And I really burned myself out. I would spend all day scrolling through Instagram and just comparing myself to everybody. And I got to a place where I was really depressed and really burned out, and kind of having a conversation like, “Alright, do I go to college? Do I go back to school? Or do I try to find a different job? What am I going to do?”
And then the pandemic happened, which is obviously tragic for so many people, and for me and for my family. But in a lot of ways, it allowed me just a quick second to recalibrate myself, and to get home, and feel like I wasn’t completely alone in this feeling that I was having. For so long, I had felt out of place and kind of lost — for so long. And then everyone at once felt out of place and lost. And it kind of made me feel connected to everybody again, and connected to myself, and valuable as a human again. I think that freedom allowed me to start getting back to what I loved about music, which was just writing stories, and writing songs about New England, and writing songs about where I’m from. Telling stories. And so I started doing that.
I released an EP called Cape Elizabeth. And that kind of reinvigorated my love for music in a lot of ways, because it was just something that I loved. I made it with the little brother of the guy who I had first started working with in high school, who was also an amazing producer. We were at the same house, in the same studio, and it just felt like I was a kid again, making music because it was fun.
People really liked the EP. And that was really cool to think, “Oh, I can make stuff that I really like, and that makes me happy, and other people like it too.” It’s not like I have to be comparing myself to other artists who are trying to be a musician the way I think you’re supposed to to have success. In that way, the pandemic was really freeing for me.
I also got to go back home, in my folks’ place. That was really a really important time for me, to reconnect with my family, and reconnect with Vermont, and reconnect with myself musically.
Riley Robinson: You said somewhere that Vermont is one of the loneliest places in the world to live.
Noah Kahan: Yeah.
Riley Robinson: When did that really hit for you?
Noah Kahan: So I went home for the pandemic. And there was that kind of like three-month period where my brothers were home, my sister was around. And that was fun. My friends were kind of home, and you know, we wouldn’t see each other much because of Covid, but I’d be able to see them. And then everybody kind of went back to life a little bit when things started to slow down, and the vaccine started to roll out. But I was still very much living in Vermont, in those really lonely months of, like, January through April. Just by myself in my dad’s barn. I was really isolated. And I kind of started to realize that I was surrounded by miles and miles of empty space and nothing but my own thoughts.
I didn’t really feel like there was any escape. There were no sessions happening anywhere. I couldn’t really travel anywhere. And so I was just in Vermont, experiencing a lot of isolation, and kind of finding out who I was without anything else. That was really scary, to have to be alone all the time and be alone in my thoughts. I started writing about that and experiencing that through music, which was really helpful. But it was definitely a really lonely time.
I’ve said before, Vermont has the second oldest population in the country, and it’s the second most rural state in the country. And I really experienced how lonely that is, and how lonely those statistics can make you feel.
Riley Robinson: “Stick season” is so Vermont-y. Do you have any theories about why that metaphor has resonated with so many people?
Noah Kahan: I was really worried that it would alienate people, like the universality of the music wouldn’t be there. It’s such a specific line about a state that people think is in Canada. Like, people don’t know Vermont. I go to LA like, “I’m from Vermont.” Like, “That’s cool. That’s up in Canada?” Like, “No, it’s not,” and they’re like, “Oh, Bernie Sanders.” Like, “Yeah, he’s — yeah, there’s more to it.”
I was worried it would isolate people. But at the time I was at such a place of, like, “I just need to make music that I like.” And that was what I like. I like thinking about Vermont and what I was going through. And I think when I put it out, people related. People from Vermont, of course, related to it. People from New England, of course, related to the themes. But I think people felt the isolation and loneliness was something that they could connect to. You know, we all feel isolated. I felt isolated in New York City, in one of the biggest cities in the world. I felt alone in the city more than I did when I was at home.
So I kind of wanted to make people feel comfortable in feeling alone, no matter where they were, whether it was a city or the countryside. And I think isolation can speak to anybody. It doesn’t have to be a Vermont specific feeling. And that was really cool to see — you know, something that connected with me, something specific about Vermont connected people that lived in Seattle, and Texas, all over the country. That was a real cool vindication for me, that music can reach anybody, regardless of circumstance.
Riley Robinson: I wanted to ask you about some specific lyrics. You have really vulnerable lyrics: “Cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad,” and “I’m still angry at my parents for what their parents did to them.” Did you and your parents ever talk about these lyrics? What was that like?
Noah Kahan: Right when I got home for Covid, my parents got divorced. So I was home through all of that, and I was having some really complicated feelings with all that, obviously, as you do when your folks get divorced. It was really sad. A lot of times, I have a great relationship with my parents, but it was definitely something that was really hard for me to go through.
It was happening as I was home and as I was writing, and it kind of seeped its way into my music. I wasn’t going to therapy at the time. So I wasn’t really able to process those feelings any way besides putting them into songs. It was hard to talk to both my parents about it, because they’re obviously biased. You know, they’re going through it in a bigger way than I am. So it’s hard to have that dialogue and come to a place of, like, reality, or come to a place of understanding with them.
I’ve been writing about my family and my personal life since I started writing. And so I don’t think it came as, like, a shock to anybody. But it definitely was a conversation that I had with them before the record came out: “OK, I’m sorry if you guys feel uncomfortable about this.” And I don’t know if they have or not, or if they do. I still have a great relationship with my parents. But it was something that I needed to say, and something that I needed to process. I wish I could have had music that talked about that when I was going through it.
I felt like I had a responsibility to sing about that, so that maybe people could relate to it and feel like they’re being understood in their own experience through my songs. So it was important. I think it was a necessary step. And it helped me process it. And hopefully, it’s helped other people going through that. You know, in a lot of ways, I think maybe my parents, through my songs, heard how I was feeling a little bit.
I think what’s cool about music for me is when someone says something that you’re going through that you didn’t think anybody else in the world had been through before. Those were always the lyrics that made me feel less alone when I was younger, and I wanted to provide that for somebody else.
Riley Robinson: Did it feel weird putting out lyrics that were really vulnerable? Does it ever stop feeling weird?
Noah Kahan: No, it feels weird. It feels weird when you are, like, listening to it with your mom, or you’re listening to it with your therapist. I wrote a lot about my therapist in one of the songs — like, it’s not really even about her, but it’s about therapy. And sometimes it feels weird to have there be a kind of a hidden knowledge that people have to how you might really feel about something while you’re trying to have a conversation about something else.
I think a lot of times music, and my music, is like the most exaggerated version of how I’m feeling. You know, I’m not walking around like, “Oh my god, I’m so angry with my grandparents for putting my parents through that, which is why they put me through this.” You know, it’s never really like that. It’s more like, these are feelings that I have deep down that I’m exacerbating for the effect of the lyric, you know, the effect of the song, to kind of impact people emotionally, and to kind of draw those conclusions within oneself.
So it definitely felt a little strange, but again, the vulnerability is really important, because that’s what helps other people accept their own insecurities and vulnerabilities. So I felt like there was kind of like a duty-slash-justice in it that made it a little less uncomfortable. And then when you go and play the songs on stage, you see people screaming them and really getting into those lyrics, you can see the effect that has, and it makes it all worthwhile. The discomfort feels justified.
Riley Robinson: What was it like coming home in November? Was it different coming home this time around after this leg of the tour?
Noah Kahan: It wasn’t different when I got home. My family has always treated me the same. My friends always treat me the same. There’s kind of this weirdness that I’ve been dealing with, of like, I wrote this whole record about my experiences in Vermont, and then coming back and trying to square the reality of living in Vermont with what I’ve decided it is.
Like I said, a lot of it’s exaggerated. A lot of it is not necessarily specific to where I’m from, but more specific to small towns in general. So I’m feeling like I’m trying to fit into the world that I think it is, instead of just living in it. And it kind of has this weird dissonance. I’m back home. I feel like I’ve said everything I needed to say about Vermont, about New England. And then I’m trying to, like, just live in it with this perception of it I have. I don’t know. It’s kind of confusing. It’s kind of weird.
I guess just like being back home, and having people know that you feel this way about something — and that you’ve made such a specific statement on a place, and then living in that place and having people know that you’ve made that statement… It’s like a little bit of a weirdness of existing in a place that you’ve just written about, for sure.
I think like a lot of it’s kind of romantic too, like a lot of lyrics a little romanticizing, and then I come home and I’m like, oh. It’s just shitty and cold. I’m not experiencing this like crazy depth of emotion and depth of like, experience, right now. I’m just cold at home. And my dog just took a shit and I have to clean it up. It’s just like that simple. So it’s been a little bit strange.
I guess being in a small town, I feel like people sometimes will notice me, and sometimes I feel like I don’t want to, like, walk around town, because I feel like people are like, ‘Oh, there’s the Vermont guy walking through Vermont, like how cool was that.’ That’s kind of just an insecurity that I’m blowing up my head. I don’t think people are feeling like that. But it’s been a little bit strange for sure.
Riley Robinson: You’re now The Vermont Guy. You’ve got the flannel and everything.
Noah Kahan: Yeah, I’m very much a stereotype, I think. And then people are like, “I’ve lived here my whole life, and I don’t know what stick season is.”
And I’m like, OK, well it is a thing. It is real. I didn’t just make it up.
Riley Robinson: Is there anything that you really miss about Vermont when you’re touring? Or anything that when you come back, you’re like, I need to make sure I stop here?
Noah Kahan: I really just miss being able to go on a hike or go walk around and be out in nature. There’s so much to do in Vermont outside, which I always miss when I’m on the road.
Also, I miss the way people are. I’ll travel the country and people just act so different in different parts of the country. Like in the South and California, everyone is so nice, like outwardly nice, but I always feel suspicious of their motives. Whereas like I’m in Vermont, and no one’s really that nice, but I always know people are, like, true and kind. So I kind of miss that. I miss being told the truth. I feel like when I go home, I am always dealing with people’s very logical and sometimes harshly true judgments and statements. And I don’t feel like I find that a lot in other parts of the country, so I miss that kind of brutal honesty.
And then I just miss being outside. I miss being able to do things outside when I’m in Vermont because I live on a big property with a bunch of trees and nature and its fun to walk around. I miss that a lot for sure.
Riley Robinson: Is there anything else about Vermont, and how it shaped who you are, as a musician or as a person?
Noah Kahan: I think space. When I was growing up, I grew up in two small towns. And I was so bored that I kind of found a way to, like, create a universe that was really exciting. I really exercised my imagination. And that forced me to think creatively a lot. And being in a small town and kind of having that boredom allowed me to be really creative in my writing.
I feel like if I had grown up in a city, I would have been a little bit more distracted by what was going on, whereas I was distracted by what wasn’t going on when I was in Vermont. And that allowed me to write and create worlds in my head, and write songs — that sounds super arrogant, worlds in my head, but you know what I mean? Like just feeling like I had to think outside of the situation I was currently in and that allowed me to be imaginative. I think if I hadn’t grown up in a small town, I might not have had the same level of imagination that I have, and that plays into music.