Noah Kahan: Songs of sorrow and joy

Noah Kahan is right where he always thought he'd be. "My high school prediction was Most Likely to Be a Regionally-Known Musician," he said. "I think it was supposed to be an insult, but I'm happy to have found my niche."

He's somewhere in the woods of Vermont, talking about his favorite place. "I think people think about Vermont and they think maple syrup, Bernie Sanders, flannel T-shirts, Subaru Outbacks, and they're not wrong, but there's so much more here, and I think it's important to tell those stories, too."

It's also the place where, back in 2020, Kahan posted a partial song on TikTok, not expecting much. "I deleted many TikToks before," he said. "Like, I would put it on TikTok, and then I'd look like a couple hours later. And if it wasn't doing well, I will get insecure and delete it."

Luckily, he left this one up, because the next morning things started to change. "All these artists and different TikTok creators started covering it," Kahan said. "And it felt like, Whoa, more people know me than I thought! And it was kind of one of those moments where I was like, maybe I do have like a career ahead of me."

Did he ever! The song, "Stick Season," and the 2022 album of the same name, propelled Kahan, now 29, from a Regionally Known Musician to a multi-platinum, two-time Grammy-nominated singer on a run of sold-out stadium shows.

Legions of fans see themselves in his lyrics – specifics from Kahan's life that feel universal: Friendships lost, messy divorces, bouts of depression and anxiety … and they sing every word.

And I love Vermont, but it's the season of the sticksAnd I saw your mom, she forgot that I existedAnd it's half my fault, but I just like to play the victimI'll drink alcohol 'til my friends come home for ChristmasAnd I'll dream each night of some version of youThat I might not have, but I did not loseNow you're tire tracks and one pair of shoesAnd I'm split in half, but that'll have to doFrom "Stick Season"

Kahan said of the fans who attend his concerts, "They want that intimate feel, and they kind of go into their own worlds of these shows. I think they kind of feel like they're right up there with us. There's not a thousand background dancers or tons of fireworks and pyro. It's like a show that feels big, but small at the same time."

Even with his breakout success, there were no guarantees Kahan's follow-up record would be a hit, something that weighed on him. "The whole time, I kind of was just waiting for the other shoe to fall," he said, "waiting for it to be over, and wondering how I was going to ever maintain it. And so, I went into the process of writing my fourth album with all this expectation on myself, and so, I was approaching from like the least artistic, least healthy way. And the only solution for me really was to step away from songwriting and to wait and to trust that what I've loved to do my entire life would return to me in its purest form. And it did."

It took nearly four years, but the album "The Great Divide" (released in April) has actually surpassed "Stick Season," with every song debuting on the Billboard Hot 100.

You know I think about you all the time And my deep misunderstanding of your life And how bad it must have been for you back then And how hard it was to keep it all inside …

You inched yourself across the great divide While we drove aimlessly along the Twin State line I heard nothin' but the bass in every ballad that you'd play While you swore to God the singer read your mindFrom "The Great Divide"

Of course, as anyone who's battled with their mental health can tell you, outward success does very little to address what's going on inside a "busyhead," as Kahan puts it. "I'm confronted with the way I look all the time," he said. "Even here, giant screens, and like, I have a hard time not peeking over and being like, Man, I hate that angle. But I also find that it's allowed me to talk about it to a bigger group of people, and the response to it has been really beautiful, and it's made me feel more comfortable in my own skin in a lot of ways, too."

"Noah Kahan: Out of Body," a Netflix documentary that coincided with the release of the album, put some of Kahan's mental health struggles [such as body dysmorphia] on full display.

"Yeah, I think growing up in my family, when we always had conversations about mental health alongside laughs and jokes, it all kind of coalesced, and it never felt like something that we had to be super-serious or dark about," he said.

A turning point for Kahan was getting caught with marijuana as a teenager, and being sent to counseling, an experience which, he says, changed his life: "She was asking about risk symptoms and mental health symptoms. And I remember I checked off, like, every box. And the lady goes, 'Oh, so I'll put you in the busyhead category.' And I remembered when she said that, it just spoke to this feeling of mine that that's what I was. I was a busyhead. It's not a negative. It's not, you know, a scarlet letter. You just have a lot going on upstairs."

"Busyhead" also inspired the name of The Busyhead Project, the non-profit he founded in 2023, to get mental health help to those who might not otherwise be able to afford it. And it was back home last month, at an intimate fundraiser, that he announced the organization has raised more than $13 million to support the mission.

With all of his success (Kahan's next stadium tour is already selling out), what is an artist who's mostly mined his trauma for his music to do? Well, Noah Kahan, Regionally Famous Musician, whose region now spans the entire world, says he's going to try something new. "There's been so much joy in my life," he said, "and I want to access that joy more, because I think I deserve it, and I think the fans would still listen to it. I'm scared to trust myself to be content, because it's just not a feeling I've ever really lived with, but I'd love to try. And it's my intention to try, and so we'll see."

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Noah Kahan (Video)

You can stream the Noah Kahan album "The Great Divide" by clicking on the embed below (Free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):

Story produced by Lucie Kirk. Editor: Remington Korper.