[mucsic]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It, on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I am grateful you are here. Let's get right back into our show, dedicated to some of our favorite live-in-studio performances, starting with singer-songwriter, and proud Vermonter, Noah Kahan.

[music]

Noah Kahan is a singer-songwriter whose popularity is growing every day. His album Stick Season was a hit, and the title track was everywhere on TikTok in 2022. The phrase Stick Season is how local Vermonters, describe a very specific New England time between fall and winter. The album is a soundtrack to the feeling of stick season. Since the album came out, Kahan has released a deluxe version of Stick Season and is in the midst of a nationwide tour. He's set to play in New York, at Radio City Music Hall, on August 31st.

Around the release of the album, Kahan joined us in December of 2022, live in our studio, for a special performance, and we began by hearing him play an acoustic version of his hit song Stick Season.

[MUSIC - Noah Kahan: Stick Season]

Noah Kahan: As you promised me that I was more than all the miles combined

You must have had yourself a change of heart

Like halfway through the drive

Because your voice trailed off exactly as you passed my exit sign

Kept on driving straight and left our future to the right

Now I am stuck between my angerAnd the blame that I can't face

And memories are something

Even smoking weed does not replace

And I am terrified of weather 'cause I see you when it rains

Doc told me to travel, but there's COVID on the planes

And I love Vermont, but it's the season of the sticks and I

Saw your mom she forgot that I existed and

It's half my fault, but I just like to play the victim

I'll drink alcohol 'til my friends come home for Christmas

And I'll dream each night of some version of you

That I might not have, but I did not lose

Now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes

And I'm split in half, but that'll have to do, ooh, ooh

So I thought that if I piled something good on all my bad

That I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad

No, I am no longer funny 'cause I miss the way you laugh

Once called me forever now you still can't call me back

And I love Vermont, but it's the season of the sticks and I

Saw your mom she forgot that I existed and

It's half my fault, but I just like to play the victim

I'll drink alcohol 'til my friends come home for Christmas

And I'll dream each night of some version of you

That I might not have, but I did not lose

Now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes

And I'm split in half, but that'll have to do, ooh, ooh

Oh, that'll have to do

My other half was you

I hope this pain's just passing through

But I doubt it

And I love Vermont, but it's the season of the sticks and I

Saw your mom she forgot that I existed and

It's half my fault, but I just like to play the victim

I'll drink alcohol 'til my friends come home for Christmas

And I'll dream each night of some version of you

That I might not have, but I did not lose

Now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes

And I'm split in half, but that'll have to do

Have to do, ooh

Alison Stewart: Noah Kahan, there's a lot of applause. Turn behind you. [laughs]

Noah Kahan: Oh, my God. It's like Live Aid.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] The entire control room going bananas. Obviously, you're from Vermont. What is a tell? What is something about you that I can tell you're from Vermont before you even say it?

Noah Kahan: I think there's a common thread through Vermonters and New Englanders in general, that are little bit prickly, maybe a little bit impatient, but I think deep down there's a kindness, this is also what I'm saying about myself. This might be interpreted differently by my loved ones, but I feel like people in New England are incredibly kind and very reserved. I think being cold all the time, trying to race as quick as you can from place to place, to get out of the cold, it plays an impact on who you are.

For me, I feel like if you get to know me, I'm very kind, but on an outward glance, maybe it comes off as a little bit bristly. I find that to be common in a lot of Vermonters, and I find that in myself, for sure.

Alison Stewart: New Englanders, they just don't really have a lot of time. To your point, they're trying to get someplace warm. They've got something to do. It takes a lot of ways to get around places in New England because streets are one-way and made for horses, not for cars, as they say.

Noah Kahan: Yes. This is also the only day that I'm not wearing a flannel this week. I think if I came in with my flannel, that would've been the first tell.

Alison Stewart: Got you.

Noah Kahan: We're rocking flannel. I have a Subaru Outback. I'm all the stereotypes in one person.

Alison Stewart: When did you write Stick Season?

Noah Kahan: Funny enough, I actually wrote it in LA. I was in the studio, recording my second album. I really loved my second album, but the process of recording, being in Los Angeles, and feeling so far from home was wearing on me. I would go home to my Airbnb, and I would just write folk songs about New England because it made me happy and because I felt like they were just mine.

I felt like I'd given myself to so many different things and to so many different people, and I was like, "I just want something for me." This little ditty about Vermont and Stick Season was really me and my own. I wrote it in the Airbnb, I put it up on TikTok and it started to react over there. It felt like something that was more for my soul than it was for my career, which was a really cool experience.

Alison Stewart: When did you realize the song was blowing up on TikTok, when it was seeming to go viral?

Noah Kahan: I think the moment I was like, "This is a viral song," was when people would use the sound, but they would turn it all the way down and then promote whatever content they were making. Because it just would boost the algorithm to have the song in the video. That was when I was like, "Cool. They don't like the song, they're using it for their own game." I'm like, "That's when I know I'm doing the right thing. It's just working."

I think the first moment I was like, "This is really going to react and going to happen." Is when these hundreds and hundreds of covers of people making their own versions and making their own lyrics started to come onto my For You Page. My For You Page is very weird. It's all soccer commentary and NBA 2K highlight video, so having my own song on my For You Page meant that it was really reacting and spreading across the platform. It was really cool. A little overwhelming, but very cool.

Alison Stewart: For people who think, "Noah Kahan, he's that TikTok artist," you've been at this for a while. You had a record deal six years ago or so, something like that?

Noah Kahan: Yes. I got a record deal when I was 19, and I'm 25 now.

Alison Stewart: That was a big choice you had to make, whether or not to go to college, I think it was Tulane, or to sign a deal and pursue your professional career that young. What kind of questions did you ask yourself? What went into that decision?

Noah Kahan: I think the question became-- What am I my valuing in my life right now? I spent my entire childhood dreaming about being a musician, and every decision I made was trying to get me closer to making that come true, but as that happens, you go on the autopilot path that life takes you on. Let's go to school, go to college, get a job. I think in the back of my head, I was always just hoping I'll get a record deal, or I'll find a way in. The choice presented itself really clearly.

It was college or music. I was lucky to have parents who were supportive of me in my decision to make music. They were also like, "We don't want to spend $60,000 a year for you to try to be a musician while also going to college." They put three other kids through college, and they were very happy to let me go do my dream. It was just-- I don't want to say gambling on myself, as much as it was just remembering what I've always wanted and taking the opportunity when it arose.

Alison Stewart: Can we hear another song, Growing Sideways?

Noah Kahan: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: You want to set it up a little bit?

Noah Kahan: Sure. Yes. This song is about my experiences in therapy and my experience with compartmentalization through a lot of my childhood. I, again, was so fortunate to have parents who supported me, in that, they allowed me to go to therapy from when I was 12 years old. I didn't think I needed it at the time, and now I'm like, "Thank God they did that." At the time, I still was going to these sessions, and I was like, "I'm in therapy, and that's enough work."

I can say I went to therapy, but I wouldn't actually be in therapy. I would just be talking around everything. I would never approach anything that I really held close to my heart. Any of that pain that felt super intimate, I would never talk about. I would spend all this money and I would leave and not learn anything new about myself. About two and a half years ago, I started to go to therapy in a way that feels more honest, doing a little bit more of the work, and approaching these feelings.

Once I did that, I started to feel really sad for myself at every opportunity to get better and be better, and I didn't take it. I was kicking the can down the road and pushing things aside, and I wanted to write a song about that feeling. I really did feel like I was never making any progress, so I wrote a song called Growing Sideways, which is about that experience.

Alison Stewart: This is Noah Kahan.

[MUSIC - Noah Kahan: Growing Sideways]

Noah Kahan: So I took my medication and I poured my trauma out

On some sad-eyed middle-aged man's overpriced new leather couch

And we argued about Jesus, finally found some middle ground

I said, "I'm cured"

And I divvied up my anger into thirty separate parts

Keep the bad [censored] in my liver and the rest around my heart

I'm still angry at my parents for what their parents did to them

But it's a start

But I ignore things and I move sideways

'Til I forget what I felt in the first place

At the end of the day, I know there are worse ways to stay alive

'Cause everyone's growing and everyone's healthy

I'm terrified that I might never have met me

Oh, if my engine works perfect on empty

I guess I'll drive

I guess I'll drive

I forgot my medication, fell into a manic high

Spent my savings at a Lulu, now I'm sufferin' in style

Why is pain so damn impatient? Ain't like it's got a place to be

Keeps rushin' me

But I ignore things and I move sideways

'Til I forget what I felt in the first place

At the end of the day, I know there are worse ways to stay alive

'Cause everyone's growing and everyone's healthy

I'm terrified that I might never have met me

Oh, if my engine works perfect on empty

I guess I'll drive

And if all my time was wasted

I don't mind, I'll watch it go

Yeah, it's better to die numb than feel it all

Oh, if all my time was wasted

I don't mind, I'll watch it go

Yeah, it's better to die numb than feel it all

But I ignore things and I move sideways

Until I forget what I felt in the first place

At the end of the day, God knows there are worse ways to stay alive

'Cause everyone's growing and everyone's healthy

I'm terrified that I might never have met me

Oh, if my engine works perfect on empty

I guess I'll drive

I guess I'll drive

Alison Stewart: Noah, you just came off a national tour, and given that that song was about mental health, how are you taking care of your own mental health when you're on tour? It can be exciting, but it can also be grueling. You're around a lot of people, and then you're by yourself.

Noah Kahan: I thought I was doing a better job this time. I was going to therapy weekly, taking care of my body, sleeping more, and trying to be more balanced. I think it was an improvement. After getting off the road, I've definitely suffered from a lot of that withdrawal feeling of the attention, the busy schedule, and the people that are helping take care of your life for you, and coming just to nothing afterwards, has been really hard.

I don't want to say I'm doing a perfect job, but I'm definitely making strides to be better at taking care of myself. I used to think that I couldn't go to therapy when I was on the road because I had to be in this specific mindset, of like, "Just get the shows done at all costs. Who cares if you feel gross or bad about yourself? As long as you can perform every night--" That created a lot of problems in my life, as you can imagine, it created a lot of anxiety.

It created a lot of bad eating and drinking habits, and these ways I was coping with these really crazy stressful two hours of my days that came back to absolutely nothing for the rest of the 22 hours. Going to therapy was really helpful on this tour. Every night I had the chance to tell everybody in the room that I don't care how happy you are, if you can afford it, and you have the opportunity and the privilege to do it, please go to therapy.

It's so important. If I have any platform, I want to tell people to try to go to therapy if you can, because I think it's such an important tool.

Alison Stewart: That was singer-songwriter Noah Kahan, live, in-studio performing songs from his album Stick Season. Kahan will be playing at Radio City Music Hall on August 31.

[music]

Up next, more live performances courtesy of the UK band The Heavy Heavy an up-and-coming group who are currently on tour around the US. This is All Of It.

 

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