Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty three has been a hell of a year
Speaker 2: for singer songwriter Noah Kahn. Just three years ago, he
Speaker 2: started uploading snippets of his indie folks songs to TikTok
Speaker 2: while waiting out the pandemic at his dad's house in
Speaker 2: rural Vermont. Those songs quickly caught fire across social media
Speaker 2: and eventually turned into Noah's most recent album, Stick Season,
Speaker 2: and after releasing collaborations with Casey Musgraves, Hosier and Post Malone,
Speaker 2: Noah's amassed four billion streams globally. It's no surprise that
Speaker 2: last month he was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy.
Speaker 2: But while Noah's often called the breakout star of the year,
Speaker 2: he's actually not a music industry rookie. He signed up
Speaker 2: Republic Records in twenty seventeen, initially working as a songwriter
Speaker 2: in New York, where he learned the intricacies of writing
Speaker 2: pop music. It wasn't until the music industry shut down
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty that he was able to apply those
Speaker 2: techniques he learned as a songwriter to his own work
Speaker 2: as a singer songwriter. On today's episode, Lea Rose talks
Speaker 2: to Noa Khan about navigating his often overwhelming newfound success
Speaker 2: and how he feels about being labeled the new quote
Speaker 2: unquote sensitive Woodsman singer songwriter de Jore. Noah also opens
Speaker 2: up about initially being embarrassed about his singing voice and
Speaker 2: his plans for evolving his sound on his next album,
Speaker 2: This is Broken Record. Liner notes to the digital age,
Speaker 2: I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Lea Rose's conversation with Noah Khan.
Speaker 3: When you were writing Stick Season, did you have any
Speaker 3: overarching guiding principles?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: I think like in hindsight, it's always easy to say,
Speaker 4: like I wanted to write about loneliness during a lonely time,
Speaker 4: or I think I had been feeling lonely for a
Speaker 4: lot of my life and that was just kind of
Speaker 4: finding its way into my music.
Speaker 1: And I was in Vermont and that found this way
Speaker 1: into my music.
Speaker 4: I definitely didn't walk in with any you know, intention
Speaker 4: of like a theme. Besides that, I wanted to write
Speaker 4: about what I was going through at that point in
Speaker 4: my life and my relationship with my home state and
Speaker 4: my hometown, with my family and with myself. At that time,
Speaker 4: it was like kind of just in real life on
Speaker 4: my mind and really like a pervasive part of my
Speaker 4: experience day to day. And I think what my overarching
Speaker 4: goal was just to have an outlet for that, and
Speaker 4: I ended up being the start of, you know, the
Speaker 4: concept for the record essentially.
Speaker 3: And so what was your situation, Like what was a
Speaker 3: setup during the pandemic? Were you suddenly like back home
Speaker 3: in the house that you grew up in with your family, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much like I.
Speaker 4: You know, I grew up in New Hampshire and Vermont,
Speaker 4: and we moved to this place in Vermont when I
Speaker 4: was halfway through high school, and so it kind of
Speaker 4: was like my childhood home in many ways. I we'd
Speaker 4: had the property my entire life since long before I
Speaker 4: was born. So it was a place that I was,
Speaker 4: you know, considered much at home or like, you know,
Speaker 4: a very familiar place for me that I had a
Speaker 4: lot of, you know, my memories and different attachments too.
Speaker 4: I was living in New York and was like really
Speaker 4: lost at that point in my life, like just kind
Speaker 4: of burning out pretty hard with music, and I for
Speaker 4: some reason never felt like a New Yorker I lived there.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I only lived there for at
Speaker 4: that point for about a year, but I never felt
Speaker 4: like I belonged.
Speaker 1: I felt like it was my first day there. Every
Speaker 1: single day I was in the city.
Speaker 4: And you know that the pandemic, you know that that
Speaker 4: one week in March, I remember, you know, getting one
Speaker 4: of those hoax texts. I was like, the governor of
Speaker 4: the mayor is about to close the borders to the city,
Speaker 4: Like you need to get out and keep pressing the link.
Speaker 4: And it's like it was actually a picture of a
Speaker 4: guy's dick, is what it was when pressed the link.
Speaker 4: But I I I had I pressed the link. I mean,
Speaker 4: my older brother was in town. We were like fucket.
Speaker 4: We literally ran for the hills and drove to Vermont
Speaker 4: that night, got home. We're like, okay, like they weren't
Speaker 4: closing the borders, but it probably was a good time
Speaker 4: to get back.
Speaker 1: So we we got home and uh, we don't.
Speaker 4: I don't go back to New York until I moved
Speaker 4: my stuff out of August of twenty twenty, and I
Speaker 4: was home for about a year and a half, so
Speaker 4: I really I went right back to the my parents' house.
Speaker 4: My parents split up and it became my dad's house
Speaker 4: and we have like a barn with like a little
Speaker 4: studio a little like an apartment above it.
Speaker 1: And my dad was like, hey, like while you're figuring
Speaker 1: what you want to do out.
Speaker 4: And like, well, if the world is figuring what's going
Speaker 4: to happen out, like you can stay up there rent free.
Speaker 4: And so my dad let me stay up in the
Speaker 4: barn and that kind of became like where I made
Speaker 4: up on music and where I.
Speaker 1: Did these Instagram live streams and where I.
Speaker 4: You know, started to really like digest my experience and
Speaker 4: start making the album.
Speaker 3: How old were you at that point?
Speaker 4: So twenty twenty I was, This is twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: I'm twenty six. Now this is why I should have
Speaker 4: gone to college. Kind of do the math in my head.
Speaker 4: It's literally twenty six. Mine is three. I was twenty two,
Speaker 4: twenty three years old. I think I was twenty three
Speaker 4: at the start of the pandemic.
Speaker 3: Did that feel at that point, like moving back home? Like,
Speaker 3: how did that feel?
Speaker 1: Honestly? Like it felt amazing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I hate to like to be positively about
Speaker 4: what was like such a terrible time just generally for
Speaker 4: the world and for millions of people, but and I
Speaker 4: kind of a fucked up way like it was just
Speaker 4: it felt like this escape from this really monotonous style
Speaker 4: of life I was living, and it felt so refreshing.
Speaker 4: I think like I spent so much of my time
Speaker 4: as a musician and as someone that had like a
Speaker 4: very untraditional job, feeling like I'm living like an imposter's life,
Speaker 4: Like everyone's going to work and I'm kind of like
Speaker 4: grabbing a coffee at two pm and started to try
Speaker 4: to write songs. Yeah, stepping away and going on my
Speaker 4: phone for two hours. And I always kind of felt
Speaker 4: like I was moving in slow motion and everybody was
Speaker 4: moving at regular speed, and suddenly, like the pandemic felt
Speaker 4: like it brought everybody to the same speed for one second.
Speaker 4: And that's a very rare thing. And for me, it
Speaker 4: was so rare to feel connected to people that were
Speaker 4: around me. I felt this disconnected from everyone, from my
Speaker 4: friends and from my family, and from even other musicians,
Speaker 4: because I couldn't relate to my friends because they weren't
Speaker 4: musicians and they were working, you know, different jobs than
Speaker 4: a different you know, equally complicated and difficult but abstract
Speaker 4: in me lifestyle, and I.
Speaker 1: Couldn't relate to the musicians because for some reason.
Speaker 4: It always like talking to the musicians always created this
Speaker 4: feeling of anxiety within me, like just this feeling of
Speaker 4: other nis, just feeling of feeling left out of some
Speaker 4: shared experience that all the other musicians were having together.
Speaker 4: Whether that's just the insecurity, probably, but I still felt it,
Speaker 4: and so I felt like I was stuck between two
Speaker 4: different styles of life. And when the dynamic hit in
Speaker 4: that first few months of my family being back home
Speaker 4: and everyone being like, what the fuck are we going
Speaker 4: to do? And the musicians being like what the fuck
Speaker 4: are we gonna do? And the finance and tech people
Speaker 4: being like, what the fuck are we gonna do? It
Speaker 4: just felt unifying in like a weird way, and it
Speaker 4: made me feel like I finally had some even footing
Speaker 4: with the world, and that was strangely really nice for me,
Speaker 4: despite how challenging it was for other reasons.
Speaker 3: Is it different now the way that you feel towards
Speaker 3: other musicians. Have you found people that you're able to
Speaker 3: relate to more?
Speaker 1: Yes? And I think a lot.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's been a result of me making the
Speaker 4: effort and accepting that I might feel anxious or insecure
Speaker 4: and trying to power through that. Because there's not a
Speaker 4: lot of people that relate to what's going on in
Speaker 4: my life right now, and some of the only people
Speaker 4: I can relate to are people that I've been through it,
Speaker 4: and I had to force myself to be willing to
Speaker 4: hear them and to accept their perspectives and to try.
Speaker 1: To learn from it. It all came for me, you know.
Speaker 4: It was all me facing the insecurity of trying to
Speaker 4: relate to people that I've typically had a hard time
Speaker 4: relating to, and it's made it a lot easier to
Speaker 4: kind of have those conversations now. Having those first few
Speaker 4: conversations and being willing to sit down and talk to
Speaker 4: somebody and be vulnerable with somebody that you know might
Speaker 4: understand it and been a really cool and eye opening
Speaker 4: experience for me this past year and a half two years.
Speaker 1: It's been very helpful, in fact, very crucial in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways.
Speaker 3: Did it change the way that you wrote songs when
Speaker 3: you were back home?
Speaker 1: It did?
Speaker 4: It really did, because I was writing songs in New
Speaker 4: York just because I wanted to fill time and I
Speaker 4: want to feel like I had a job, and I
Speaker 4: was You could hear it in the songs.
Speaker 1: It was you know, pop songwriting.
Speaker 4: Is just there's a real formula to it, for better
Speaker 4: or for worse, and a lot of sessions, you know,
Speaker 4: you sit down and you talk to somebody and you
Speaker 4: pretend like you're having a normal conversation, but you're both
Speaker 4: looking for a hook and what everyone's saying, or a concept,
Speaker 4: and then you identify it and sit down and write
Speaker 4: about it and fulfill the concept and write a verse
Speaker 4: and a chorus, and a verse and a bridge and
Speaker 4: a drop chorus and a chorus, and it just there
Speaker 4: is a real formula to it that for me was.
Speaker 1: Becoming monotonous and my numbing.
Speaker 4: And by the time I got home to Vermont, I
Speaker 4: was so sure that the music industry would never come
Speaker 4: back that I was like, I'm gonna write the way
Speaker 4: I like to write, and that is, you know, not
Speaker 4: having a concept, sitting down and writing about what I'm feeling,
Speaker 4: trying to come up with stories, and trying to be
Speaker 4: creative in a way that doesn't stick to a certain
Speaker 4: concept that might not even relate to me, just writing
Speaker 4: about anything that I feel in the moment, stepping away
Speaker 4: if I don't want to fucking do it anymore, and
Speaker 4: coming back a week later and sitting down with feeling
Speaker 4: inspired again, going on my own pace, and being willing
Speaker 4: to just make whatever made me happy in that moment.
Speaker 4: It's very difficult to control a song in a songwriting
Speaker 4: session in that way, because you're working with people that
Speaker 4: I would have motivations of their own and have schedules
Speaker 4: of their own, and you really have to To me,
Speaker 4: it felt like I was sacrificing some of the process
Speaker 4: for other people, and that was a terrible feeling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, were you working with like big named artists, like
Speaker 3: anyone we would know? Are you allowed to say.
Speaker 1: I was working with incredible songwriters?
Speaker 4: Yeah, incredible songwriters, some of the best in the world
Speaker 4: who have written beautiful songs that are clearly heartfelt and
Speaker 4: full of emotion and full of grounded real feelings and
Speaker 4: have written huge hits. You know, I could have written
Speaker 4: with Max Martin. It would have sounded like I made
Speaker 4: it with my next door neighbor or something. You know,
Speaker 4: it didn't. Everything I was making was colored by my
Speaker 4: own burnout right, and by my lack of passion and
Speaker 4: my feeling of you know, exhaustion of being a songwriter.
Speaker 4: It was like every song to me, you had the
Speaker 4: same color to it, and I think that it's really
Speaker 4: like a symptom of depression in a lot of ways, Like,
Speaker 4: you know, every single thing feels the same. And I
Speaker 4: look back at some of these songs, like, you know,
Speaker 4: those songs actually had a lot of life in them
Speaker 4: in a lot of ways, and some of those songs
Speaker 4: are really great. And I listen back a like proud
Speaker 4: of those songs, more proud than I ever was in
Speaker 4: a moment, and I think it was just, you know,
Speaker 4: it was really a statement about my state of my
Speaker 4: state of my mind and my emotions of that time
Speaker 4: that made those songs feel, you know, the same, regardless
Speaker 4: of what I'm working with.
Speaker 3: Would you're writing a new song, do you have an
Speaker 3: idea of where the inspiration comes from? Like does it
Speaker 3: feel like it comes from outside of you or does
Speaker 3: it feel like it's more internal and making its way out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's more internal and making its way out.
Speaker 4: It's very rarely a conscious thing. I feel as if
Speaker 4: I'm writing because it feels good in the moment, and
Speaker 4: I look back and I'm like, oh, that's because of
Speaker 4: that thing that happened, or that's because I've been feeling
Speaker 4: like this for the past few weeks, and I don't
Speaker 4: realize it until after, which is kind of fun because
Speaker 4: it feels like you don't have to do the work
Speaker 4: of feeling bad about how you're feeling and then making
Speaker 4: the song. It's like you just make the song and
Speaker 4: then you think about how bad you're feeling later. It's
Speaker 4: kind of a nice It's kind of like a get
Speaker 4: out of jail free card for feeling emotions, which is
Speaker 4: kind of cool.
Speaker 3: And how quickly does it cause relief? Is it like
Speaker 3: as soon as you put a line down, do you
Speaker 3: start to feel a little bit of the pressure release?
Speaker 1: No, totally.
Speaker 4: I think just one line can make the whole difference.
Speaker 4: And then there are songs that I've heard that I'm like,
Speaker 4: I don't even like the rest of the song. Is
Speaker 4: that one line that I'm so connected to And that
Speaker 4: happens with me all the time if I write a
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes I'm like, this verse is fine, I
Speaker 4: might as well keep going because it has a good
Speaker 4: melody or a good core progression, and then the chorus
Speaker 4: and like.
Speaker 1: This is why it's good.
Speaker 4: That line is enough for need to love the whole song,
Speaker 4: and it really does create like an instant sense of relief,
Speaker 4: to feel, to feel that a line can, even just
Speaker 4: five words, can encapsulate how you're actually feeling. It's cool.
Speaker 4: That's what's so special about songwriting.
Speaker 1: That's so great.
Speaker 4: You never know when that relief is gonna come, and
Speaker 4: it's exciting, and it's kind of like gambling, you know,
Speaker 4: because you know you have to put so much emotional,
Speaker 4: so much emotion into something, and you don't know how
Speaker 4: it's gonna turn out. But when it hits, it's like
Speaker 4: the jackpot of feeling relief and feeling excited and feeling.
Speaker 1: Uh, satisfied. Is is worth that that kind of torture
Speaker 1: of making amusing?
Speaker 3: Does it really feel like torture? No, seems like it
Speaker 3: comes fairly easily to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not working in a fucking coal mine. Uh.
Speaker 4: I always try to do care. Sometimes I find myself
Speaker 4: talking about songwriting. I'm like, I sound like a fucking asshole,
Speaker 4: Like this stuff is not that hard. What's challenging, uh,
Speaker 4: And what makes it feel like torture sometimes is the
Speaker 4: constant comparison. I think if I had like the Men
Speaker 4: in Black thing where you like make people forget that
Speaker 4: stick thing that like makes people forget their like what
Speaker 4: just happened?
Speaker 1: If I have one of those, and I can.
Speaker 4: Erase all the context of my songwriting career, my life,
Speaker 4: I think I would love songwriting so much more. I
Speaker 4: always find myself comparing whatever I'm doing in the moment
Speaker 4: to what I've made before. You know, the comparison. It's
Speaker 4: a thief of all joy. Yeah, he's the most successful
Speaker 4: thief in the fucking history of my life. Like, it's
Speaker 4: just always I'm always comparing myself, and so you kind
Speaker 4: of are already losing when you do that. And I
Speaker 4: feel like I set myself up for failure in that way,
Speaker 4: and it requires a real will to just sit in
Speaker 4: that feeling of comparing herself and to let it go
Speaker 4: to make the songwriting and feel exciting and fun. And
Speaker 4: I've gotten better at that, but it's still something I practiced.
Speaker 3: What do you think is the best song you've ever written?
Speaker 3: And you're comparing in your mind, like, what are you
Speaker 3: putting that up against?
Speaker 4: I think right now, I think my favorite song I've
Speaker 4: ever made would be Homesick, because when I listened back
Speaker 4: to that song, I'm not only excited about the lyrics
Speaker 4: and about the story, but also some of the risks
Speaker 4: that I took in the instrumentation, the musicality of it.
Speaker 4: It was one of the first songs I had that
Speaker 4: was like rocking and like let the band play a
Speaker 4: little bit and allowed states to happen in a way
Speaker 4: that still felt compelling. A lot of times I just
Speaker 4: stuff words over everything so that there's no one can
Speaker 4: find out that I'm playing the same three chords over
Speaker 4: and over again. But with Homesick, I felt like I
Speaker 4: allowed myself to just take a risk that people were
Speaker 4: invested enough in the song that I could have some
Speaker 4: moments to be musical and to be experimental musically in
Speaker 4: the context of my own music, by the way, experiment
Speaker 4: and allow that to live and to not feel like
Speaker 4: I need to smother that with lyrics so.
Speaker 1: That song I'm really excited to buy another song.
Speaker 4: A lot of times I find the songs that I
Speaker 4: am most proud of are the ones that I still
Speaker 4: relate two years later. A song like young Blood is
Speaker 4: just a song I wrote when I was eighteen or
Speaker 4: nineteen years old, and I still feel like I connect
Speaker 4: to those lyrics so much, and they still feel mature
Speaker 4: to me and exciting to me. And that's always cool,
Speaker 4: you know, to look back at a song that I
Speaker 4: was written eight years ago and to feel like it
Speaker 4: was a representation of who I am.
Speaker 1: You know at twenty six, What.
Speaker 3: Part in particular are you thinking?
Speaker 1: Eh?
Speaker 4: I think from like a song running standpoint, I really
Speaker 4: like just the melody choices in that song, Like I
Speaker 4: like that, you know, ascending melody that comes into falsetto
Speaker 4: and comes out. You know, it's not like a vocal
Speaker 4: run that someone's trying to be, like an impressive vocal run,
Speaker 4: you know, or you're trying to like flex your vocal muscle.
Speaker 1: It's really just like.
Speaker 4: An emotional vocal run that I thought was really you know,
Speaker 4: it's funny talking about myself in the past.
Speaker 1: I thought was clever.
Speaker 4: And then lyrically, I think that that kind of mantra
Speaker 4: style of lyrics aged really well. A lot of times
Speaker 4: mantras came just we change our principles a perspective, But
Speaker 4: that perspective has still stuck with me and it's felt
Speaker 4: very relevant to my career.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Is there anything you're embarrassed about or anything you've said
Speaker 3: in a song, any lines that you thought were like
Speaker 3: incredible when you wrote them. Your younger self wrote them
Speaker 3: that you're like, I got it, like I figured it out,
Speaker 3: and you listen to it now and you're like, oh
Speaker 3: my god.
Speaker 1: Definitely.
Speaker 4: I think if you gave me twenty minutes, I could
Speaker 4: come up with a list of a thousand things I'm
Speaker 4: embarrassed about. But I think I'm mostly embarrassed about how
Speaker 4: much I tried to hide my singing voice. I think
Speaker 4: I tried to be really cute and stylistic and affected
Speaker 4: with my singing voice a lot of times, hiding because
Speaker 4: I didn't feel like I had a very good voice
Speaker 4: and that I had to be like more unique or
Speaker 4: like indie sounding, And I think I kind of adjusted
Speaker 4: it in some songs to feel like I was something
Speaker 4: worth listening to. And it wasn't until I started to
Speaker 4: kind of, you know, with taking vocal lessons but also
Speaker 4: just allowing myself to sing more naturally that I started
Speaker 4: to feel really proud of my voice as it is
Speaker 4: and be comfortable with it and come to terms with that.
Speaker 4: So I look back, I'm like, man, you should have
Speaker 4: sang that part like yeah, who carries you sound a
Speaker 4: little nasally or if like you sound a little bit
Speaker 4: a little bit sharp in that moment we got auto
Speaker 4: tune baby, like you should have just tried to sing it.
Speaker 4: So sometimes I look back and I'm a little bit
Speaker 4: ashamed of not trusting my voice a little earlier.
Speaker 3: Are there things that you're excited to try, like new ideas,
Speaker 3: new ways you're going to stretch either your voice or songwriting,
Speaker 3: or different musical ideas that you're looking forward to trying
Speaker 3: on your next album?
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: We uh. I was work messing out in the studio
Speaker 4: a couple of days ago with Gabe Simon, who produced
Speaker 4: six Season with me, and Conrad Snyder who.
Speaker 1: Engineered it, and Carrie who played drums and all the songs.
Speaker 4: We were just jamming out and playing some kind of
Speaker 4: like some of my radio Head type stuff where I
Speaker 4: was really wail and singing, and it was really fun
Speaker 4: to kind of.
Speaker 1: Like wail and to not be so precious of the words.
Speaker 4: And to let the singing, like the actual notes, you know,
Speaker 4: carry the emotion. Was really cool and something that I
Speaker 4: want to, you know, try a little bit more. I like,
Speaker 4: we place so many shows that I want every song
Speaker 4: to be really fun to play live.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about that. When you're
Speaker 3: writing songs. There's certain songs that you have that seem
Speaker 3: like they were created with a live performance in mind,
Speaker 3: like some of the songs where it starts out quiet
Speaker 3: and then it just explodes like wall of sound, you know,
Speaker 3: once the chorus hits or even you know, as the
Speaker 3: verse develops. Is that something you think about when you're writing.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent?
Speaker 4: I do, Yeah, I just think about how can we
Speaker 4: make this part as exciting as possible? And what has
Speaker 4: happened with a lot of the songs you know, on
Speaker 4: Stick Season, on the Deluxe and some of the stuff
Speaker 4: that I'm writing now is that I really love doing
Speaker 4: songs that don't have repeating parts, so it feels like
Speaker 4: a legitimate, like roller coaster ride for the fans. Like
Speaker 4: you have a start of something that's slow and builds
Speaker 4: and it comes into a crazy place. It goes into
Speaker 4: a different verse that's a different melody and different lyric
Speaker 4: and do a different chorus, Just allowing myself to kind
Speaker 4: of create a little bit of a journey and tell
Speaker 4: a story and the music instead of feeling like, you know,
Speaker 4: it's that pop formula verse chorus, verse, chorus, vers chorus,
Speaker 4: bridge chorus, joh chorus versus and being able to kind
Speaker 4: of step away from that is really fun and knowing
Speaker 4: that live it's gonna be so exciting. You know, there
Speaker 4: are songs like a song we have called Your Needs,
Speaker 4: My Needs that does that that just starts little and
Speaker 4: just explodes and it's the best moment of the set
Speaker 4: live and it's you know, certainly not the most streame song,
Speaker 4: but it's that song that really lives for the live performance,
Speaker 4: and you know, just to anecdotally, like I when I
Speaker 4: lived the New York one thing that I love about
Speaker 4: New York was every week, at least.
Speaker 1: Two or three nights a week, I go see a show.
Speaker 4: And sometimes I'd be at Webster Hall or Brooklyn Steele
Speaker 4: or MSG or whatever. A lot of times it was
Speaker 4: at you know, Ballery Ballroom or Mercury Lounge, seeing little
Speaker 4: artists and small artists walking away and being like, I
Speaker 4: know that artist so much better than I ever could
Speaker 4: if I listened on Spotify, because I got it year live. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was something that really inspire me.
Speaker 3: How much are you changing the song's live? Because I know,
Speaker 3: as a music fan, sometimes you go and see an
Speaker 3: artist you love and when they change the songs too much.
Speaker 3: You're a little bit pissed because you kind of want
Speaker 3: to sing along to what you know. So how much
Speaker 3: are you actually changing the songs when you're performing live.
Speaker 4: Well, we always keep the parts that are recorded in
Speaker 4: this song, so we always make sure that we sing
Speaker 4: every lyric and every verse and chorus gets their own moment.
Speaker 1: We add a lot.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we'll add a moment from my band to solo,
Speaker 4: like these guys, it's funny. These guys are world class
Speaker 4: musicians that are having to play a E minor c
Speaker 4: F And I'm like, give these dud the second to
Speaker 4: jam out a little bit because they are.
Speaker 1: Talented and shit showcase it.
Speaker 4: And so we let the band play and they have fun,
Speaker 4: and we change it based on each crowd. Sometimes we
Speaker 4: change we add a chorus with the crowd is screaming
Speaker 4: every word and let them sing a little bit longer.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we'll be like, this crowdfucking hates this song, let's
Speaker 4: just do the regular version of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really a crowd by crowd, show by show thing.
Speaker 3: What's the song that gets the biggest reaction from the crowds.
Speaker 4: Well, we played Northern Aitude first, which is really fun
Speaker 4: because It just is a real sing along tune and
Speaker 4: people are are already excited for us to be coming out,
Speaker 4: and they're kind of like excited that it's a song.
Speaker 4: They definitely know that song gets a great response. We
Speaker 4: let them sing the chorus at the end, which is
Speaker 4: super cool. It's funny like Paul Revere is a song
Speaker 4: that gets a lot of attention live, which is just
Speaker 4: like a specific song about like a New England I
Speaker 4: guess legend, I guess you could say, or like old
Speaker 4: It's just like an a lot of New England references
Speaker 4: and wherever I am, that's always the fun one to play.
Speaker 2: We're gonna take a quick break and then come back
Speaker 2: with more from Lea Rose and Noah Khan. We're back
Speaker 2: with Lea Rose and Noah Khan.
Speaker 3: With Northern Attitude. The lyrics are very literary and it's
Speaker 3: like you're outlining the major strokes of someone's life. Did
Speaker 3: you have somebody specific in mind when you wrote that song?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there are elements of it that I
Speaker 4: take from my dad, and elements that I see in
Speaker 4: trans parents and lots of children of divorce. You know,
Speaker 4: this feeling of what now and this is who I am,
Speaker 4: but you kind of have to start over. And I
Speaker 4: have so much respect for my dad and for my
Speaker 4: mom because it takes a lot of courage to do
Speaker 4: something like that. It's so easy to be stuck in.
Speaker 4: It's so easy to stay in what's comfortable, even if
Speaker 4: it's making miserable. I know all about it, and I
Speaker 4: have so much respect for people that make that decision
Speaker 4: for themselves. And I have so much respect for the
Speaker 4: journey afterwards of discovery, rediscovery and reevaluation, and that stuff
Speaker 4: is really hard to do at any age, but particularly
Speaker 4: when you have lived the life a certain way for
Speaker 4: a long time. So yeah, yeah, that's definitely inspiration for
Speaker 4: my pops, and I think there's some hope in it too,
Speaker 4: you know, like this feeling of accepting yourself and being
Speaker 4: able to evaluate yourself critically and explaining that to somebody
Speaker 4: as an important step and growth and change, and those
Speaker 4: are themes I want to evaluate in that team.
Speaker 3: During the pandemic, when you started uploading like little snippets
Speaker 3: of songs to TikTok, how much did you think about
Speaker 3: how you were framed in the shot and like how
Speaker 3: intimate and how upclose it was, especially since you were
Speaker 3: talking about being self conscious about your voice because you're
Speaker 3: like right up in there. You know, it's great for
Speaker 3: the people watching it because it's like it's very vulnerable,
Speaker 3: but like people really feel like they know you because
Speaker 3: we're like so close to you so.
Speaker 4: You can see the fucking pores in my nose. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I honestly didn't think about it at all. Like I
Speaker 4: tell people, like every phone I have a nice new phone,
Speaker 4: every photo I've ever taken on a nice phone looks
Speaker 4: like it was taken from an iPhone too, like I have.
Speaker 4: I have such a poor grasp on technology. I have
Speaker 4: such a poor grasp on aesthetics. Like I was the
Speaker 4: guy in high school that would post a terrible photo
Speaker 4: of a sunset every like five months, and then that
Speaker 4: was like my Instagram presence.
Speaker 1: That was it. That's all I engagement.
Speaker 4: There was no engagement, no like the like it myself
Speaker 4: like that kind of thing nine likes, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, so I I was never very like esthetically
Speaker 4: intuitive and social media challenge was definitely part of my
Speaker 4: part of my life for a long time.
Speaker 1: So when I was making the tiktoks, I was just like,
Speaker 1: all right, it looks.
Speaker 4: Like you just put the camera up here and hopefully
Speaker 4: the acoustics sound good. And like, my biggest nightmare is
Speaker 4: editing the lyrics on the screen, Like I cannot stand
Speaker 4: making the lyrics on the screen because then you.
Speaker 1: Get one wrong to wash the whole video again.
Speaker 4: Back then, when I started, I was kind of just like, look,
Speaker 4: I'm making music and I'm a sucker for validation, and
Speaker 4: so let's see what people think of this little idea.
Speaker 4: And what was so cool was that I really did
Speaker 4: inspire confidence in me and the response.
Speaker 1: You know, any response is helpful for me.
Speaker 4: People not liking it was like okay, like they don't
Speaker 4: like that one, do I like it enough to keep
Speaker 4: it going like yeah.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I had to be like I don't care
Speaker 1: what they think. And then I put the full version on.
Speaker 1: People loved it.
Speaker 4: So it was a way to kind of you know,
Speaker 4: road like the road testing when there was no road
Speaker 4: to testimon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you like crowdsourcing stuff. And then how seriously do
Speaker 3: you take the comments because I'm sure there's like a
Speaker 3: lot of conflicting opinions, like would you actually mold stuff
Speaker 3: based on feedback you were getting?
Speaker 1: No, No, not really.
Speaker 4: I think like I would say, okay, like there seems
Speaker 4: to be a positive response to this. A lot of times,
Speaker 4: I would, you know, for like a song like Homesick,
Speaker 4: I was trying to be really specific about New England,
Speaker 4: about my town, and.
Speaker 1: I was worried that it wouldn't come across.
Speaker 4: So when people were like, oh, like, I'm getting this
Speaker 4: idea that you had, it inspired me to finish writing
Speaker 4: the song with the same level of specificity instead of
Speaker 4: being of making it more vague or trying to be
Speaker 4: more relatable.
Speaker 1: It did help, you know, influence the intention.
Speaker 4: I never like would change lyrics or anything like that,
Speaker 4: but I definitely feel like the input that I got
Speaker 4: was helpful. Yeah, you know, and comments sometimes like if
Speaker 4: I got a hurtful comment, like I would feel hurt
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always say, like I must.
Speaker 4: I do feel like hurt by hurtful comments and by
Speaker 4: people being mean or someone you know.
Speaker 1: I get it, Like I get why people do that.
Speaker 4: You scroll across the video that like you didn't want
Speaker 4: to see and you're like, fuck you asshole, and you're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: you don't think about what it might be, how it
Speaker 4: might be received.
Speaker 3: Totally. I don't know if you ever left hurtful comments
Speaker 3: for anybody. But now that you're like public and you're
Speaker 3: out there and you're reading comments about yourself, has that
Speaker 3: changed the way that you comment.
Speaker 4: I think in my past I probably did, like I
Speaker 4: was just like a kid, like everybody else, and I
Speaker 4: know what it's like to now that I know what
Speaker 4: it's like to be hurt like that, Yeah, it really
Speaker 4: makes you think about how you talk to people.
Speaker 1: I still feel I.
Speaker 4: Can read the hundred positive comments and one negative comment
Speaker 4: like just fucks me up, and it sucks.
Speaker 1: Because you're like, you're so wrong.
Speaker 4: I want to get into the weeds with this person
Speaker 4: and be like, well, this is why you're an asshole,
Speaker 4: and this is why you're wrong. I'm like, And then
Speaker 4: you do that, and you've aloady lost you know, You've
Speaker 4: you've lost time, and you've lost confidence.
Speaker 1: So I try to just do my best to not
Speaker 1: see them and not look at them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what always helps me is when I I have
Speaker 4: been in a place where you feel the need to
Speaker 4: lash out of people and to be hurtful people, and
Speaker 4: I know how lonely and fucking awful that that space
Speaker 4: feels and how empty it is, And so I think
Speaker 4: when I see someone leave a comment like that, I
Speaker 4: try to zoom in into their bedroom and like look
Speaker 4: at them and be like, what are you going through
Speaker 4: right now?
Speaker 1: Do you really need me coming back and shitting on
Speaker 1: you right back?
Speaker 4: Or like do this person maybe just need to get
Speaker 4: that anger and pain out And if I can accept
Speaker 4: that and move on from that and it makes you
Speaker 4: feel better, that sucks for you and that's what you're doing.
Speaker 4: But I'm not going to stand in a way or
Speaker 4: whatever your processing, man, like you got shit to deal with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that, by the way, Like I bing
Speaker 3: sure tiktoks. I watch all of them, and there was
Speaker 3: one where I think it was some sort of like
Speaker 3: maybe like an eating disorder awareness months post and I
Speaker 3: just really appreciate that you talk about just struggles that
Speaker 3: you've had or because we don't normally hear guys talk
Speaker 3: about body image issues or you know, eating disorders or
Speaker 3: anything like that. So I just really appreciated that.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that song, I never ever talked to anybody about
Speaker 4: that still even really, and so that song was kind
Speaker 4: of surprised me with how I felt about how real
Speaker 4: it felt for me and how true it felt my
Speaker 4: experience listening to that song and being like, man, I'm
Speaker 4: I've never had an outlet for this feeling ever. I've
Speaker 4: done with therapy for a long time, and I've made
Speaker 4: a lot of progress in my own life, I think,
Speaker 4: but that's something.
Speaker 1: That that still haven't been touched on.
Speaker 4: And so it felt like it surprised my lyrics and
Speaker 4: like the guy, I guess, the vulnerability and some of
Speaker 4: those lyrics surprised me. And I won't name names, but
Speaker 4: I played that song on tour. I did it for
Speaker 4: the first time. It's really just a heavy song. To
Speaker 4: play it tard for me to play it. So I
Speaker 4: played it once for a World Mental Health Day, and
Speaker 4: people in my crew, guys on my tour, you know,
Speaker 4: tough guys and guys that didn't say watch, didn't speak much,
Speaker 4: probably took me aside to thank you for talking about that.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to keep the conversation video. This
Speaker 1: is just a male problem. It's absolutely not, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it is.
Speaker 4: I think more rare, at least in my experience and
Speaker 4: my exposure that for men to talk about these things.
Speaker 4: And so I saw that in real time what the
Speaker 4: impact might be for men struggling with eating disorders, and
Speaker 4: that was something that was really encouraging. To feel like
Speaker 4: I had this really painful, painful song and painful feeling
Speaker 4: that I wasn't alone in for a second was really nice.
Speaker 3: How has it been for you performing on TV? Like
Speaker 3: dealing with things like that and knowing that you've had
Speaker 3: issues in your past, Like you know, you recently played SNL,
Speaker 3: which is fucking awesome and it sounds like it was
Speaker 3: always a dream for you and you guys killed it.
Speaker 3: You sounded so good and you had your hair slicked back.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like Samurai the Samurai Bambook.
Speaker 3: But how is that for you seeing yourself on TV?
Speaker 3: Do you like pick yourself apart? Are you proud of yourself?
Speaker 3: Like what's the reaction internally for you?
Speaker 4: Well, I've done a lot of them at this point now,
Speaker 4: so I feel like I used to pick myself apart
Speaker 4: a lot more. It's so interesting, Like I get hair
Speaker 4: and makeup done, and the hair and makeup people and
Speaker 4: everyone is like, that's how it looks great. We just
Speaker 4: did your hair and makeup, Like, oh, I think that
Speaker 4: looks awful. So I think my opinion on like what
Speaker 4: is attractive or what is like good. It's different than
Speaker 4: like what the greater publics is. So I like go
Speaker 4: and be like, man, I should like wore my hair
Speaker 4: down and like throw it across my face and people
Speaker 4: are like no, like pull your hair back.
Speaker 1: So I feel like I try and not.
Speaker 4: Pick myself apart and trust that people that are in
Speaker 4: charge of making me look good have done a good job.
Speaker 1: But it is it is hard to see myself on stage.
Speaker 4: It just is weird. It's like unnatural. I think you
Speaker 4: observe myself, especially when I'm like in that moment in SNL,
Speaker 4: I was trying to have fun and hang out my
Speaker 4: band and enjoy the moment so much that like looking
Speaker 4: at that and analyzing that like it doesn't help me
Speaker 4: at all. I think being critical of what you look
Speaker 4: like in a moment of letting go is probably not healthy,
Speaker 4: so I try not to. But I was really happy
Speaker 4: because I saw myself and I was like, that is
Speaker 4: me when I'm having a good time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you look like you're having a great time.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like faux excitement or like you know, bullshit,
Speaker 4: like smarmy, charmy shit, And it's like I was having
Speaker 4: a fucking blast hanging out in my band and my buddies,
Speaker 4: and that I was happy.
Speaker 1: To see that come through in the way that I
Speaker 1: felt that on stage, What was like.
Speaker 3: The behind the scenes like at SNL, like did you
Speaker 3: get to go to the after party? And what was
Speaker 3: it like being the live musical act?
Speaker 1: SNAW was a trip. It was like a full on
Speaker 1: the entire thing with a trip.
Speaker 4: I had been home from tour for about a week
Speaker 4: and was kind of finally starting to feel like in
Speaker 4: my human not everything it's about me mode, where like
Speaker 4: you're no longer like promoting yourself on the road, and
Speaker 4: I was kind of withdrawing from like this the uh
Speaker 4: outward talking to a lot of people when I was quiet,
Speaker 4: And then suddenly it was like down the New York
Speaker 4: you're in the fitting in the green room, you're about
Speaker 4: to do the sound the sound check, and you know,
Speaker 4: like there's all these famous people on the walls and
Speaker 4: you don't really even have time to process it. And
Speaker 4: then it's like pressing promo like Noah, like how did
Speaker 4: it feel a good? Like all these questions about me,
Speaker 4: and I started to be like I felt like I
Speaker 4: was like waking up from a long nap of like,
Speaker 4: oh fuck, I gotta go back into this like talk
Speaker 4: about Noah mode again. And so it took me a
Speaker 4: little bit to adjust.
Speaker 3: Is it like a week long process.
Speaker 4: So Wednesday night we got there and we had the
Speaker 4: fitting order of fitting Wednesday at the hotel and then
Speaker 4: Thursday is like the first day of a rehearsal and
Speaker 4: sound check and they filmed the promos and oh dude,
Speaker 4: filming the promo was so bad. I was like one
Speaker 4: of the maybe one of the most embarrassed moments of
Speaker 4: my career was you know, they have like a little
Speaker 4: script they made for me that I got like literally
Speaker 4: five seconds before I had to do it. Emma Stone
Speaker 4: is right there with the other actor, Sarah Sherman, and
Speaker 4: they were standing there in front of the camera and
Speaker 4: I was like learning my lines on it's just shoved
Speaker 4: on stage next to them and like wow.
Speaker 1: So I was so anxious and do you.
Speaker 3: Have acting chops? Like did you know how to deliver
Speaker 3: a lot?
Speaker 4: So this is the thing I always thought that I
Speaker 4: was like my band members, you got to get into acting,
Speaker 4: and like I always found myself to beat I would
Speaker 4: you know not the two man horn.
Speaker 1: I think I like I know my way around a joke.
Speaker 1: I think I could be a little funny. I can.
Speaker 4: I got some dead pan shit going on, So I
Speaker 4: was like, you, I could crush this acting shit. It's
Speaker 4: it's easy to fucking just say some shit and be
Speaker 4: funny and look funny. And I got on there and
Speaker 4: have never felt less in my elements and more nervous.
Speaker 4: I was reading and I felt like I was like
Speaker 4: looking at like a power point and trying to read
Speaker 4: off the world.
Speaker 1: It was so bad. I felt so unnatural.
Speaker 4: So I just like went in the nervous, you know,
Speaker 4: survival mode and read the lines and didn't like improve
Speaker 4: it all. And so that was a tough one and
Speaker 4: it kind of made me feel like I was cursed.
Speaker 4: I kind of felt like the whole weekend was gonna
Speaker 4: I was like, I was like, well, I just embarrassed
Speaker 4: myself in part of most of the crew, some of
Speaker 4: the cast, And on Saturday, I embarrassed myself in front
Speaker 4: of all of the crew and all the cast and
Speaker 4: all of America as well. Like my mind, I was
Speaker 4: so negative, you know, like this is a bad element. Yeah,
Speaker 4: just a little glimpse into my confidence, just like I'm
Speaker 4: gonna suck.
Speaker 1: No matter what.
Speaker 4: And the next day was kind of nice. I gotta
Speaker 4: like kind of recalibrate this. The clip was posted on
Speaker 4: social media, people were generally nice. No one was like no,
Speaker 4: one was like.
Speaker 1: No, it's the worst actor. Everything.
Speaker 4: The expectation was not that I was gonna be a
Speaker 4: great actor, and so I swallowed the pill of not
Speaker 4: being a great actor.
Speaker 1: I was not ast to do any sketches.
Speaker 4: I assume they saw the promo where like, this guy's
Speaker 4: not going in a sketch, which means I don't have
Speaker 4: to do that again.
Speaker 1: Let's just get my head around the performance.
Speaker 4: On the day of the performance, I was having trouble
Speaker 4: my voice and was I always have trouble my voice,
Speaker 4: and on the day of a big show, like I
Speaker 4: always just like I feel like I'm a cold, like
Speaker 4: I psychosomatic vibes, like my throat starts to hurt small damn.
Speaker 4: It's like thinking about it and drinking water and like
Speaker 4: trying to hide myself up. And I pulled up to
Speaker 4: SNL wearing all black hat, sunglasses at the nighttime, like
Speaker 4: superduche mode, like listening to push a tea in my headphones,
Speaker 4: just trying to hype I was trying to feel confident.
Speaker 3: It's like the dude in succession, Kendall Roy, literally.
Speaker 4: Like Kendall Roy. Like they drove me in like one
Speaker 4: of those nice town cars. The driver you like help
Speaker 4: the door feel like, what's up?
Speaker 1: Brother?
Speaker 4: And then I get in and I'm listening to a
Speaker 4: nostalgia I push a tea and and just trying to
Speaker 4: make myself feel like Kendall Roy for a second. Yes,
Speaker 4: So I was like, it's actually Kieran Colkin was actually
Speaker 4: at the show that night, which is funny.
Speaker 1: I probably should have that. Uh So we all we
Speaker 1: went out and.
Speaker 4: My my best friends were at the taping and I
Speaker 4: saw them up there and we performed the first song
Speaker 4: and we crushed it, and I think and had a
Speaker 4: lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And then before the second song.
Speaker 4: Like my little brother was like, dude, Malia Obama, Miles Taylor,
Speaker 4: Scarlett Johansson are all right there? What a crew and
Speaker 4: watching the show and yeah, And so I was on
Speaker 4: the second performance just thought it was so funny to
Speaker 4: look up and see my high school friends.
Speaker 1: Then they'll look down and see Miles Teller.
Speaker 4: Like the contrast was just hilarious and it just made
Speaker 4: it kind of fun and silly and we had a blast.
Speaker 1: After party was very cool, like super overwhelming.
Speaker 3: And where's it at, like at a like a club
Speaker 3: or a restaurant or is it at the actual SNL.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually at the Illuminati headquarters.
Speaker 4: I think I had to I had to kind of
Speaker 4: think on my wrist and like, I don't know, some
Speaker 4: guy put my butt into a vial that I got
Speaker 4: let in. Now I don't know, someone somewhere fancy and fancy.
Speaker 4: They had like a menu with my name and almost
Speaker 4: name on it, which is hilarious. Yeah, all sorts of
Speaker 4: famous hot people milling around the room. Everyone looks famous,
Speaker 4: Like it could have been the guy that like parks
Speaker 4: the cards and like I would have assumed that he
Speaker 4: was like an Oscar winning actor.
Speaker 1: Everyone to me well successful, well groomed.
Speaker 4: I felt like a fucking bron walking around there, like
Speaker 4: my whole family by.
Speaker 1: My side, We're all like, where should we go? And
Speaker 1: you know it was cool.
Speaker 2: We're gonna pause for another quick break and then we'll
Speaker 2: come back with more from Noah Khan. We're back with
Speaker 2: the rest of Leo Rose's conversation with Noah Khan.
Speaker 3: So stick season must feel like it's like very much
Speaker 3: in the rearview mirror, even though you're out on the road.
Speaker 3: You just did a national tour, you're about to do
Speaker 3: a worldwide tour playing the music. But what, like what
Speaker 3: have you been working on? Like, what can you tell
Speaker 3: us about new music?
Speaker 4: We have a new song recorded called Forever that we've
Speaker 4: been playing on the Road's that I just happened a
Speaker 4: ton of time.
Speaker 1: I've been writing new music, and I'm always writing and
Speaker 1: working on new things.
Speaker 4: But you know, I like the six season being such
Speaker 4: a natural and like creatively fulfilling, you know, journey for
Speaker 4: me is kind of like created this complex of like
Speaker 4: I only wanted to be like that, And so I
Speaker 4: simply haven't had a break in about a year. I
Speaker 4: haven't had more than like a week off in a
Speaker 4: long long time, and so I'm just kind of giving
Speaker 4: myself the time I do get off to try to
Speaker 4: find that feeling and try to find that feeling of
Speaker 4: freedom and create creative fulfillment that I had back then,
Speaker 4: and keeping new music or any commitments to like.
Speaker 1: An album at at arm's length.
Speaker 4: And so I feel wrapped around something in that same way,
Speaker 4: but still working no more collaborations and just trying to
Speaker 4: kind of find things to keep me excited.
Speaker 3: Any new collaborations you can talk about. I'm waiting for
Speaker 3: the Justin Vernon song to drop.
Speaker 1: Yah Me and you both. I wish I could get
Speaker 1: one with Justin Vernon.
Speaker 3: Have you talked to him? Have you met him?
Speaker 1: I haven't met Justin.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was one of the most cool, crazy nights
Speaker 4: in my life.
Speaker 1: I met him at hunter Land. He's my hero.
Speaker 4: Getting to talk to him and getting a chance to
Speaker 4: pick his brain about music and about the industry. It
Speaker 4: was really interesting, a really cool experience. But I never
Speaker 4: want to be that guy that's like, dude, it's so
Speaker 4: cool hanging out with you, Like we got to get
Speaker 4: a collab in the work, you know, Like that's.
Speaker 3: Isn't that what people say? Though, Like you're like, hey,
Speaker 3: like let's do.
Speaker 1: Something, yes, And I hate it.
Speaker 4: Let's get a transaction in here, man, Like now that
Speaker 4: we hung out, like, let's do something that boosts my career.
Speaker 4: I think that's that stuff grosses me as sometimes, so
Speaker 4: I try to be careful about but I think at
Speaker 4: some point in the future, I would absolutely love to
Speaker 4: collaborate with Justin.
Speaker 1: If you was ever interested in doing that. But we have,
Speaker 1: you know, at least three more.
Speaker 4: More collaborations coming that are are really cool and with
Speaker 4: artists that I adore and that everyone adoors, and I
Speaker 4: am excited for the world to see them.
Speaker 3: How are you feeling about the way that you've been
Speaker 3: covered or the way your story is written about. I
Speaker 3: know the New York Times just did a big piece
Speaker 3: on you. You were on the front cover of the Times.
Speaker 3: I saw at least the digital version. You were like
Speaker 3: right up there next to like Trump or something. How
Speaker 3: are you feeling about the way your story is being told?
Speaker 4: I think like there's always gonna be a framework in
Speaker 4: which people want to talk about you, just because it's
Speaker 4: if you just get down to the complete and total story,
Speaker 4: you lose a form of narrative. I know, people, you
Speaker 4: know the reference if you're bringing back this era that
Speaker 4: nobody wants anymore, and.
Speaker 1: To feel like that is like a negative connotation. For
Speaker 1: some reason, it's been confusing to me.
Speaker 4: I know that the pendulum really swung away from that
Speaker 4: in a musical way in terms of what was happening
Speaker 4: on the radio after like the you know, mid early
Speaker 4: mid twenty tens. But I always found that music to
Speaker 4: be really well written and incredibly powerful. So to hear
Speaker 4: that as a as maybe an attempt at an insult
Speaker 4: or a criticism, or like a God, we're so tired
Speaker 4: of this shit.
Speaker 1: I feel bad for.
Speaker 4: The people will put their livelihood into making that music
Speaker 4: because I care about it a lot and I think
Speaker 4: it's important, and you know, that's been my only qualm.
Speaker 4: I am happy to be being covered. I think it's
Speaker 4: it's cool that people will care enough.
Speaker 1: To talk about me.
Speaker 4: My friends from New Hampshire, I sa I lived in
Speaker 4: New Hampshire and Vermont, and people from New Hampshire like,
Speaker 4: you're not from Vermont, people from Verma, you're not.
Speaker 1: From New Hampshire. That's that regional tension. If definitely there.
Speaker 4: I've had to do better job of being clear. You know,
Speaker 4: I'll talk to someone, you know, from California or somebody
Speaker 4: from New York and they're.
Speaker 1: Like, we don't give a shit, Like you're in Canada,
Speaker 1: we don't give a buck. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Again, I think it's the nature of you know, being
Speaker 4: a white male singer songwriter isn't exactly a unique place
Speaker 4: to be. I think there's been many of me, at
Speaker 4: least this kind of this kind of vibe white guy
Speaker 4: with a guitar.
Speaker 1: So I think feelings with feelings, right, you know.
Speaker 4: They said it an article of the most Pop Music's
Speaker 4: Newest Sensitive Woodsman.
Speaker 1: I think an author writer wants to find.
Speaker 4: A way to make your story seem specific and to
Speaker 4: seem like it separates you.
Speaker 1: And so I think they're coming to a small challee,
Speaker 1: come to my house.
Speaker 4: And they're talking about how that looks and how that
Speaker 4: feels unique to my experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like the way I've been covered has
Speaker 1: been very there.
Speaker 4: I think I shy away from making myself a story.
Speaker 4: I just I do like to have my life be
Speaker 4: about the music and have my career be about the music.
Speaker 4: And if that's not enough to be on the national
Speaker 4: headlines and I'll just play for a thousand people and
Speaker 4: be boring, I'm fine with that. I think I've kind
Speaker 4: of been thrust in this world of like a mass
Speaker 4: exposure that I'm still learning to handle and learning how
Speaker 4: to how to navigate.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's hard.
Speaker 4: It's a really weird process to describe if you haven't
Speaker 4: been through it. Yeah, I think what's what's hard is
Speaker 4: just never feeling like I'm alone, Like I'm already the
Speaker 4: guy that like when I smoke weed, I'm like everybody
Speaker 4: looking at me, you know. And and so I'll get
Speaker 4: off an airport in Boston and Vermont or wherever and
Speaker 4: be like, oh everyone, I think people here actually are
Speaker 4: looking at me.
Speaker 1: And that's like an overexposed feeling.
Speaker 4: And then you find yourself like acting different because you're
Speaker 4: you know, like if people are watching you, that you
Speaker 4: want to come across as being normal looking or like
Speaker 4: not ticking your nose or fucking wiping your hands in your.
Speaker 1: Shirt or whatever. Like you feel like you're performing all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: And I fucking I I don't know, I don't have
Speaker 4: I don't have much to say.
Speaker 1: Most of the time.
Speaker 4: I'm kind of just like a grumpy dude walking around
Speaker 4: the world. Like for example, yes, two days ago, I
Speaker 4: was in the car driving to another interview and uh
Speaker 4: in Nashville, and this person behind you was like tailgating
Speaker 4: me like a fucking psycho, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: my god, it's just by driving like a nut job.
Speaker 4: They passed me and they're super close and swerving in
Speaker 4: and out, and like, what the fuck you doing? Look
Speaker 4: out my window, very New England, not out my window,
Speaker 4: but at my window, and they look over and they're
Speaker 4: just filming me, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: it's like I'm on the Truman Show.
Speaker 1: Dude.
Speaker 4: Like I'm like, I can't have an authentic angry experience
Speaker 4: or like emotional response to something. I'm so worried about
Speaker 4: it being like someone that's a fan or like hurting
Speaker 4: their feelings. They're coming across it being a dick or whatever.
Speaker 4: But I was so exhausting, gonna kill me. I'm exhausted,
Speaker 4: I'm tired. I'm tired of I can't get killed in
Speaker 4: traffic just because I want to be polite, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then it makes you understand. I'm sure now
Speaker 3: you have like a different level of understanding why some
Speaker 3: people like who are in the public eye or people
Speaker 3: who are like super famous, like end up the way
Speaker 3: they end up.
Speaker 1: I've never had more respect for them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I've never had more respect for somebody
Speaker 4: that says I don't want to do this anymore. It
Speaker 4: has It's no longer about the music, it's about everything else,
Speaker 4: and it hasn't hasn't gone to that point for me.
Speaker 4: I have incredibly respectful fans, like I really do they
Speaker 4: really respect me in my space and my privacy and
Speaker 4: my boundaries. But man, like, just if you're somebody that
Speaker 4: doesn't like the attention and doesn't like the demand of
Speaker 4: everything besides making music, then I can only imagine why
Speaker 4: anyone would want to be you know, famous or recognize
Speaker 4: its fucking invasive as hell, right, and less so for
Speaker 4: me than it's for being a woman and having the
Speaker 4: success and having you know, the sexualization and the questions
Speaker 4: about your dating life, and that's got to be fucking brutal,
Speaker 4: and just like having to put up with people asking
Speaker 4: about stuff that's not even about the music, you know,
Speaker 4: like that's about your personal life and about.
Speaker 1: Stuff that you don't put on display for people. Fuck
Speaker 1: that shit.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, if you ever want to find the Boston
Speaker 4: airport with me and see a bunch of dads and
Speaker 4: their daughters turned around, like you listen to that guy
Speaker 4: right then? An you want to see how it feels.
Speaker 4: It's not bad. It's just like if you're tired or hungover, dude,
Speaker 4: oh bro, being hungover and like having to like walk
Speaker 4: into like having to take a shower, you just want
Speaker 4: to not take a shower some days and like walk
Speaker 4: outside and you're like you gotta be you gotta be
Speaker 4: taking a shower.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know when you talk about I just
Speaker 3: want to be stay focused on the music. Like the
Speaker 3: fame thing can kind of come and go and if
Speaker 3: it burns out, cool as long as like the music
Speaker 3: focus is there. How are you so sure that music
Speaker 3: is the life path? Have you ever thought about, Oh,
Speaker 3: I might want to be you know, like maybe I
Speaker 3: want to be an architect, Like has there ever been
Speaker 3: another vision or has it always just been music?
Speaker 1: Has never been, never been anything else.
Speaker 4: I think I've thought like critically and realistically, like yeah,
Speaker 4: it doesn't happen, Like what would I want to do?
Speaker 4: And there are things that I could do. I've always
Speaker 4: said that I wish I could be. Uh, I'd probably
Speaker 4: do someone like social work or psychology. Yeah, something that
Speaker 4: like I'm really interested in just like people and their
Speaker 4: behaviors and what makes them chick and like what makes
Speaker 4: them what they're about and how their past affects their
Speaker 4: future or whatever. That's always been really interesting to me.
Speaker 4: But like fundamentally, no, I've never had any other plan
Speaker 4: or vision for myself whatsoever. Like music and writing songs
Speaker 4: has been from the very beginning, the only thing I've
Speaker 4: ever ever wanted.
Speaker 3: That's so cool that you know that.
Speaker 1: Isn't it cool?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was cool when I got a record deal,
Speaker 4: but it was not cool before where I was like,
Speaker 4: this is all I want and I might not be
Speaker 4: able to do it.
Speaker 1: That would suck, you know.
Speaker 4: I'm just like so aware of like the sadness it
Speaker 4: is to see somebody that like tried to be a
Speaker 4: musician and like it didn't work out, and to see
Speaker 4: them like working a cubicle afterwards and be like, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that sucks, dude, because I know every single day you're
Speaker 4: like looking at the picture of you and the Talent
Speaker 4: Show and wishing that with you now. And I could
Speaker 4: like see that picture in my head. Even when I
Speaker 4: was like fifteen, I was like, oh, dude, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be the guy in the Cuba gole like no, no, no,
Speaker 4: and uh. I was very grateful to have had the drive,
Speaker 4: but also the opportunity and the frank with the privilege
Speaker 4: of being in a place so allowed me to go
Speaker 4: to a recording studio and to you know, parents that
Speaker 4: were like willing to say you don't have to go
Speaker 4: to college, you know, like you can go make take
Speaker 4: the record deal. I grew up in a wicked nice
Speaker 4: area that I think contributed a lot to the opportunity
Speaker 4: and the ability to take the opportunity combined with like
Speaker 4: what really was like even as a kid, like a
Speaker 4: super crazy work ethic for music, Like I wouldn't do
Speaker 4: my homework, I would get fucking c's and B minuses,
Speaker 4: but like I would every day be writing a song
Speaker 4: or working on something.
Speaker 1: Like it was an every day for years and years
Speaker 1: grind for me.
Speaker 3: How did your parents think about you writing songs? Like,
Speaker 3: were they like, wow, we have like a musically gifted son,
Speaker 3: or was it just sort of like thought of as
Speaker 3: a hobby.
Speaker 4: My mom was an author, and so she was very
Speaker 4: I think from a certain point. She definitely saw some
Speaker 4: like potential and talent I think, and helped me hone
Speaker 4: it and was like.
Speaker 1: A really amazing resource for me growing up.
Speaker 4: Just having someone that knows their way around writer's block
Speaker 4: and writing process and you know, creative struggles, you know
Speaker 4: they any number of them and knows how to like
Speaker 4: kind of have been there before because writer's block, that
Speaker 4: shit's hard, and like to get through that it's really hard,
Speaker 4: and it happens at every level.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Some people say there's no such thing as right a block,
Speaker 4: and maybe that's true, but I think we can all
Speaker 4: agree that sometimes you just don't have anything to say
Speaker 4: and you feel like you can't get the words out.
Speaker 4: And my mom would just sit me down, give me
Speaker 4: a blanks of paper and say, right, for thirty minutes,
Speaker 4: write anything that comes to your head, doesn't matter what
Speaker 4: it is. Write things down because the musclem he kind
Speaker 4: of does kick in. After a little while you start
Speaker 4: to like remember how to work it. I think if
Speaker 4: you go into that mode of like I'm gonna wait
Speaker 4: till I'm inspired to make music or to write something,
Speaker 4: is when you can get into some real trouble because
Speaker 4: the time since you last broke your thing gets greater
Speaker 4: and greater, and your your muscle isn't as isn't as
Speaker 4: worked out, and you're frustrated at yourself for not being
Speaker 4: as good as you were the last time. And I
Speaker 4: think if you build slowly each day, trying to put
Speaker 4: a pended paper, that you can really work your way
Speaker 4: out of those things.
Speaker 3: Do you have like a specific set of conditions that
Speaker 3: you've found lead to writing a good song. Like I
Speaker 3: interviewed Matt Berninger, the lead singer of The National, and
Speaker 3: he said his thing is like weed and iced tea
Speaker 3: in the afternoon, like that combo. That's it's kind of perfect.
Speaker 1: I think the most consistent thing has been weed.
Speaker 4: Honestly, like I do really work right well and I'm
Speaker 4: like smoking weed are getting high. I don't know, it
Speaker 4: just kind of takes me away from like my inner
Speaker 4: dialogue for a second, or like at least changes it.
Speaker 4: Vermont really is like, you know, here goes the sensative
Speaker 4: Woodsman again. Vermont really is a place that is conducing
Speaker 4: to like inspiration for me. I feel really like myself there.
Speaker 4: I feel very comfortable there. I think the biggest common
Speaker 4: denominator between all the good songs that I've made have
Speaker 4: come from a fuck it mindset, whether that be like
Speaker 4: this will never go to any this will never be released,
Speaker 4: so I might as well write it, or I've been
Speaker 4: writing all day, I've made absolutely fucking nothing good. I'm
Speaker 4: angry at myself, I'm upset, and then suddenly like there
Speaker 4: it is, you know, just that release of just being
Speaker 4: like I'm just gonna give myself up. To whatever comes
Speaker 4: out of my mouth or my whatever gets written down next.
Speaker 4: So I think we need a level of like disinterest
Speaker 4: and being in Vermont it's helpful.
Speaker 3: And then how high are you getting? Are you like
Speaker 3: getting dumb high? Are you like micro dosing high?
Speaker 4: Well, typically micro dosing, but like sometimes I'll get like
Speaker 4: dumb high. I always say to my friends like, I
Speaker 4: wish I could be, you know, like an hour after
Speaker 4: you smoked weed.
Speaker 1: That's what I wish I could be.
Speaker 4: The entire time, like the first like five minutes of
Speaker 4: being like, oh well lookick, I gotta call my mom,
Speaker 4: like I shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I should be in the car right now it's happening.
Speaker 4: And then and then like the hour later when you'd
Speaker 4: like gotten over the hill of being too high and
Speaker 4: you're like, oh, I just feel like relaxed and chill
Speaker 4: and like funny and good to be around. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: kind of where I need to get to. It's never
Speaker 4: like right away. The stuff i'm right away it is
Speaker 4: like so bad. I feel like I'm doing like Sergeant
Speaker 4: Peppers and just like making like weird, like fucking like
Speaker 4: stuff that sounds.
Speaker 1: Off tune and bad.
Speaker 4: And maybe that song Peppers is zo sad amazing, but
Speaker 4: like the experimental stuff, I'm like, that's not that's getting
Speaker 4: back to ce An f for jazz, I trended to
Speaker 4: get Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: You mentioned earlier listening to push a t Like, since
Speaker 3: people love music recommendations, like, what else do you listen to?
Speaker 3: Like what you're loving?
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm loving lots of stuff right now, but let
Speaker 1: me pull up what I'm listening to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I'm listening to this Walks of Hochi song
Speaker 4: Problem with It, which I really like.
Speaker 1: This guy, Craig Finn made this song out of Chicago.
Speaker 4: U Sam Fender recommended him to me, and uh, it's
Speaker 4: really fucking awesome.
Speaker 1: The new Hosey record I think is incredible. I'm getting
Speaker 1: into outs ge.
Speaker 4: On my moody shit that's on Poison Route. I really
Speaker 4: enjoy He's super cool, so fucking cool. That shit, dude,
Speaker 4: so cool.
Speaker 3: I love that. I love that freedom of just being
Speaker 3: like super loose with the genres, Like yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I'm getting the vibe that you might that might be
Speaker 3: in your future at some point.
Speaker 4: I think that's kind of the thing where like all
Speaker 4: these cool things have happened this year is I'm like
Speaker 4: checking off all these amazing boxes so that on my
Speaker 4: next thing, I'm not like, well, I gotta play the
Speaker 4: song that gets I gotta write the song that gets
Speaker 4: do on SNL, I already did SNL thought, Yeah, well
Speaker 4: I gotta got a Grammy nomination. I'm gonna go make
Speaker 4: the music that I want. Like whatever, I've had all
Speaker 4: these I've achieved all these cool things, and uh, now
Speaker 4: i feel like I'm the freedom to uh do whatever
Speaker 4: I want because I'm not trying to. I'm pretty much
Speaker 4: done everything I've ever wanted to do in my career.
Speaker 1: You know. I feel like that's some people say before
Speaker 1: they get hit by a car or something. But so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna would.
Speaker 3: But the bad omens again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're gonna really sid into my brain. It just
Speaker 1: makes very good podcast perfect.
Speaker 3: Are you already starting to think about what you would
Speaker 3: say if you win the Grammy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna thank my mama for sure.
Speaker 4: If I want a Grammy, I would thank my mentor
Speaker 4: music mentor that I met when I was a younger
Speaker 4: kid who taught me how to be in a band
Speaker 4: and put me in a band and taught me everything
Speaker 4: about recording.
Speaker 1: That guy changed my life. He showed me, taught me
Speaker 1: what it was like to be a rock star.
Speaker 4: I would think tons of people, all the label and
Speaker 4: the man and every person that's gotten me here. But
Speaker 4: I think I would do a little shout out for
Speaker 4: my younger self because when I was a kid, I
Speaker 4: would practice my Grammy speech to make myself fall asleep
Speaker 4: when I was a little kid. And when I got
Speaker 4: my Grammy nomination, I was like, fuck, yeah, my eight
Speaker 4: year old self from a ten year old self, he's
Speaker 4: probably pumped right now.
Speaker 3: Is that huge validation for you?
Speaker 1: It actually is, yeah.
Speaker 4: And I I'm not somebody that feels the need for
Speaker 4: like total validation from like the greater music community or whatever.
Speaker 4: But for some reason, the Grammy just like man, it
Speaker 4: just was really was one of the greatest moments of
Speaker 4: my life. And I felt like nothing can can erase
Speaker 4: the fact that I got nominated for Grammy, and no
Speaker 4: level of failure or irrelevancy or whatever happens in my career,
Speaker 4: Like I always go to look back and say, hey,
Speaker 4: at one point got nominated for Grammy, And that's one
Speaker 4: that I can say the rest of my life. And
Speaker 4: that's that's fun to have those thinks. They're very few
Speaker 4: and far between at a musician's career.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, congratulations on all the success, but also like
Speaker 3: I can't wait to hear what you put out.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you and thank you for all the thoughtful
Speaker 4: questions and for you know, give me things to think
Speaker 4: about on my own. Honestly, it was fun to talk
Speaker 4: to you and h just think that you're great, So
Speaker 4: thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks to no Ocon for taking us through his incredible year.
Speaker 2: You can hear the deluxe version of his latest album,
Speaker 2: Stick Season, along with some of his other music, on
Speaker 2: a playlist at broken.
Speaker 1: Record podcast dot com.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 2: broken record Podcast, where you can find all of our
Speaker 2: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Speaker 2: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
Speaker 2: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 2: is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 2: If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
Speaker 2: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
Speaker 2: that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
Speaker 2: ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
Speaker 2: podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
Speaker 2: to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
Speaker 2: Our theme music's bay Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.