Switched on Pop - Noah Kahan’s Folk Pop Revival

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Noah Kahan is having a banner year. Between his Best New Artist nomination at the Grammys, his debut SNL performance, and collaborations with everyone from Post Malone to Hozier, the Vermont singer-songwriter has transcended the confines of New England to become one of the harbingers of the 2023 stomp-clap revival. This episode of Switched on Pop, host Charlie Harding sits down in person with Kahan to find some secret magic chords, opine on car commercial music, and talk about all things Stick Season.  Songs Discussed Noah Kahan - Stick Season Noah Kahan - You’re A Mess Paul Simon - Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard James Taylor - Sweet Baby James Cat Stevens - Father & Son The Avett Brothers - Live and Die Lumineers - Hey Ho Olivia Rodrigo - Stick Season Olivia Rodrigo - drivers license Noah Kahan, Hozier - Northern Attitude Noah Kahan - Homesick Sam Fender - 17 Going Under Phoebe Bridgers - Moon Song Simpler Times - Roll in my Sweet Baby’s Arms Noah Kahan, Post Malone - Dial Drunk Taylor Swift - Mean Olivia Rodrigo - Logical Noah Kahan - Young Blood Noah Kahan - Catastrophize Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Can I see that old Gibson? This is my favorite guitar. Very handsome guitar. Yeah, I found this guitar for me in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Oh, I'm in New Hampshire. I grew up in Maine.

That's nice, man. Ooh, that's a beautiful chord. That's really nice. Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Every now and then, an artist comes along who reframes a genre and reignites a scene. This summer, I was at the spectacular Newport Folk Festival where all the buzz was for this pop folk artist who I'd never heard of. But seemingly the whole audience was itching to see.

And then just a few days ago, his name came up again in the best new artist category at the Grammys. So I had to investigate and invite him onto the show. It started with an impromptu guitar lesson on my 50s archtop acoustic that I brought into the studio that day. Here's my conversation with... My name is Noah Khan. I'm from Stratford, Vermont. I love Vermont. I put it's the season of the sticks, and I saw your mom. She forgot that I existed, and it's half my mom.

your song, but I just like to play the victim I'll drink. Alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas and I'll dream. Your song, Stick Season, was an unexpected breakthrough success and a real change of pace from your earlier material. Tell me about how does Stick Season come about? So I was in Los Angeles recording my second album called I Was I Am and it's a definitely was kind of in this pop space, you know, making like anthemic pop music. There's always some folk pop elements But I definitely felt like I was more in the pop space And I was kind of falling out of love with that style

of songwriting and the process Was no longer enjoyable to me I didn't feel like I was capturing enough of myself And the music And I felt like I was kind of just going through the motions And you know I was working with an incredible producer Who's just a brilliant, brilliant guy And so I would go home like after sessions at the studio

And I would just write folk songs for myself Because I grew up listening to Paul Simon And James Taylor Cat Stevens, David Brothers. So these songs were always what made me love music. And so when I started to fall out of love with the music I was making professionally, I would try to go back to being inspired by artists like that and writing songs that could give me a little bit of that love again

and that feeling of passion again. And they were just for me. I really wouldn't play them for anybody else. And it was just a way to keep music my own. I feel like I was losing control of my own love for music and my passion was kind of being sent in the wrong. wrong direction. Is there something about just the format of the, a little bit of like the assembly line nature of the LA songwriting scene that's that contributed to that? Yes. Yeah, for sure.

I feel like being in the studio and walking into a room, there's like an expectation to finish something or to even start something. And some days I'll be so dissatisfied that I, when I'm working by myself, that like, I won't even start anything. I actually like that better because I know that I'm working towards something great. Whereas in LA, there's this feeling of clock in, clock out, like, what do you want to write about today? And I think I started to focus more on, like, impressing the people I was writing with or impressing my A&R or when I sent him to song

than I was about making myself like the song or like writing something that represented me in that moment. Obviously, I interview all kinds of folks who really love that sort of system. It works for some people. It doesn't work for other people. I think it stopped working. I think it worked for me for a while.

And I started to be like, I don't like this anymore. And I also, what I can't stand is like, in L.A., everyone starts at like 2 p.m. and you're working from like 2 to 8. I'm like, dude, I don't want to fucking have dinner at your house. Like, I like, I like, I like, I like to feel like I have a real job even though I don't. I'm like, let's start at nine. Let's work until three or four.

That's as much creativity as I have. Like, don't catch me at my least creative time, which is like mid-afternoon. After lunch. Into my hungriest time, which is dinner. Into my most food comatose time, which is after dinner. So I was getting tired of that, and I was writing these folk songs. You know, that reminded me of the music I loved growing up and also was about the place I grew up in. You know, I was writing songs about home.

And I think I really wanted to go home at that time. And I'd spent a lot of time. and I spent a lot of time at home. When I was home, I wanted to leave, and when I was gone, I wanted to be back. And so I was writing a song about that. I put, like, the verse onto TikTok, and then was kind of like, oh, this isn't very good. Maybe I should delete this.

And I think I just, like, ate a weed gummy and fell asleep before I could, like, delete it. 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. And I woke up the next morning, and this verse had, like, lots of views and, of success on TikTok. Had you established much of a TikTok presence at that point? I was kind of, I was building it, but not in a very intentional way.

I was just posting whatever, like posting little snippets and things. And I have had a huge following, I don't say, huge for me, since 2017. So, you know, there's people that had known me that were on TikTok. There was fans in my, I don't think I'd reached, like, a larger mainstream audience or anything at that point. But yes, I woke up in the song, I had some views and had some, like, legitimate momentum. And so I walked into the kitchen and I wrote a chorus for it. The season of the sticks And I suck your mom

And she forgot that I existed And it's half my fault But I just like to play the victim I'll drink alcohol Until my friends come home for Christmas And I'll dream And the chorus blew up as well And suddenly we had like

Half of a song that people were really loving And it kind of made me question Like what I was doing overall I was like you know The song that I wrote that just made me happy My Airbnb is like really doing well On TikTok and the stuff that's, you know, I'm working on all day

and working hard on and the label supporting and that I have this incredible producer who's helping me with, like, isn't moving the needle for me emotionally and I'm not sure if it's even moving the needle for me commercially in terms of like any kind of success. So it made me reconsider, and so I started to kind of dive into stick season as the song and as an album

with a new perspective and a new, like, feeling that maybe this was the better path. How would you describe the sort of genre or feel of the song? Yeah, this is one that like I have, I was hoping to make it almost more in the Pine Grove, all the folk's base, but kind of found its way into, like, lumineers territory in a lot of ways.

I hope something good and all my bad that I could cancel about the darkness I inherited from dad. No, I am. I think I would describe it as, like, a folk pop song, for sure, and that it's very contained in the sense of a pop song, verse chorus, first chorus. And they're, like, not a ton of room for music,

but, like, the anthemic and the imagery, I think, is like Americana and folk, you know, singing about a place, singing about the countryside, and singing about, you know, feeling left behind in a way that felt anthemic and to me felt folkier. So I think it's definitely a folk pop song that kind of bridges more into folk than the stuff I was making that went from more folk to pop. If we're bringing in the roots of Americana and folk music, there's almost this tension then that you're writing this music, which is, you know, often very analog, community oriented, you think campfire. Sure. And yet it's, happening through the most contemporary technological medium.

How do you feel about that tension? I think when you imagine Americana and you imagine folk music, you do think Campfire and analog, like you said, and privacy and almost like a muting of like the promotion of it just because it's supposed to live in this like organic space. I think that's just not possible for, wasn't possible for me in that moment, being at a major record label and like, you know,

having an audience that had been listening. into my pop music for a long time. I've been consuming my music through my means of marketing, which were definitely more in your face and kind of like promoting and being on TikTok and promoting songs on TikTok and teasing things. And, you know, my collaborations to that point had been very pop focused. So I think I was trying to make music that I love that felt like Americana and promote it in the same way that I promote everything else, you know, being myself. And yeah, I definitely feel like there was some tension there, but I didn't think about it much until afterwards. I was just like, let's just get this thing out there. And I'm kind of glad I did.

You kind of answered it already, but I'm curious about how you can see of, like, what are the signifiers of Americana folk? What are the signifiers of pop? I think pop sacrifices story for universality. And I don't say sacrifices, but trades. Sure. Trades. Makes a trade-off. Like, you are trying to reach as many people as possible with a concept that is relatable.

Pop music is supposed to be more immediate. And so all of it's supposed to be more immediate. That, to me, comes from the melodies and the... the production choices are supposed to capture attention. Whereas I think folk music is supposed to focus on story and whatever means to an end telling the story requires. And that's, if that means space and that means nuance, if the story requires a more delicate touch

and a more longer told story, and that's what happens. Whereas pop music, the goal is to do it as quickly as possible and as immediately as possible. And certainly not to say it's a bad thing. I think it just requires drastically different approaches. And so... It's a different intention.

Totally. And so if you're listening to an artist and you're expecting a pop song and it's a five-minute folk song, then you'll be confused because they're very different approaches. This album sits at the crossroads between the two.

There's a lot of specific imagery. I mean, the chorus here when you talk about Seasons of the Sticks, tell the story of where that comes from and that imagery. Yeah, so, you know, the term Steeves and... Sixth season I'd actually used in a song that I was writing a few years before, another one of those songs that I was kind of just writing for myself.

And I wrote it during stick season in Vermont, which is actually this time of year, like late October, mid-November, like trees are all leafless. And it's gray outside. And it hasn't quite snowed yet, but the ground is hard as hell. And it's brown grass and patches of dirt. And it's a really depressing time of transition. I was about to say that there's no clear emotional imagery connected to this whatsoever. And it's the best. Yeah.

And I love it. Yeah, it's a term used in Vermont for that time of year. Why do you think it's important for people to label it as someone who grew up in this environment? I think because it lasts long enough that you have to confront it with some kind of label. I think it's like a month of time and it's very clearly not autumn anymore. But it's also not quite winter yet. And saying autumn or winter feels wrong. And I think Vermont as a culture and as a community is a specific place and wants to find words to describe what it's like to live here.

I think people find Vermont to include imagery of trees and beautiful foliage or snow in the winter time. That's kind of what people can sometimes reduce it to when there's a lot more going on there. And people say there are six seasons. You know, there's winter, mud season in the spring,

as you know about. You know, summer, fall, stick season than winter. And I think, you know, it helps people understand who don't live there what it's like to be there. And it helps people who live there kind of represent what's happening in the moment. You've shamefully left out maple syrup. And maple syrup and Bernie Sanders and Subaru

Outbacks and flannel shirts and... Just want to make sure. I love her music. Amazing. Hard pivot. I saw that Olivia Rodriguez had done a cover of your song on BBC. I think she said that you're one of the best living songwriters. I realize that the two of you kind of have written alternative realities of the same concept

in driver's license. But today I drove through the suburbs. crying because you were 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 the feeling of using the road as metaphor for a past relationship do you feel there's any kind of kind of kind of connection between these very different songs?

I think so Yeah I think they both play on A feeling of being left behind 100% I think Olivia And they're the narrator in that song Feels left behind In a relationship

Or you know You are in the same place you were with somebody But you're no longer with them And it feels like The place got its meaning From the relationship you have with somebody And I think that's very true For my experience

In Stic season And in Vermont in general It's like I spend all this time with my friends or people I love and in the song, the narrator spending a time in a relationship in Vermont. And then when that person leaves, it feels that the whole place loses its meaning to you and looks worse and looks grayer. And the season affects you more because you're no longer with the person that got you through it. I think driving to me has always been a metaphor of use just because growing up in New Hampshire and Vermont, like driving is such

a huge part of it. Like I have to drive 25 minutes to the gas station or to get groceries, 25 minutes back. If I want to go hang out my friends, I'm driving from Stratford to at New Hampshire. That's 45 minutes. You know, it's so much my time to spend in the cars

that it really, really, you know, informs my life experience. I mean, you even, I think you coined a great term and when your songs, you use the term Northern Attitude. Someone said, like, people in New England

will change your tire for you if you're stuck, but they won't say a word due the entire time. I've always felt that to be very true. Like, people will help you out, but they'll be pissed off, and you're going to get some brusk

people, but like they're all kind deep down. But you never say it. You never say it. There's a very specific love language going on there. And I feel like I'm always trying to, in a lot of ways, like, draw that out of people. Even like when I play shows, I go to, I'm more nervous to play a show in Vermont or New Hampshire than I am to play a song about New England and Missouri. Because like, there's this feeling like they can't know what it's like. So they assume that I've captured the experience. Whereas like, I go to Vermont, I'm like, they know what this place is like. And so I hope that I captured, and I hope I nailed it, and I hope that I am not misrepresenting this place

to people who are from this place. I'm curious about from the musical perspective, I mean, you said that you grew up listening to Paul Simon, James Taylor, et cetera, and Ava Brothers, yet you begin in a sort of more pop, indie pop folk thing, have made this record that has really connected with folks and as being, I don't know, I don't mean this negatively, but I'd say positioned as more of an Americana folk thing. Is there a scene that you're drawing from,

of music that is either heard or performed at home around your region. I'm curious where those sounds come from beyond, you know, the larger national sounds that folks know. I don't know if I was drawing on any particular scene from Vermont. I drew a lot from other artists for sure to name two that like created projects that really helped aid like the imagery in stick season, I would say Sam Fenders, 17 going under. on the beach the busies won't us off. That record really painted a picture of where he was from,

what it was like to grow up there, and totally different from where I grew up. But I felt like I was there and when I was listening to his music and I think that's a magical thing to hear someone's unique life experience. It'd be like, okay, I feel like I kind of get it. And like I said, Vermont's a place

that not a lot of people know about. And my experience is my own and I wanted to bring people to Vermont into my experience, but also allow them to draw on their own experiences in their own hometowns. So you said there are two. You said Sam Fender.

Sorry. And then Phoebe Bridger's Punisher. Another great record that maybe isn't necessarily about a place, but she draws on a very specific life experience in each song and imagery of different places she's lived or been or relationship she's been in that are so specific to, I think, to her own life experience, but feels so relatable obviously to so many. And does it in such a way that you almost have that feeling of voyeurism of like looking into something and being like, whoa, it'd be cool to be there, but you can never be there.

Like on tour, like, I'll drive by towns or will be in towns, and I'm like, I just want to be a part of this town. I want to be like a local here so bad, and it's just this tension of not quite being able to, but feeling like you're right there and right close to being a part of it. And those albums made me feel that way in a really good way. And I wanted to kind of draw on that feeling and for my record. You can't get your passion in a new business with Shopify

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I noticed that this album is primarily just you. You've been in L.A. pop world on a major label. I think if I were in a decision-making power on a label, and I thought, okay, album about Vermont, America on a pop folk thing, I'd be like, that scene happened a decade ago. Right. Right. There was Lumineers, Marcus Mumford, Fleet Foxes, that kind of a thing. Yeah.

I'm curious about how you feel about those comparisons and any expectations of sort of carrying that torch. Yeah, I've always found it really interesting that the cultural pendulum swung so far away from that. I think that there's some unfinished business there. They had to go to Avici for a minute. Yeah, they're like, all right, we still want a little bit of the folk stuff, but it can't be like the overalls anymore, you know? For the record, you're wearing a sweatshirt right now, not overalls. Yeah, on stage, I'm like fully leaning into it. I mean, not as much as like when they were wearing like pre-Civil War.

outfits. But yeah, so I always felt like I loved that music so much and then it kind of went away and it became like, this is so lame and like this stuff is corny and like I can't believe we let this music happen. And I'm like, oh, well, I really fucking like that stuff. Like maybe I'm a bad person for liking that music. But I really enjoyed it. It made me feel happy. I feel like there was enough depth in the music that I could feel like I was hearing something important with that. And like the, I think there was a lot of bad versions of that kind of stuff that came off of Lummeyers and confidence songs. I think we got a lot of like car commercial music that was derivative of that,

especially when it went like hard ukulele. Yeah. Not in the like historical usage of the ukulele. No. Just like strumming, corporate, whatever, FC songs on the ukulele. Yeah. Boom clapping. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That shit got too much. I totally agree. But I think like those artists in particular like received a undue amount of hate for making music that I thought was good. I think I won't speak for the thousands of runoff bands or whatever. I think at any point, like a certain volume of music becomes like, all right, let's move to the next thing.

But when I was making these songs, I feel like I wasn't necessarily thinking, like, all right, let's make something like luminaries and make something like Mumford and Sons. I was just thinking, let's make something anthemic on the acoustic guitar. And I think that's what they were doing, and that's how it ended up sounding. I think hopefully what's moved forward is the storytelling

and the lyrics that speak to some current and modern problems. I think loneliness, isolation, especially during COVID, grappling with our parents, relationship to our parents, our relationships with our families, things we had to grapple with during COVID. I think these are very relevant themes, and the music was something that people have well for a long time. And like, with Olivia Rodriguez, big ballads, big emotional, heart-on-sleeve stuff was kind of making its return. So I feel like it was a lot of right place, right time. And I think you can see that is returning now in a lot of ways. You see a mum for and Sons and Luminaires are headlining lots of festivals.

Well, the geriatric millennials have to go out and do something after bedtime. Yeah, after watching Harry Potter and drinking a glass of red wine. I'm very much including myself. I mean, this is embarrassing. Nobody is. I've never shared something like this, but I was very much doing the same thing. This is me and my co-hosts in a, oh, I don't know what the date is, but probably 2013. I'm sorry, I feel like I just made fun of you.

No, no, no. Will you please describe what you're looking at? I am looking at a beautiful. man. Oh, thank you. Playing a mandolin wearing one of the Peaky Binders hats with like the vest

with like the Red Dead Redemption fit on. Yeah. And the guy next to him was a banjo. You were doing it. I was doing it. But I was too. We had a band called Simpler Times. And actually the podcast actually

comes from that originally. We started doing this project as a fun side project 10 years ago and it turned into a whole music journalism career. Oh, well, I hope I didn't make fun of you because I like I said, I love That shit, okay, okay, cool Oh, I love it too

It's very embarrassed I just like, when you describe the outfit I was like, oh, shoot, I have to show you this photo I thought you to your computer like oh Did I like Shainano said pre-Civil War Something? Is that bad? No, no, no. I was on X and I said, I wrote canceled.

No-Connoran is over party. But yeah, so I do feel like there was a moment for it and I think it's cool and I think and I hope that as music progresses and as people's desire for relatable lyrics progresses that this music can happen in a way

that feels modern and that feels current. Well, I think that's a good pivot to talk about Dial Drunk. Well, I would love to hear about the story of Dial Drunk and particularly I would like to know how it might be helping us cope with our existential woes.

Yeah, yeah. You know, so I put out the stick season and was suddenly in like a moment of like legitimate success for my career and like some, you know, mainstream looks from different things and like feeling like I was in a different place I'd ever been. And it was really cool, but I've every single, sorry, ever since I started in music, I've always had a complete fear of failing and like having my next song,

and not being able to write another song and struggle with the writer's block and pressure. And so like at this point with like the success of this record, like that imposter syndrome and that feeling of being a failure that no one can see yet. And having a lucky fluke of an album work was like at an all time high. and I had committed to making a deluxe version of the album, you know, right after Stick Season came out, I was like, this is amazing, like I want to be in Stick Season forever. Like, I'm going to do a deluxe.

And then the label's like, fuck yeah, deluxe. And then I'm like, suddenly it came to time to make the deluxe. And I'm like off the road for a week and I'm back on the road for a week. And I'm not living a real life or real life experience. I'm like touring and like living this weird fake world of being on tour and being on social media all the time. And so I was really struggling with like how to write something again and what to say next.

And so I just started messing around in my banjo at home, and I went over to my guitar player, Noah Levine's house. And I was like, let's just write something and not care about what we come out with today. You know, when someone sends you a mix and they're like, it's the worst thing in the world, it's not mix, it's fucking terrible.

I suck so bad, but just check it out. Like you'll preface it. So I was doing a lot of that. And then we went in and we started writing a song, and I started writing about a guy who thinks he has a way to solve a problem that's long beyond solving and is doing it in a really bad. bad way. It's definitely something I've felt in my life and the story isn't about me. I've never

gotten blackout drunk and sent to the police station and tried to call my ex over and over again, but I've definitely felt like I can fix something that is beyond fixing. And so we wanted to write a song about that and just started kind of like coming up with the banjo line and putting the acoustic guitar and it almost felt like when we started to produce it out, like it felt almost like punky in a way, which we were like, this is really cool. It has like a kind of this like pop punk backbeat with this very folky banjo line in this big kind of

folk pop chorus we put like the baritone guitar and had some Roy Orbison feel to it like a weird blink 1282 beat and so we

recorded it and we wrote the bridge part that was really fun to make kind of just like a repeat bridge with like chantiness to it it felt like exciting enough and like genre bending I don't want to say, you know, different,

it's banned a couple different genres in some of the production that it gave me the freedom to think that it was cool to do. It was a cool moment for myself to be like defeating my own brain in a way. One of the things we do on our show is often find the patterns and tropes and cycles

that different artists have. We've noted that, you know, Taylor Swift has this melody. She uses all the time. She goes, Ba-ba-ba, I can't sing. She's a mean. And actually, Olivia, who obviously She admires her a lot has a song on her record where she uses the same little motif.

Anyone can use it. But it's just like one that's like, you know, some that there's certain sounds we go back to. Yeah. And I did hear between Season of the Six and Dial Drunk, you have a melody in common. Was this an intentional moment of... Yeah, I'm drunken alone. Yeah, 100%. I think part of that is probably subconsciously being.

and like, I want to write another stick season. And then another part of that is that I've always had through lines in my melodies just because I use simple chords. And it's hard to kind of completely digress if you're using like a one, four, five, or whatever it is, core progression. That's why they're campfire songs, so that everybody can sing along. You kind of have, they are built to have some, that you can predict where things are going to go so that you can participate.

Totally. And I think when you're in a room writing a song and, like, you're making, like, a lot of times the way I'll write, if I'm not like, if I don't have lyrics, is I'll just be singing melodies and then doing things that feel comfortable or feel normal for me, and then they find their way into the lyric

and you kind of forget about what the melody is doing because you're so focused on what the lyric is saying. And I sometimes don't realize that I am making some of those same jumps when I'm messing around and saying gibberish, like I'm making the same melodic jumps. Well, if you're stealing from yourself, you're developing an identity,

which is really different than stealing from someone else. 100%. I'm 100%. I've always, when I was a little kid, I was always able to do a little yodel. Oh. And so bringing a little bit of a yodel into those parts is like something that I feel like

is a little bit of like a signature move for me of being able to go like, like, you going up, that's terrible right now. Yeah, the movement between the break range. Yeah, you can hear the break, but I always felt very excited by my ability to do that. And so I always felt like, if I can just bring that into my songs, that's something that's pretty much just mine. I think you should

only write that melody from now on. I mean, and it might just keep on working. Working so far. I mean, you're fucking exposing me here, brother. Got this while I was going on. You actually know it's about music. Damn, I'm going to get exposed. It was in listening to it. like the six or seventh time where I was like, oh, I know that melody.

Yeah. It wasn't a, it's not a like, oh, this is the same. They feel like distinctly different vibes. I mean, as you described, the whole production and the, and the move to the song and the, sort of the feeling of them is very different. But I was like, oh, wait a minute. What is that? No one's got a thing.

I can name off like five different songs now for my own discography that I'm thinking about that, that are like that exact move. What pops into mind? The song Youngblood, it's like, it's like, you, it's like, you, coming back down, just getting up there and a skisking. escaping real quick or song called Catastrophies. It's like, don't you know that you're the last thing on my mind? You come back down.

But it's like reaching that top because it's like, oh, nice. And it's like you're coming back. It's very satisfying. But yeah, I am doing that a lot. And I'm going to keep doing it until someone says shut the fuck up. Better to have a signature then. Oh, I'm saying. Yeah, it's true.

That's my finishing mood. Self-plagiarism is fine. Can I play you a couple of questions I have from listeners and from students? Absolutely. I would love to hear from the listeners. I would love to hear from the students. It's so cool. Okay, so here are some questions from listeners.

Joey asks, your song, she calls me back. The pre-course includes the line, I still dial 82299-3167. I keep wondering if there's some significance to that number. It's an interesting choice to put a specific number in a lyric like that, and it's one-digit short of being an actual phone number, which makes it more perplexing. Yes, I think the intention was to, again, create a feeling of reality and a feeling of specificity

that allows for the story to come across. It's really genuine, and the emotion of the narrator to feel really real. There wasn't enough phrase left for me to finish a whole number. So I'm doing dial 8, 02, 29952, whatever. You know, that's like you're lost there. So I had to just fit it in. This is your pop sensibility.

This is you knowing that there's only, you have to get the syllables, right? And the syllables are more important for the number. You also don't want to get in trouble with the FCC. And you don't want to. Or to dock some poor person with the number 822, whatever. And you definitely, and you also don't want to use 555, like the movies. No, because everyone knows. Yeah.

And I think I did want to do. like a play on a Vermont phone number 802 is our area code so 822 kind of like felt like it did did justice to that that need for me but also it was yeah it was my intermax Martin coming out and being like we need to fit this we need to fit this phrase in there but I think it is close to it's not it's a toll free number I'm looking at 8222 there is no yeah okay it's not in existence yet you're good you didn't dogs anybody thank goodness 2 299 3 1 2 2 9 9 3 1 2 2 9 yeah I think someone told me it was like the National Life Insurance Group number if you go to the Vermont Area Code. And I was like, all right, when they're getting some calls, that sucks for them. Okay. All right, that's fun,

though. All right. So that's just some melodic math, but it sounds real. Helen asks, in his live shows, recently he's had a bunch of surprise guest artists and has become the king of collabs, post Malone, Casey Musgraves, Hosier, Lizzie McAlpine, Zach Bryan, Mumford's, Mufford & Sons, etc. He's referred to them as side quests. If you could collab with any artists in the world, who would his next collab be? I think if I could collaborate with any artists right now, I would love to collaborate with Boyd Genius. I saw them live in Boston and was blown away

and felt like they have such an incredible relationship with each other. The relationship with each other, it comes across so much in their music that I find it really beautiful. Even if they're not always singing about each other, they're singing about one relationship, you can hear the support for each other and the way they're singing in some of the lyrics. You can feel the love and live, particularly.

you could see that. And so I think it'll be really cool to work with them in some capacity and find a way to to make our worlds work together and to just get a chance to listen to them and sing will be really cool. So I'm now teaching NYU this fall, a songwriting in production majors, and I had a couple of students that wanted to ask you some questions. I think one of them might sort of cover some stuff we've said before, so that's fine if you just want to answer it. Yeah, of course. Hi, Noah. It's Ava. Your music is very conversational and honest while still keeping to rhymes that stick with people. and stick with your audience. How would you describe the identity of your music and writing?

That's a great question. First of all, it's so cool to get to talk to or get to listen to students at NYU. I've worked with so many as they've graduated. And I used to live in New York and the writing scene here. And so talented. So whatever is happening over there is great. And congrats to any of the students that are there and get a chance to have an experience that the one they're having

because you guys are going to be successful and talented. And it's just fun to watch. So thanks for asking the question and taking the time to talk to a high school graduate today. I think the identity of my music, I think a lot of it is the conversational element is like a lot of it is me talking to myself. And I think it's a constant conversation with myself. And so I think introspection is probably my identity in a lot of ways.

I think I'm always thinking about who I am and what it means to people around me and what it means to where I am and how I'm changing. So I think just constant analysis and, introspection is probably my identifier. Here's another question. Hi, I'm Sachi, and a question I had is have you ever faced writers block? And if so, what have you done to overcome it? Yes, I have so many times.

And when I was growing up, it was the worst because I would be like, oh my God, like I need to find a huge artist that like can't write a song because I want to know that it's possible to be at that spot and still feel the way I feel right now. So I always love getting asked this question because I love to give a chance for people to hear that this shit happens. at the highest level, at the lowest level, at any level you're at in music, I have always faced writer's block and creative struggles and thinking about writing and thinking about what I'm writing and comparing it to what I wrote before and thinking it's worse, even if it might not be. Writers' Block in particular, I struggle with, you know, it usually happens when I am going through

something in my life personally or mentally that I haven't figured out and haven't dealt with yet. So I always recommend talking to a therapist and talking to somebody that you're talking to somebody you trust about how you're feeling because it can kind of unlock that tension within yourself. A lot of times we tell ourselves, I'm not going to talk to anybody about this. I'm going to write it down and it becomes, and I recommend writing things down. But if you hold your shit in all the time and you think that writing a song is going to fix it and you can't write that song that day, it feels like you have nowhere to turn. So I always recommend giving yourself a chance to talk to somebody about how you're feeling first and foremost. This is advice coming from a New Englander who clearly has gone through therapy. That is some reformed way of thinking about it.

Actually, what you should do is just drink 100 Miller lights, watch the news and watch the Red Sox play, and then just yell at everybody. Don't die all drunk is what you're saying. Don't do as I say. Do not as I do. Do as I do. I've got one more question for you. This comes from one more of my students.

Your students are cool. Hey, Noah. My name is Ethan. And my question for you is, What is your most useless talent and why? My most useless talent is probably that I can memorize phone numbers, like, immediately. Like, I used to have no contacts in my phone for a long time. I just knew everyone's number because I could just...

But they're all, unfortunately, eight digits long, and you always forget the last digit. And that's the problem. And now that I've gone to a seven-digit mindset that no longer works. But, yeah, I used to know everyone's phone numbers. And I'd be like, I'd be like, if anyone's phone, they're like, can you call somebody for me? I got them. I would be able to do it anywhere. And it's like, why the fuck am I doing that?

It becomes so complicated and, like, you can just put someone's name in there. Phone numbers are, oh, they're 10 digits long. Silly me. Are they 10 digits? Right. 802. I'm not going to give my phone number on the fucking thing. 5, 5.

No, I can't remember how many there are. 8,000, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, 10, you're right. No, this has been really delightful. Thank you for sharing. I've really enjoyed getting to hear about your music. Thank you, man.

It's been fun. Thank you so much for trying. Appreciate your time and your questions, and it was cool to talk music with someone I know so much about it. Oh, thanks. Yeah. I actually, I have to ask you, will you do one more thing for me? Yeah.

I don't know if you remember, but you played something on the guitar when we got in here. You played a chord right here with some like beautiful mystery chord. Yeah, that's my mystery chord. I usually don't share this than anybody. What is your mystery chord? It's like an A minor thing. So I guess it's that. Put it up here.

You get that E string in there. That feels really. Oh, that's pretty. Yep, that's about as jazzy as I get. Can I show you two mystery chords? Yes, please. See? I'll just say, beautiful.

to this. I'm going to go home and then it rips that off all day to you. You're going to do my little trick? I got a banger. No, I got a song. There you go.

This episode is switched on pop was produced by me and Rihanna Cruz edited by Jolie Myers, engineer my brand of man Farland, illustrations by Howard Scott Leap, community management by Abby Barr,

our executive producers and the shot Kerwa. Remember with the Vox Media podcast network and production of Vulture. I would love to hear what you were listening to in the world of Americana

and Folk music, pop folk, whatever you want to call it. You can reach us at Switchdown Pop on social media and at Switchedonpop.com where we've also got some fun merch that you can check out. Next week, we are going to be running down our favorite things from this year and things that Switched on Pop

maybe wished had made it onto the charts. It's going to be a fun conversation with the whole team. They'll be dropping on Tuesday. Until then, thanks for listening.