When Noah Kahan Ghosts, a Music Editor Gets Creative

Noah Kahan performing at Burlington’s Waterfront Park last July Credit: Luke Awtry

This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2024.

There was one big problem with crafting a cover story about the meteoric rise of Vermont native Noah Kahan: He wasn’t likely to be in it.

I’d interviewed the folk singer from Strafford back in 2022, just as he was releasing his breakthrough album Stick Season, and it was a pretty simple affair. We both hopped on a Zoom call and talked music, soccer and therapy for 45 minutes or so. I wrote about it in my column, and that was that.

Flash forward one year, and Kahan was coming off a wildly successful 2023 full of chart-topping hits and sold-out world tours. Landing an interview was no longer an easy prospect. His management politely let me know that Kahan wouldn’t be available to talk about his Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, or anything else, until later in the year, after his tour was finished.

To add to my torment, Kahan and his oeuvre had become omnipresent. At first, I thought it was just a Vermont thing — I’d hear “Hurt Somebody” at a restaurant in Waterbury, or I’d see someone wearing a Stick Season T-shirt on the trail while hiking. Soon, though, his songs were dogging my steps everywhere. At a rest stop in upstate New York, “Northern Attitude” played while I pumped gas. I recorded a podcast episode with a friend in Virginia, ostensibly to talk about the modern cost of being a touring musician, and I ended up answering Noah Kahan questions for most of an hour. Catching a few Zs in LaGuardia Airport after a missed connection, I was treated to a 2 a.m. “Dial Drunk.”

Did I mention my editors were determined? Seven Days had to explain how this had happened. They proposed writing the cover story about Kahan … without Kahan. The Kahan phenom. Talk to other people about him, they advised. As veteran journalist Joe Sexton told our team: “Write into the hole.”

I had never faced this specific reporting challenge, but I let myself be convinced. I talked to Kahan’s high school soccer coach, music therapists, die-hard fans known as Busyheads, venue owners, record shop clerks, DJs, even the head of the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital, which had hosted Kahan for a fundraiser earlier in the year. It was like creating a negative-space painting by using the experience and stories of others to produce a strange, slightly removed portrait of a native son turned rising rock star.

As I sifted through the testimonies, I began to understand that the story wasn’t so much about Kahan himself but the reaction to his ascension. Not since the Vermont band Phish made it big had the state seen such a cultural success story.

Although it’s not ideal, obviously, to have a Kahan-size void in a story about him, it put the focus on how his songs connect with fans, many of whom find solace in the way he sings about his own struggles with mental health. I found no shortage of Vermonters beaming with pride that one of their own had sold out Madison Square Garden.

Still, I hope he answers the phone next time!

The original print version of this article was headlined “Biggest ‘hole'”