Noah Kahan

Noah Kahan (born January 1, 1997, Strafford, Vermont, U.S.) is an American singer-songwriter whose music combines elements of pop-rock and folk in sensitively written songs that address his relationship with his family and hometown and his struggles with mental health, and that resonate with a Gen Z fan base. His popularity with that generation rapidly expanded during the early COVID-19 pandemic, when Kahan’s TikTok account gained a large following. Kahan’s third album, Stick Season (2022), built on the title track’s viral online success to reach number one on the rock and alternative album charts and led to a Grammy Award nomination for best new artist in 2024. The Great Divide (2026), his fourth studio album, debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, a career first for Kahan.

Family and early life

Kahan was born to Lauri Berkenkamp, an author and communications director, and Josh Kahan, an information technologist. He is the third of four children in a mixed-faith family (his mother is Christian, and his father is Jewish). He is close to his parents and frequently references them in his songs. They nurtured his interest in music from an early age. Kahan wrote his first songs when he was about 8 years old and received a guitar when he was 10, learning to play from his father.

Kahan spent the first few years of his life in Strafford, Vermont, before his family moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, where he attended school. In high school he was, by his own admission, an indifferent and at times “obnoxious” student, more interested in “acting out” and writing music than completing schoolwork. At age 15 he began uploading his songs to SoundCloud, which garnered the attention of record producers. As a young songwriter, he was influenced by Green Day, Bright Eyes, John Mayer, the Lumineers, and Jason Mraz. He also found inspiration in his mother’s music collection, which was filled with classic folk tracks from Paul Simon and Cat Stevens.

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First recordings

During his senior year of high school, Kahan received an acceptance letter from Tulane University in New Orleans and a record deal offer in the same week. He deferred admission to Tulane, a decision that his parents enthusiastically supported. In a 2022 interview with Vermont Public Radio, Kahan said, “They were like, ‘We don’t want to waste money on you to go get C-pluses at college. Please go be a musician. We don’t want to spend the money!’…So, they were thrilled. They were thrilled to have me be able to pursue it.”

Kahan signed with Republic Records, a division of Universal Music Group, and he first toured when he was 19, opening for the band Milky Chance. He found some modest success early on. In 2018 he performed the single “Hurt Somebody” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; two years later a version of the song that he recorded with Julia Michaels was certified gold. His first album, Busyhead, was released in 2019, followed by I Was/I Am in 2021. During this phase of his career he attempted to fit his songwriting into an “indie-pop” mold, although he was not particularly drawn to that style. Much of the acoustic folk music he enjoyed growing up had turned unfashionable to some, as purveyors of so-called “stomp-clap-hey” music had become the subject of online mockery. However, on his next album Kahan would return to the storytelling impulses and rootsy sound of his favorite music.

Stick Season and The Great Divide

When the COVID-19 pandemic brought live-music touring to a halt in 2020, Kahan moved back home with his parents, who had relocated to Strafford when the singer was in high school. His parents, who divorced in 2020, had previously purchased a large tract of rural land in the area. Reinvigorated by the return to his hometown and the lack of immediate industry pressures, Kahan began writing folk-tinged music at a prolific pace. He recorded the EP Cape Elizabeth (2020) at a friend’s house in a single week. He also worked on material for his third LP, Stick Season, in his father’s barn and mother’s living room, uploading drafts of the songs to social media.

Stick Season’s title track and centerpiece was a literal overnight success. Kahan wrote the song in about an hour and a half while thinking about November in Vermont (which he describes as a “past peak foliage” and “in-between” time) and “trying to do the TikTok thing.” He posted the song online but immediately became anxious about how it would perform. As he told The New Yorker in 2024, “If a song didn’t get a response right away, I would be so upset and so disappointed. Just such a servant to the applause.” By the next day, the lyrically somber but sonically upbeat song had gone viral. Kahan said, “It’s very clearly about Vermont. It’s very clearly about transitions, and feeling stuck, or left behind. Suddenly, all these other songs I’d written came into view in a different way. That’s when I felt like I had an album.”

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Propelled by this online popularity, Stick Season reached number one on the Billboard rock and alternative charts in 2023. In addition to his Grammy nomination for best new artist, Kahan won the 2024 Billboard Music Award for top rock album. That year he collaborated with Kelsea Ballerini on the country duet “Cowboys Cry Too,” which received a Grammy nomination in 2025.

Eager to follow up on the success of Stick Season, Kahan released The Great Divide in April 2026. It enjoyed brisk sales and became Kahan’s first album to top the Billboard 200. The title track was nominated for two American Music Awards, and Kahan snagged the award for best Americana/folk artist. The Great Divide was preceded by the release of Noah Kahan: Out of Body (2026), a Netflix documentary about the singer’s burgeoning career and his fraught feelings surrounding his sudden fame. As his profile rose, Kahan began selling out stadiums and dividing his time between Vermont and Nashville. He told Rolling Stone magazine, “Sometimes I feel like a tourist. I come home [to Vermont] and I’m like, ‘Did I adulterate this place? Did I misrepresent it? Did I change my relationship with it because I’ve shown it to everybody now?’ ”

Later in 2026 Kahan released “Draw You Out,” the lead single for the soundtrack of the film The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (2026).

Personal life

Kahan is open about his experiences with anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2023 he founded the Busyhead Project, an initiative supporting mental health resources with the goal of ending the stigma around mental health.

In 2025 Kahan married his longtime girlfriend, Brenna Nolan. A devoted dog lover, Kahan and his family have had many dogs, especially German Shepherds, two of which, Penny and Oma, appear on the cover of Stick Season. His canine friends also often feature in his songs.