Noah Kahan had just played the Alaska State Fair and was about to fly across the continent, back to Boston, when he got to hear Kacey Musgraves sing one of his songs. “It was crazy. I knew she was cutting it, I knew there was a possibility it could happen, but it all happened really quickly,” Kahan tells Rolling Stone of the new version of “She Calls Me Back,” out today. “Just hearing her voice, which is so iconic, pure, and beautiful — I was laughing to myself on the airplane, like I can’t believe this is my life. She crushed it, like she crushes everything.”
The moment is emblematic of Kahan’s 2023, a year stuffed with sold-out shows and dream opportunities — and challenges, too — brought about by the breakthrough success of his 2022 album Stick Season. Reimagining songs off Stick Season with artists like Musgraves (and before her, Post Malone and Lizzy McAlpine) has been an undeniable highlight, and a kind of creative refuge amidst a packed touring schedule.
Zooming in from some nondescript room between a show in Nashville and a show in Austin, head tucked inside a baseball cap and hoodie, Kahan speaks with characteristic candor about the rigors of the road and trying to make new music while living an itinerant existence that often feels detached from reality. The Stick Season collaborations “have been an awesome and good way to exercise creatively,” he says, opening up new dimensions of stories and songs that are so distinctly tied to the time and place he wrote most of them: Vermont, in the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
“She Calls Me Back” is ideal for such an exercise. “The whole song is about calling somebody knowing that the relationship is ending, but still hanging on to it by the skin of its teeth,” Kahan says, admitting there are “some problematic things with this relationship in the first place and the intent of the narrator being bitter at somebody leaving and calling them all the time.”
With her new verse, Musgraves deepens the story and moves it forward. “It’s the other person on the phone being like, ‘Hey, I’m moving on. I don’t know what you’re doing over there, but I’m trying to live my life,’” Kahan says. (Indeed, it features some quintessential Musgraves lines, none more cutting than “If you think that you could wake me up/You don’t know how well I sleep.”)
“Having Kacey’s verse speak to this feeling of moving forward really offers the other side,” Kahan adds, “which allows the song to move into a place of resolve instead of this bitter tension that exists in the original.”
During his conversation with Rolling Stone, Kahan spoke more about working with Musgraves and Zach Bryan, as well as Olivia Rodrigo’s recent cover of “Stick Season.” He also opened up about the grueling nature of touring, missing Vermont, and his desire to find more time for new music (of which he’s still hopeful there’ll be some next year).
How did this version of “She Calls Me Back” with Kacey Musgraves come about?
When we finished making the record, I was listening back and there were several songs that I was like, “Can you imagine someone like Kacey singing this?” She’s so original and not defined by genre. Golden Hour was so cool and wide-ranging in the inspirations and sounds she was using. With Stick Season we went into it thinking we didn’t want to be defined by a certain genre. Obviously, it leans more folk, but there are elements of country, pop, singer-songwriter, and alternative there. An artist like Kacey represents everything we were striving for when making the record.
Having her sing on “She Calls Me Back” was really as simple as asking her to do it. We talked about songs she might want to do, and she gravitated towards this one. She was very cool about cutting it while I was on tour. She has so much going on, but made time, did an amazing job, was super communicative and really fun to work with.
You included a fake, eight-digit phone number in the lyrics of “She Calls Me Back” but I gathered from fans online that it’s still kind of similar to the phone number of a company in Vermont. Have you heard anything about that?
Yeah, apparently it is. I looked it up and I don’t really know what they do, so I’m hoping it’s an evil corporation and I don’t have to feel bad about kind of doxxing them. But if they’re a good corporation, then I’m sorry and I hope they haven’t gotten too many phone calls from fans.
This is the third Stick Season collaboration you’ve done. Was this an unofficial series that evolved naturally, or something you consciously sought out to do this year?
I think a mixture of both. I wanted to do more with Stick Season, but I did the deluxe edition and thought it would be redundant to do an “extra deluxe deluxe edition.” But as I tour, and I don’t have a ton of time to write and record new music, I wanted to live in this world and expand it — offer people a new paradigm, so when they’re seeing things live there’s more context. The coolest thing about Stick Season’s success — I guess I can say that without sounding too conceited, hopefully — is I’ve had all these amazing artists reach out, co-sign, or tell me they like the music And I wanted the chance to work with them. So many people have been down, and it’s been like, “Why the fuck not?” How cool is it to allow people to hear two of your favorite artists sing on a song that you love?
Do you have any more collaborations coming?
Yeah.
Are there any songs on the album you’ve been waiting for someone to be like, “That’s the one I want to do?”
There are a few songs I have specific ideas for people for. But, you know, we’re all artists and I don’t want to be like, “Get in here and do this fucking song!” That’s not fair to this person’s sense of creativity and inspiration. But there are definitely some I have specific ideas for. I had a very specific idea for “You’re Gonna Go Far,” and I’m working on making it happen. But it’s not easy. I’m just grateful that people are saying yes at all.
Tell me about working with Zach Bryan on “Sarah’s Place.”
Zach is a very generous person — with his time, with his music. We’ve intersected on a bunch of different things in our careers so far — different festival dates, playing a venue after each other, or friends in common. It was just nice to get in the room with him and see the way he works. He’d just released his album and was making another EP, and I was blown away by his work ethic. He was full of energy and excitement. We cut the song live, which is always really fun and definitely more new for me — I’m not used to cutting things live. And it’s also one of the first times I’ve been in the studio with the person I’m collaborating with, which is something I wish could happen every time. I’m so grateful to be a part of Zach’s story right now.
I get the sense that he works at such a fast clip and releases stuff as soon as it’s ready. How long ago did you record “Sarah’s Place”?
We recorded it, I think, a month ago [laughs]. Not a long time. I think Zach wrote it, texted me like, “Yo, I got a song for us.” And two days later I was flying to New York to cut it with him.
You’ve been touring like crazy this year and have a whole bunch of dates for next year, too. You’ve toured before, but is this kind of packed itinerary new?
It’s definitely new. I’ve never looked down the calendar and been like, “Oh, we have another year of touring coming up.” It’s all really exciting. It’s incredible. But I am struggling a bit now with my energy. It’s hard. I just want to be honest. And I think it’s so hard because I’m living my dream and playing for crowds that are so awesome, screaming words back at me, and people are just so incredible and sweet. And my crew and band are all incredible — it’s an amazing touring experience. But I’m just fucking exhausted, and I really miss making music. That’s a big thing for me. And it’s hard to do on tour. I’m always watching my voice, watching my diet, watching my free time, my energy. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and make music. I guess I’m feeling a little homesick for that right now. I think it’s a balancing act of preserving my energy, focus, and mental health out here while also trying to put on a good show.
I think that’s one of those twisted “joys” of getting older — where you get a “dream job” and then learn it’s still a job that requires a lot of difficult work.
Totally. I’ll never sit here and complain about what I do for work. I barely even consider it a real job, but it is work. And it’s hard, because not a lot of people can understand what it’s like. And when you do complain, it can come off as like, “Man, well, I’m working this job and you’re on tour, it’s not the same.” And they’re right. It becomes hard to vent about it sometimes. And maybe venting to Rolling Stone isn’t the best decision of mine [laughs], but I wish I could show people how hard it is and how tiring it can be. And I hope my fans understand that I am human, and I’m trying so hard to be everywhere and be everything, and it’s not easy. I’m a work-in-progress out here right now, having a blast, and it’s always worth it at the end of the night. But sometimes you wake up and you’re like, “Man, I wish I was home so bad right now.”
I think that candor is appreciated especially because musicians at all levels are really struggling with the insane lifestyle that touring requires.
It’s like inherently not good for your mental health — being in a bus, moving around all the time, not feeling situated anywhere. Something that I really want to do, and I don’t know if tours are already doing this, but I want to bring out a therapist, or have a Zoom therapist anyone on the tour can check in with. There’s no HR out here, the health insurance benefits aren’t that fucking good. I think it would be really cool to provide that for my team and for myself, someone that’s prepared to talk about these issues that are very specific and niche.
So many of the songs on Stick Season are about feeling stuck somewhere, too, so is there a sense of whiplash going from that to traveling all the time?
Absolutely. It sucks. I wish I could go back, be in Vermont, at my mom’s house writing these songs again, because I truly did feel that way when I was making the music. There’s a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration, obviously. I wasn’t always feeling stuck or like a burnout; I had a pretty successful life at that point with my music; I had a fan base and I’m grateful for that. But it’s hard singing these songs about Vermont, and being so far away from home. I haven’t been home in a real way in a long time. But sometimes on stage, I’ll see someone in the crowd with a sign that says, “I’m From Vermont,” or I’ll see someone from high school, and it brings me back. And these songs do bring me back to where I wrote them, and I get to exist in that world every night when I’m performing. It’s just during the days when I’m like, “Man, I wish I was back there.” So it is tough, but I’m also grateful and would never want it any other way. I’m so glad these songs have carried themselves to different parts of the country. Because it means that people in Iowa or Missouri or California or Oregon are connecting to songs about a tiny state in the Northeast and I think that’s the whole point. It’s the coolest thing in the world hearing people sing about Vermont in a place so far away from home.
I gather you find it hard to write and work on new music when you’re touring?
Yeah, I’m always writing here and there, but it’s hard to situate yourself in reality out here. It’s not real. There are real life problems, but you’re not dealing with real life, sitting around and experiencing it, feeling it, getting time to process it. I’m just bouncing around so much from high to high, and then crashing down to a low, that it’s hard for me to find that middle ground that allows me to look objectively at what’s happening. I have had a hard time doing that on the road, but I am starting to get back into it and get new music going. Because I want to play new songs on the road, and I’m hoping that for 2024 we have some new music to play… I’m always writing. I’m just not writing with intention right now [laughs].
What’d you think of Olivia Rodrigo’s cover of “Stick Season”?
You know how you listen to those AI covers on TikTok and you’re like, “Oh that’d be so fucking cool!” And it’s like, Jesus, this is actually happening! She’s doing “Stick Season”! The cover was fucking awesome. When someone covers a song and tries to copy the inflections, or sing the exact same way, you’re not learning anything new about the song. And Olivia brought her own style to it, her incredible voice, her really emotive and succinct delivery. It was really great. Getting to hear one of the biggest stars in the world sing your song is badass. So thank you, Olivia, it was awesome.
If you were going to cover one of her songs, what would you choose?
Well, from her old album, I really love “Traitor,” and then from the new album, I’ve been running around the house singing “Get Him Back.” She’s such a good singer, and I have like a three-note range [laughs]. So I’d have to do one where she’s kind of delivering it in more talk-y vocals, because that’s what I could feasibly perform from a biological standpoint.