Noah Kahan is beloved for his lyrically vulnerable indie folk music, and now the artist is on the verge of sharing even more of himself with the world.
Speaking with Billboard‘s co-chief content officer Jason Lipshutz at The Billboard House @ SXSW on Sunday (March 15), Kahan and director Nick Sweeney talked about their forthcoming documentary Noah Kahan: Out Of Body. Coming out soon via Netflix, the film chronicles Kahan’s life and the lives of his family amid tour stops, studio time and daily life outside of music.
“I’m nervous,” Kahan told the packed audience. “I feel like being vulnerable in music is something that’s always come really naturally to me. I think it was a lot harder for me to open up in that way knowing that it would be an examination of my life and my family, and it was hard… I think it’s important to approach the things that make you feel vulnerable or scared, because a lot of people want to connect with that, and you kind of have to forget about yourself and think about the person that’s watching that maybe needs to see that experience.”
Of creating the documentary with Kahan, Sweeney told that crowd that while the doc was always going to focus on Kahan’s music, in the filming process he also realized that it was also becoming a story about a person grappling with big questions.
“What I noticed from the first conversation is that Noah is really willing to go there; there’s nothing that was off limits,” said Sweeney. “As we got further into filming, I was constantly waiting for him to be like ‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ or ‘let’s not go there,’ and it never happened, ever.”
The film is especially personal given that it heavily features Kahan’s family — his mom, dad and siblings. “I think I had a lot more fear for it than they did,” Kahan said of his family. “I thought they were all really brave and open in letting Nick in, and I think they also understand that they’re a fundamental part of the story I’ve told in my music. They were very willing, and I think it created a lot of conversations between me and my family that maybe wouldn’t we wouldn’t have had without the impetus of a documentary being made about me.”
So too does the film incorporate the citizens of Kahan’s hometown of Strafford, Vermont, with Sweeney filming interviews with locals about the ripple of effect of a musical superstar hailing from the town.
“I think what’s really important about talking to people from Strafford is the perspective on what life is like there, and what it’s like growing up in a small town, but also the way that the town has always moved in the same way,” said Kahan. “My career has obviously brought more people there, but they’re still living as the same people there.”
“My favorite scene the entire documentary,” he continued, “is when Nick goes and asks all the people in Stratford if they listen my music, and they’re like, ‘Not really.’ I love it! It’s what I love about Vermont; it represents a safe space for me and a place that feels consistent with all the change in my life. That was captured very well in the film. This is a place where people have been and will be for hundreds of years, and one indie folk singer/songwriter isn’t going to change the whole architecture of the town, and I thought that was really important.”
The documentary also follows Kahan while he’s in the process of making the music that would become The Great Divide, his fourth studio album coming out on April 24, with the film capturing personal breakthroughs that ultimately influenced this new music.
“I was like, literally sitting and asking my mom for forgiveness for exposing things about her life in my music and [having] those conversations I really might never have had,” said Kahan. “It was incredibly cathartic, and I feel like it allowed me to go into the writing process for my album in a way that felt more honest and less guarded.”
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