Noah Kahan has spent last several years navigating a great divide.
Over more than a decade as a touring musician, the “Homesick” singer has traded performing in small-town venues to stadiums all over the world. And though his music remains as personal as ever—often odes to his hometown in Vermont and New England upbringing—he’s sought to find a distinct balance between the experiences up for public consumption and what he keeps close to the vest.
“I think a big part of the boundaries that I set is just maintaining them,” Kahan told E! News in an exclusive interview. “I do a ton of interviews and conversations with people, and I'm just always really making sure I keep what I hold dear and close to myself private.”
This is true for him and his loved ones, who often influence the music he creates.
“It's also not my decision,” he emphasized. “When you write about your family and when you have people in your life that are also affected by your career, it's really important to gage what their comfortability is with you singing about it, writing about it.”
Still, that’s been a bit of a learning curve for Kahan, whose documentary Noah Kahan: Out of Body includes conversations with those loved ones about how they felt hearing aspects of their lives in his breakout album Stick Season.
“My first record, I feel like I didn't do the due diligence of making sure people felt like they were warned or like they knew about what I was going to say,” he admitted. “And so, in this last record and in the documentary, there was a lot of really great conversations about what my career means to other people around me, and that's taking that input.”
Kahan, who released The Great Divide in April, continued, “Whether or not I like it—or whether or not I want to write about it—if someone says, ‘Hey, I don't feel comfortable with this,’ or ‘Hey, this is what I want to keep private,’ it's just listening. So, I just listen and I draw in what people are willing to let me share.”
But beyond checking in with those around him—his wife, parents and siblings as well as close friends—he also finds value in checking in with himself.
“I like having things that are just for me, too,” the 29-year-old explained. “Life as an entertainer, social media person, you're sharing so much, and you feel like your whole life is on display. So, knowing that you have a couple things that you can come home to and not have to be for everybody else makes you feel very human. And it's really important for me to not get swept away in my career. My career and my life can be separate things—and they can intertwine, but they can also be separate things.”
For the Grammy nominee, one of the ways they intertwine best is by teaming up with the brands that he connects to on both fronts, like fellow New England native Culture Pop Soda, with whom he launched the flavor Noah Kahan's Limited-Edition Sparkling Black Cherry earlier this year.
“I do get offers to do brand deals and different ambassadorships and things like that, and the only reason I want to do something is if it feels like it has a personal connection to me and it has an environment that I want to be in,” he noted to E!. “I felt like really welcomed by their team and my ideas were listened to and their ideas were on par with what we would do.”
Beyond being in an environment of “super funny people” who reminded him of his family, he was already a fan of the drink. As he noted, “It's this really tasty, natural tasting beverage that doesn't make you feel sick or bloated. It's just a really good probiotic soda.”
The collaboration with Culture Pop extended beyond working on a specialty flavor with Kahan, with the company sharing their support for his mental health organization with a $100,000 donation.
“In making the can, we wanted to make sure it had a had some kind of partnership with our charity, Busyhead Project, which is really cool,” Kahan shared. “And the Culture Pop folks being down to support our mental health initiatives just kind of strengthened that bond.”
So, it felt like kismet able bring his life on the road during The Great Divide tour and the partnership with Culture Pop together during his hometown shows in Boston in early July.
“I was able to go out and give Culture Pops to fans and take photos and interact with them in a way that wasn't just me on stage,” he explained. “Feeling more connected to the people around me makes me feel like more worthy of the moment, but also just more like I'm doing something that is meaningful to people.”