Noah Kahan was crowned a superstar. It messed with his head

Hours before Noah Kahan greets us in a quiet hotel suite, he shares a new track titled “Porchlight” via video. The 29-year-old Vermonter is seen singing from the bathroom lavatory, accompanied by a hashtag reading “explosive diarrhoea.” While the act seems playful, it hints at the internal turmoil that followed his meteoric rise. The video’s whimsy masks a deeper anxiety: what if the humor backfires? Would a sudden mishap disrupt his newfound fame?

The Rise of a Viral Sensation

Kahan’s music, steeped in introspective themes of longing and identity, struck a chord with Gen Z audiences on TikTok. Tracks like “Homesick” from 2022 captured the essence of small-town life, blending melancholy with a touch of wit. “Time moves so damn slow I swear I feel my organs failing,” he sings, a line that resonates with the tedium of rural America. His work, described as “bringing us closer to our humanity” by Marcus Mumford, bridges the gap between folk storytelling and modern emotional resonance.

“He brings us closer to our humanity in the same way some of the great ’60s folk songwriters did,” enthused Marcus Mumford in an essay for Time magazine.

Olivia Rodrigo’s cover of “Stick Season” in Radio 1’s Live Lounge in 2022 accelerated Kahan’s trajectory. Within a year, he was headlining arenas, and by summer, he had moved to festival stages. Yet, behind the applause was a man grappling with a sharp sense of humor and self-awareness—self-deprecating in the way he dubbed himself “Hairy Styles” or mocked his own image in a fish-profile post.

A Dark Turn

Despite his rapid ascent, Kahan admits the success felt overwhelming. On tour, he questioned whether the momentum would last. “I was always on stage thinking ‘When is this going to end? How am I going to do this again?'” he recalls, a reflection of the loneliness that accompanies sudden fame. His creative process faltered, with dozens of songs abandoned due to uncertainty about their reception.

“Usually when things are hard, I can write a song to navigate out of it, but every time I sat down to write, I would think, ‘What’s this going to sound like when it’s released? Are people going to like this?'”

Last March, he sought inspiration in California’s Joshua Tree National Park, expecting a breakthrough. Instead, he felt even more adrift. “It wasn’t working at home in comfort, and it wasn’t working out there in this new place,” he says. “I felt like I had run out of options.” Returning home, he was diagnosed with OCD and took a month-long hiatus from writing—calling it “horrifying.” During this period, he grappled with the fear that his worth depended solely on his output.

“I got too attached to this idea that my value came from what I created. So when you’re not creating, it feels like you have no value.”

Kahan’s struggles led him to reconsider medication, a decision rooted in years of self-imposed pressure. “I tortured myself for years not going on medication because I didn’t know if I could make music if I’m happier,” he explains. “But the medication gives you a break from those obsessive feelings and lets you live in reality for a second. It helped me realise I don’t need to be in pain to make music.”