Small-town authenticity is a selling point in music right now. Let us remind you — and we’re sorry for this — of Jason Aldean and his viral hit “Try That In A Small Town.” That song has all sorts of issues for all sorts of reasons, but one of the most ironic is that Aldean, despite what his small-town anger anthem might suggest, grew up in Macon Georgia (not a particularly small town), and currently calls Nashville (very much not a small town) home these days.
Singer-songwriter Noah Kahan is the opposite of that — The Grammy Award nominee is actually from a small town, Strafford, Vermont (population 1,105), and exudes the kind of community-focused good vibes you’d expect from a small-town guy who wears his heart on his sleeve and sings about said heart while strumming a guitar. Dude grew up on a tree farm — need we say more?
Kahan is legit, authentic, warm, and inviting — that was apparent in our first minute of talking to him.
We linked up with Kahan ahead of his upcoming concert at Charleston, South Carolina’s Riviera Theater on November 30th, American Express Presents: Celebrating Small Business Saturday With Noah Kahan, to talk about his upcoming concert, his plans for 2025 (spoiler, he’s working on the next album), and what it was like playing Fenway Park at the close of his “We’ll All Be Here Forever” headlining tour.
Since Kahan is linking up with American Express to champion small business, we also checked to see if he was the real deal by asking him to shout out some of his favorite Vermont small businesses, to which he gave us some solid reccs. Let’s dive in!
Tell me a bit about this performance with American Express. What is it all about and why’d you want to partner with them?
Well, American Express highlighting small businesses, and supporting small businesses is a really fundamental part of my life. I grew up in a place where we didn’t have a lot of chain stores, there wasn’t big corporate overlords supporting us. It was the people of the town. I grew up in a town with one store, well, one small business. There was a couple but one grocery store market, and it was so important to have that because it’s the convenience store or grocery store is the heart of the town. You can have the town hall and you have the library, but where you’re going to see the most people every day is at the grocery store.
And that was a really big part of my life, seeing friends there, seeing people I grew up with, having friends and family work there, watching the heart of the community grow. That store was Coburns’ General Store in Strafford. The past couple of years they’re transitioning away from Coburns and the Coburns family is trying to sell and move the store and it really impacts the whole town more than you realize. So getting a chance to support other small businesses and help be a part of raising those businesses up is really important to me and is kind of part of my central mission in my career, and a big part of my childhood.
In your experience going from small-town guy to one of the biggest artists right now, what do small businesses have and what makes them so vital that bigger businesses don’t?
I think it’s really as simple as the personal touch. They represent what the town represents, instead of represent an interest of a corporation or a larger entity that is hoping to make money off of people. I think when you’re paying money to your neighbor to buy bread, it’s different than when you’re paying money to a giant corporation that doesn’t care about you. It feels like you’re supporting each other. I know it’s not, obviously it’s transactional and you still spend money on things and you have to pay for your items and they get paid, but you know who you’re helping and who you’re supporting. I think that goes a really long way and it also represents the mood in town. You can really get a feel for what’s happening in your area by just being and existing in those spaces.
When there’s no other option, that place becomes incredibly vital to what the town means and what it looks like. I think living in a city now, I see so much choice and you don’t feel like anything really matters because another place just like that will pop up. And when you live in a place that has just that one place or just those few businesses that keep everything going, it feels like something that represents who you are and where you’re from. I really find that small business is a reflection of what the town is and not just another place to buy salad.
You played Fenway Park recently. What can you tell us about that experience?
I mean, that was the most incredible experience of my life. Every other experience afterwards has felt like the first minutes of morning after you wake up from the best dream you ever had, where it’s just like, “Oh, right, this is life.” It was so surreal. There was just something so magical that I’d never experienced on stage. I’ve played hundreds and hundreds and made thousands of shows now and nothing I ever felt quite as special.
Just the atmosphere and the energy and looking up and seeing the green monster and seeing Fenway Park and all my family and friends being there, but also this album that really was a testament and a ode to New England. Being in what I feel like is the heart of New England, which is Fenway Park and getting a chance to finish off the tour there. It was just so perfect. It was very much like the last scene in a movie. So it was cool to play a place where I’ve been going to to see ballgames my whole life.
I want to turn a little bit to your upbringing in Vermont and get a little more on a travel angle here. Just off the top of your head, what are some of your favorite food spots in Vermont?
Oh, there’s a bunch of great food spots in Vermont. They’re usually kind of far between each other, but there’s a lot of great places to get food. There’s so much great farming and produce and just agricultural wealth in Vermont, so you find a lot of great really fresh food. A good example of that is the Worthy Burger in South Royalton, Vermont. It’s just an amazing burger place and it’s very much Vermont. It’s like a little bar and it’s always got folk music playing and there’s a huge beer list and you can get like CBD infused beers, but the burgers are just so good. The fries are so good. The staff is always really kind and again, you see someone you know every time you go there.
And I can never tell with Vermont food if it’s really good or if I’m just nostalgic about it. But I think Worthy Burger’s probably one of the better burgers I’ve had in my life and everyone’s doing the Smashburger style now and I do like a Smashburger, but Worthy Burger does a nice girthy burger. It’s like a real burger and it just feels classic and very, very Vermont to me.
What’s your go-to order? Do you just like a classic burger build or something more out there?
I throw a fried egg on that fucker. I put a fried egg on it, a little jalapeno. The problem is I feel like burgers, when you put that much stuff on, it just becomes so messy. That’s kind of part of the experience. Your hands are covered in egg sauce and aioli and you just kind of feel gross for a couple minutes afterwards. But it’s so good and they have really good truffle fries too, and they have this spicy, I don’t know if it’s a spicy honey mustard, some kind of spicy aioli sauce. That’s so good. And I’ve tried to recreate it at home and it is not nearly as good.
What about bars in Vermont? What’s the go-to watering hole for you?
I actually spent a lot more time in Vermont bars as a kid because I was doing open mic nights that were all over bars in Vermont and New Hampshire. The most jovial, fun Vermont scene bar I’ve been to is Skunk Hollow Tavern. It’s just an awesome tiny little bar. There’s really barely enough room to walk around, it’s really tight in there, but it’s such a perfect Vermont atmosphere. They do a lot of live music and there’s just so much beer and so many great drinks available and it’s in a really pretty part of town. My other favorite place would probably have to be, well, EBA’s was my favorite place growing up. Everything But Anchovies in Hanover, New Hampshire but unfortunately it closed down. That was an amazing bar.
It was owned by a lovely family and they had great pizza and great food and my best friend’s parents owned the place and I would know everyone working there. And it was a really special place. And another great example of small business leaving town and really affecting where we would go. That was such a huge part of our lives. You go to the high school football game and get drunk and then go to EBA’s afterwards and hang out with all your friends from high school until 2:00 A.M. until your parents realized that you were not home yet.
There’s so many stories associated with these places in my childhood.
Another great one is Jesse’s in Hanover, New Hampshire, kind of close to Lebanon New Hampshire. And it’s just an amazing, amazing place. It has great seafood and steaks, but it’s also has the best open mic nights. You’ll see really, really talented artists go there. And I’ll go there every Thursday with my mom and we play Jesse’s and the host and I would grab a baked potato and then I’d get home. And I don’t know, I feel like a lot of my love for small business is nostalgic, but I think that’s great about small businesses is they kind of create memories for you. You don’t have nostalgic memories of Chipotle.
Would you say those open mic places are the best place to catch a show in Vermont and the surrounding area? Where do people go who are looking for music?
I would say if you’re looking to go see a bigger artist coming through Vermont, then you’re going to want to go over to Burlington, Vermont to go to Higher Ground. Lots of great artists pass through Higher Ground. I think I probably played it like 100 times. I sold the most tickets in history there, I think are the most sold out shows in a row. And it was really cool because when I was younger, I would go there for the Vermont singer-songwriter competitions and lose every year. So being able to go back and break the venue record for sold out shows was a real full circle moment.
But if you want to go see a show in Hanover, there’s a Lebanon Opera House in Lebanon, New Hampshire that I saw my first ever show at, Great Big Sea at the Lebanon Opera house. It must’ve been like 2004. That’s another great place to see music.
Gosh, there’s that place but also Sawtooth in Hanover, New Hampshire has an underground bar with a little music stage. You can catch some really talented local acts, whether they’re from Hanover, from Dartmouth College, there’s great music there too. So I’d recommend any of those three places.
What do you think people overlook the most about Vermont?
I think people probably assume it’s just a beautiful place for seeing leaves change and maybe skiing, but there’s so much. Not only just nature, obviously there’s great fishing and great hiking and great cross-country skiing, bird watching, all these beautiful natural elements. But like I said, they have great food. They have Ben and Jerry’s, we’ve got Cabot cheese. If you look and you’re willing to drive 45 minutes out of your way, you can find some of the best food you’ll have in your life.
What’s the plan for 2025?
2025 is going to be about making my next record, getting into new music. We have a few shows, but I’m really taking time to explore what’s next for me musically. And it’s a lot more work than I remember, sitting down and making records. We’re in the midst of doing that again and it’s a fun challenge. It’s hard, but after two and a half years in the road, I’m really excited to explore myself a little bit. I feel like I stopped doing that for a while and it’s a really cool opportunity to remember who I am and get back to doing what I think I do the best, which is write songs.
What’s inspiring you right now?
That’s a good question. I really think just sitting in what I’m feeling is inspiring me in a weird way. I am inspired by actually experiencing life, and that’s even the most mundane shit, like just stressing about bills or going to the grocery store or having family come visit. These things that I never got to do for the past two and a half years with this album. Doing what I did, it just forced me to travel so much. So just getting to deal with the situational every day, life experience has been really, really inspiring. And also thinking a lot about my childhood and my friendships and what it’s like growing up in Vermont and living the life that I did and trying to dig deeper into that.
I feel like I’m not done with New England, that I’m not done with where I’m from, and there’s a lot more to explore there. So kind of continuing to explore childhood Vermont, but also just life.
Just before I let you go, do you have a pick for your personal album of the year? It doesn’t have to have been released this year, just something that you can’t bring your ear away from.
Oh yeah, great question. Son of Dad by Stephen Wilson Jr. is a pretty spectacular album.
Join the waitlist for tickets to American Express Presents: Celebrating Small Business Saturday With Noah Kahan here.
