Noah Kahan and Gabe Simon at Gold Pacific Studios. Courtesy of Mastercard Noah Kahan’s latest album The Great Divide continues its rise.
Gabe Simon serves as Kahan’s main collaborator on the album, along with The National’s Aaron Dessner. The musician’s credited for production on all but one songs all the album. “I love writing songs. I love producing songs. What I did not anticipate in the process of this was the response from people,” Simon tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Kahan’s music is raw, and it’s seemingly inspired those that listen to him to talk about the things they’re dealing with. “I didn’t expect the amount of people putting themselves out there, telling the world, finding other like minded people about how this music connects with them,” says Simon. “It’s deep and it’s scary because it comes with a lot of responsibility.”
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While Simon notes that he never got into music to sell records, The Great Divide certainly is selling. The album was recently received an RIAA platinum certification, marking Kahan’s second-ever album to reach that distinction. It was Kahan’s first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, debuting with 389,000 equivalent album units in its first week.
Simon was also Kahan’s main collaborator on his breakthrough album Stick Season, and the pair are able to be candid with one another. “We’re so comfortable to the point that we regularly yell at each other or we laugh at each other, or even in the documentary, people will hear me going, ‘All right, do you want to try that again? That was pretty bad,’” says Simon. “He knows that no one cares about this record as much as I do when we’re making it together.”
Back in 2022, Kahan sent Simon “Stick Season” and “New Perspective” back when they started to work together. The producer remembers one line of the song sticking out to him upon his first listen. “He said the line, ‘The intersection got a target and they’re calling it downtown,’” he says. “I instantly felt connected because I remember my town growing up, they got a Walmart down the street, and we’d go there every Friday night and just hang out.”
Simon knew immediately that however he’d be involved in Stick Season, his work couldn’t get in the way of Kahan’s storytelling. “I want people just to fall in love with what he’s saying. If we can get them to fall in love with how he communicates, how he tells stories and how he puts himself out there, they’ll go with us anywhere we want,” he says.
The same can be said of The Great Divide, which Simon describes as being “so much more full.” Simon’s role as a producer, as he sees it, is to support Kahan by honoring that storytelling and skills. Of course, bringing in other collaborators is another form of support.
“Whether it was Carrie K, who helped on the entire record, having Aaron [Dessner] on board for half the thing, Sam Westoff, Maddie Harmon, Philip Smith, Amy Allen, all the people who helped make the whole thing possible,” he says. “It’s a real village.”
Adds Simon: “When he didn’t know what to do, we were there to help him out and guide him.”
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