MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Each week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Noah Kahan's breakthrough album, "Stick Season," was the kind of success many musicians dream about. It was a massive hit, introduced him to millions of fans. He told Wild Card host Rachel Martin that his new album looks at the complications that can come with that level of fame.
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NOAH KAHAN: I think in this album, in particular, like, touches on me becoming known as a musician and feeling like I know myself even less; and so, like, the ways we make ourselves want to be heard and how sometimes they're not actually a way to become heard.
KELLY: Kahan's new album is "The Great Divide." He talked to Rachel Martin about his openness with his mental health struggles, including depression.
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RACHEL MARTIN: What's an answer you've stopped searching for?
KAHAN: Oh. It's such a good question. Well, I've stopped searching for, like, when am I going to be happy, you know? Like, when am I - I used to think - when I was a kid, I first got diagnosed with depression. I was like, OK, so how do I cure this thing that I have? Because I don't want to feel like this anymore. And the more I tried to do it, the more just miserable I'd become. Because I would feel the stress of knowing that I felt like this, and it might not go away. And until I, like, accepted that it is part of my life and something that I could treat and manage, I was not going to be happy. And then I started being a lot more happy because I was like, I still can grow. I'm not going to be a completely happy person, but I can still grow and learn new things.
And also, I think depression and anxiety give you sneaky superpowers in a lot of ways. Like, the power of understanding and sympathizing.
MARTIN: Totally. Yeah.
KAHAN: The power of, like, self-deprecation is really important to me. Being able to talk about my flaws without it having to be like this terrible taboo thing is really, really important, not just in my career, but just to, like, the way I interact with people. So I think they give you these, like, sneaky little, like, traits that are kind of cool. And of course, it's not fun to have depression and anxiety, but there can be moments of humor and levity in those feelings. Sometimes you're like, man, this just sucks so much, I can almost laugh at it (laughter).
MARTIN: Yeah.
KAHAN: And I've gotten to that point a lot in my life, which has helped me get through some of those harder moments.
MARTIN: What has it been like to hear people who are saying this has helped me - hearing you talk about this stuff has helped me.
KAHAN: It's so beautiful. 'Cause even in the way they write, you can tell that they're - sometimes for the first time - but they're always speaking openly in the way that I have tried to in my music or in conversations like this. Like, you can see them being open and not guarding anything. They're like, I went through this thing, and here's what I felt about it. And it was awful. And, like, I'm here for all of it. It's an amazing, amazing privilege to be trusted with those feelings from people.
MARTIN: Yeah.
KAHAN: Sometimes it's hard, you know, 'cause you're taking in a lot of pain from people.
MARTIN: Yeah.
KAHAN: And I'm not a therapist.
MARTIN: Right.
KAHAN: And I'm not somebody that can give feedback in a professional way. But it just makes me happy to see that the music that has been really hard for me to make and really hard to speak about has allowed people to kind of face that that fear of being open and being honest. I know how different life is for a lot of people right now. I had a really lovely childhood and was very lucky with mental health stuff, to have that support for my family. And a lot of the folks that write to me don't have that kind of good luck. But to know that the feelings they're describing are things that I have also felt just makes me believe in, like, something bringing us together right now. So it's a really great start. And I'm always just honored that people write to me and share with me.
MARTIN: Yeah.
KAHAN: It's really cool.
KELLY: You can watch the full conversation with Noah Kahan on YouTube or the NPR app by searching for NPR Wild Card. His new album, "The Great Divide," is out now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE GREAT DIVIDE")
KAHAN: (Singing) I can't recall last time that we talked. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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