He may be from a small town in Vermont, but Noah Kahan has proven to be a big deal. With over 10 million Spotify streams for his hit song “False Confidence,” and over 170 million global streams for “Hurt Somebody” featuring Grammy-nominated Julia Michaels, Noah Kahan is just getting started. With a nationwide tour kicking off in March, an international tour in April, his debut album coming out this spring, and the release of his new song “Mess,” Noah Kahan doesn’t need 'false confidence' to get by because he is doing just fine being who he is.

I spoke with Noah about what it’s like going back home, his new music and tour, and how becoming Instagram verified does not mean he can retire early.

To watch his video for “False Confidence” click here. For tickets and tour date information go to www.NoahKahan.com/tour.

KG: In March you are starting a nationwide tour and in April, an international tour. What about touring are you most looking forward to?

NK: I think the thing I like the most about touring is being able to share the music and share the live show with the audience and give them a different kind of side to the song than they hear on Spotify, or through streaming, and I just love being able to present my music in a new way, kind of connect with people in a really intimate setting, and playing live is the best way to do that. I also love to travel and absolutely love hanging out with my band and meeting people across the country and across the world.

KG: You have your debut album coming out this spring. What can you tell me about it?

NK: Yeah, so I guess you could say it's my life's work at this point. It's a record that I think really speaks to my journey I've been on in the past couple years in the music industry and coming from this small-town world to this really crazy dream I'm living in. I kind of write about the intricacies of that lifestyle and how it's affected my mental health and my sense of home and belonging in a way I could connect with people. I'm really excited about it and all the songs I’ve been spending, like I said, my whole life working on, and I'm so proud of them and everybody who has worked on the record. I think it's gonna be great. I'm really excited.

KG: Tell me about your new song, “Mess.”

NK: “Mess” is a song I wrote about kind of exploring the idea of “the grass always being greener on the other side,” which is a common cliché, but for a reason. I was thinking about if I was to leave my current life behind—this kind of overwhelming, hectic, erratic life I lead right now—if I was to leave it all behind and go home, would I actually be any happier than I was right now? I try to explore that idea and talk about what it's like to go home after living this crazy dream and having a hard time kind of connecting with people, and just the feeling of coming back and having the nostalgia and not really be real, and kind of dealing with the reality of the other side of life. So I wanted to write about coming home, and I wanted to write about what it would be like to leave this all behind.

KG: Your new hit song “False Confidence” is very relatable. What does that song mean for you?

NK: I wrote the song in a time where I felt like I was trying to change who I was, or the way I portrayed myself to be, to kind of fit an esthetic, or set a vibe, or to kind of fit in, instead of actually being who I was, and I thought in doing that I was actually losing my identity and what kind of brought people to my music in the first place. I wanted to write a song about not taking myself so seriously, and out came “False Confidence.” It’s been really cool to see people kind of connect to that idea and relate to that idea because it just proves to me that all I have to do to get people to listen to me is be who I am, and be myself.

KG: I love the lyrics “I wonder why I tear myself down to be built back up again;” is self-confidence something that you’ve struggled with?

NK: Yeah, I think it is. You know, I've always been outwardly confident, but I have my own insecurities like everybody else. Being thrust into this kind of crazy industry where everyone seems so confident and everyone seems like they have a plan and not really having one for yourself can be scary and I struggle with that, but I think that what has always helped me in the past is writing down what I’m feeling and writing songs about what I’m feeling and that's kind of how the birth of “False Confidence” happened.

KG: You started songwriting at a young age; how did you get started?

NK: I grew up listening to my mom’s iPod. (Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, Counting Crows) She had a lot of really classic music on it and some of these guys were able to really minimally make these really amazing kind of transformative stories, sometimes just with an acoustic guitar and their voice and I was really inspired by that. I started, when I was really little, to kind of try to do that. I was terrible at it for a long time—I wrote some really shitty songs—but I never really gave up on it. Songwriting, like every other skill, is a trained thing, and it's a muscle, and I guess I worked my muscle out, and ended up getting pretty good at it, and ended up finding a real passion for it.

KG: I guess even at a young age you had a song in you that was just waiting to get out.

NK: Oh yeah, it was terrible. The first song I ever wrote was called “Wednesdays Are the Worst Days of My Life.” I was pretty much an emo kid and I sang it at my school talent show, and I had to get therapy for two weeks because everybody thought it was so depressing.

KG: What was so bad about Wednesdays compared to the other days?

NK: I don't remember, but it must have been something really tangible because I was super passionate about how bad they were. I remember I sang it and I was like, “Yeah, Wednesdays are the worst days of my life,” and now looking back, I’m like Wednesdays were definitely not the worst days of my life, if anything Mondays.

KG: Exactly, Monday is the worst day of the week.

NK: Yeah, I know. I should have written that song.

KG: Well, there's some inspiration for your next song.

NK: Yeah, exactly. Next time, it's called “Mondays Are the Worst Days of My Life.”

KG: Did you start to play an instrument about the same time as you started writing?

NK: I started writing songs a little bit before I started playing the guitar; I think the guitar was kind of the final puzzle piece for me. It was a way to actually play the songs live and have people understand the melodies. I picked up the guitar when I was like nine or ten.

KG: Did you teach yourself to play guitar?

NK: I took like two or three weeks of lessons, just to kind of learn basic chords and basic chord structures, fingering, and tab and kind of wrap my mind around it, but after that I kind of just started to explore, and listened to music, and got inspired by the artists I was hearing. A band like Mumford and Sons really showed me that you don't need a ton of chords to make a great song, and that was something I really kind of took and ran with—which is also just another way to say I'm super lazy and didn't want to learn how to play anything hard and I’ve made a career with four chords in each song.

KG: Your music actually reminds me a lot of Mumford and Sons.

NK: Oh, thank you so much.

KG: Are they an inspiration?

NK: Absolutely, yeah. They are another one of those bands that I kind of grew up listening to. When I was in high school and middle school I listened to Mumford and Sons all the time and just been blown away and it kind of seeped into the intricacies of the songwriting and the kind of choices I make when I'm writing music.

KG: You grew up on a tree farm in a small town in Vermont, when you go back home, are you treated like a celebrity or when someone sees you walking down the street are they just like, “Hey, Noah” because everybody knows everyone?

NK: Yeah. It’s more just like, “Hey, Noah. What’s up?” I mean people are so proud of me. To me it hasn't been like a celebrity kind of feeling; I think people are really happy to see me doing what they know I've always loved to do and doing it professionally. When you come from a small town everyone is kind of rooting for you so it's really cool to come back, and people are stoked to see me and stoked about what I'm doing; I think if I was doing anything else they’d be happy for me too. Coming back home has been really cool and seeing everybody kind of root for me has been great.

KG: Since you are from a small town and you were signed while you were still in high school, how did you get discovered?

NK: I was putting music on SoundCloud when I was a senior in high school. I was writing new songs—and I wasn’t ashamed of it—but I didn't want to advertise it too much. I wasn't really public about my songwriting and the music I was making. I started putting it on SoundCloud with the help of some friends who would produce them for me and kind of leaving them there and letting them hang in the ambiance of the SoundCloud folk singer/songwriter world and they started getting like weirdly successful, and people were listening to them and sharing them and they were getting like thousands of plays, which was so much for me at the time, and it was so overwhelming and cool. Then my eventual manager, Drew Simmons, reached out to me through SoundCloud messenger and I didn't respond at first. He came out to Vermont, met my parents, he sent me to New York and I got a record deal at Republic and I've been working for three years.

KG: I read that you said that if two things happened that you would know that you have made it: if you became verified on Instagram and if you had your own Wikipedia page, and you have both so I'd say that you made it! What other goals do you have set for yourself?

NK: None. I don’t have any other goals; that was it. (laughs) I thought that was when I could quit and that I’d have a mansion, and that was it, but getting verified on Instagram and getting a Wikipedia page unfortunately does not allow you to retire so I'm still making music. It was definitely really cool. I always wanted those two things, but when you get them it's kind of like, it didn’t really feel that great; it’s just another thing. So, I don't know, I got to set myself another goal—I feel like I need my expectations of myself to be a little higher than that.

KG: Do you have a message for your fans?

NK: I just want to say thank you guys so much for waiting and being patient and continuing to support me. I’ve kind of staggered the songs getting released, and I know people want music all the time; in this day and age everyone expects a song a week, or a song a month, and I'm sorry I haven't done that, but I'm really excited to show everybody these new songs and to kind of share myself, and this chapter of my life, with my fans and with the world. So thank you guys for hanging in there; I think it's going to be worth the wait.