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.”
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.”
