Noah Kahan's songs are filled with honest stories about his fraught family life. His new documentary Noah Kahan: Out of Body explores how they feel about that candidness. Noah Kahan and Mastercard Co-Produce and Premiere 'The Great Divide' Music Video on January 14, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty Images)

Billboard via Getty Images

For more than half a decade now, Noah Kahan has been building his musical catalog by focusing on emotional honesty and not staying away from specifics. Long before his breakout album Stick Season pushed him into the mainstream, his songwriting was centered around topics like mental health, small-town life, complicated family dynamics, and the kind of experiences that don’t neatly fade with time. The ones that can shape who a person becomes. Moments that can be traumatizing, but that’s part of life.

When that album connected in a bigger way, Stick Season didn’t mark a shift in his voice — it simply introduced that candidness to a much wider audience.

That openness has become central to how listeners engage with Kahan’s music. Fans don’t just enjoy the songs, they see themselves and their own families in them. His lyrics about depression, anxiety, fractured relationships, and the tension between leaving home and forever being tied to it – even when it’s not the most exciting place – tend to resonate deeply because they feel specific, not generalized.

What often goes unexamined is what it’s like for the real people inside those stories to hear their lives reflected back at them, sometimes in very direct ways, on a massive scale. How do they deal with that kind of exposure, which none of them – save for Kahan himself – ever courted?

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The singer-songwriter is the subject of a new Netflix documentary titled Noah Kahan: Out of Body, which dropped just days before his upcoming new album The Great Divide. The film, which is available to watch now, leans into that question. The project details his rise and the making of new music, but the focus is largely on the people who have been part of Kahan’s life all along. The film provides a space to examine how those family members process experiencing those moments turned into songs that reach millions.

At one point, Kahan’s mother texts him a simple “Ouch,” reacting to a glib comment he made on stage that pokes fun at the divorce of his parents. Later, when asked about it directly by the filmmakers, she offers a more measured comment. She notes that every family has its own version of “dirty laundry,” and that speaking openly about those experiences can be good, as it may help normalize them.

As director Nick Sweeney explains, that angle wasn’t the original plan. “We had really no idea what we were going to capture,” he says about the outset of the project. What changed was the realization that Kahan himself was already working through these questions in real time. “There were these questions that Noah was asking about himself… and these family struggles that are very personal.” Once those elements surfaced, they became impossible to ignore. A documentary that started as a look at a major concert gradually turned into something much more personal: a portrait of an artist dealing with the same material that fuels his writing.

That shift gives the film a very special kind of weight, which is absent from so many music documentaries. Kahan’s oft-praised lyrics come across less as standalone expressions and more as part of an ongoing exchange with the people he loves most. Sometimes that’s spelled out in conversation. Other times, it shows up in quieter ways, through shared moments that carry more than what’s said out loud. The idea of “airing dirty laundry” comes up more than once, and it’s not treated as a simple negative or positive. It’s just part of the reality of creating his kind of music.

Some of Kahan’s family members seem comfortable with the exposure, and even recognize the value in it — not just for him, but for listeners who might need to hear those stories to understand that they are not alone in such struggles. At the same time, the film doesn’t gloss over the discomfort that can come with that level of visibility. Not everyone loves Kahan’s creative decisions.

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Producer Samantha Mustari points to that balance as part of why the story connects beyond Kahan’s immediate world. “His family is so unique in so many ways, but I think there’s so much that’s universal about them,” she says. Even without sharing the same background, the dynamics can feel familiar. “I see a lot of my own relationship with my siblings in his music, and my relationship with my parents in his music too.”

Artists are usually praised for being open about their lives in their work, but there’s less attention paid to what that openness means for everyone else involved. The documentary doesn’t try to resolve that question, nor many others. It simply lays them out, and lets the many complexities of family life exist.

I spoke with both director Nick Sweeney and producer Samantha Mustari about Noah Kahan: Out of Body and what made the filming process so special for everyone involved – including the subject himself.

McIntyre: When you started conversations with Noah and his team, were you all aligned that this was largely going to be a film about mental health and body dysmorphia, or is that something that he opened up about during the process?

Sweeney: We had really no idea what we were going to capture. Honestly. We knew that Noah was on this pretty extraordinary tour, and it had been going for a really long time, and I remember thinking, oh, well, if we capture that, that’ll be really incredible. But we had no idea what we would get beyond that.

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What became really clear as soon as we started having discussions with him was that he was going through a lot of very big questions in his life about who he is and where home is, what type of son he wants to be, and even issues around his body. The question for me and Sam then was, okay, are we going to be able to include that in this film? Is this person ready to put that all on camera? Because it does take a lot of bravery to be open about those types of things.

What we found was, no matter what question we asked Noah, there was nothing that was off limits. He never pushed back on anything. We would kind of be like, “Do you feel comfortable letting us film these discussions that you’re planning to have with your dad or with your mom?” The answer was always yes. We were just waiting for him to push back.

But in terms of what we set out, we really had absolutely no idea. We didn’t know that we’d get to film with his family, and we certainly didn’t know that we would get the recording of this new album. That really was not something that was even in the realm of possibilities from our point of view at that point.

Mustari: Totally. It was a really happy surprise that we got to be there for the recording of “Doors.” We’re really excited about that song and just huge fans of it now. When we started talking to him, he knew he was at this crossroads from a career point of view. He knew he was confronting the end of the Stick Season era, the end of this huge tour, and grappling with what was coming next. As this personal journey started weaving into that career journey, we found the sweet spot of the film.

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McIntyre: It’s interesting — you went into this project just filming him, and then you ended up being invited into different parts of his life. Tell me if I’m wrong, but it seems like it grew naturally from that, without you initially expecting to capture something like the making of the album, which became a pretty big part of it.

Sweeney: It’s pretty shocking, isn’t it? You never know what you’re going to get. And I think even if you do go in with a really specific plan, it never ends up being what you intended. The best you can do is respond to things as they happen.

We had a very small crew. It was often just me, Sam, and Henry and Alison and Asha Brown, who were the co-producers, who also were sometimes running camera and audio. I think because we were so small, it meant that they could give us notice, like, “Noah is going into the studio in two days. Can you be there for it?” Or “Noah’s decided to go on a trip back to Vermont, and he’s going to hang out with his family. Can you be there for it?”

Having such a small team let us respond to things. I think that’s how you get better stuff. If we had preconceptions about what we were going to get, then it would have affected the way that we approached it.

McIntyre: So when you first started talking about a Noah Kahan documentary, what did you think the story might be? Or was it more a case of filming for a few weeks and seeing what came out of it?

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Sweeney: When you have Fenway… it’s a very significant venue. It has the quality of being a hometown crowd. Those types of shows, there’s a lot of pressure for artists, because it’s the people that were there from the beginning. We knew that that was coming up, and we always knew that Fenway was going to be a huge, significant part of it.

What we discovered was that there was so much more going on. There were these questions that Noah was asking about himself and himself as an artist, and the way that he had included his family and these struggles that are very personal in this album that became so huge.

In the film, we see him and Simon, his brother, having this chat in a donut shop. Simon says it was surreal seeing the crowd in LA singing along to lyrics about their mom and dad’s divorce. And then Noah makes this joke on stage about how they’ve tried to replicate his mom’s living room, but they couldn’t bring the divorce lawyers, and his mom then texts him, “Ouch.”

These parts of his life were so interwoven with each other – the family stuff, things about his body. We see him the day after Madison Square Garden, performing a show where he’s really dealing with a lot of these issues around his body dysmorphia and feelings of pain around his self-image. All of these things were so interwoven, you couldn’t not capture these struggles if you were there for the tour.

Mustari: Definitely. I think a funny part of it that honestly was just a total coincidence is that we ended up on the tour in the city that his siblings lived in. We ended up in Salt Lake City, where his sister Samantha happens to live, in Park City. We ended up in New York, where his brother Simon lives. That was almost a total accident. But like Nick is saying, we almost couldn’t help but capture these other parts of his life on tour with him.

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Sweeney: There were conversations that were clearly bubbling to the surface for him. There were things that he wanted to talk about. With his sister, they start talking naturally about missing their dad and worrying about him. They’re the kind of conversations that I guess people naturally have.

McIntyre: As I was watching, I kept thinking—you’re going to a lot of places: Vermont, Boston, Nashville, Park City. Even with a small team, that can easily add up. So I’m curious, from a behind-the-scenes standpoint, how did you figure out the budget? Did you know early on that you could travel that much, or did you end up finding more money as the project grew?

Sweeney: When it’s four people in an SUV, it’s not so expensive or risky that you couldn’t just respond to things. I think it was really the smallness.

Mustari: When we were building the production plan, we knew we were going to be touring with him. It was part of the plan from the top.

We were lucky to get as much as we did in the days that we were there. We really were able to make the most of each city that we went to. That was, like Nick is saying, due to our small and nimble team. If anything happened, we jumped in the car and showed up. It never felt like there was a lot of reassessing needed to be done along the way.

Sweeney: The only thing that, if we could have done more of, would probably have been, as you see in the film, we get these beautiful shots around Vermont, and we get to spend time with the local people there. I could have kept going forever. We have a lot of it in the film, but it was so magical.

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And the people in Vermont are so interesting. There’s this amazing scene where we’re filming at a place called Coburn’s General Store, and the proprietor is Mel Coburn. They sell Noah’s merch there. It’s this very special place for his fans. We interview him, and I asked him, “Are you a big fan of Noah’s music?” He’s like, “No, I don’t really like his music much,” which is so funny.

We showed up one day, and these girls were sitting in an igloo, which I’ve never even seen before, and I asked one of them, “What’s your favorite Noah Kahan song?” She’s like, “Taylor Swift.” And then her sister’s like, “What’s your favorite Noah Kahan song?” And she’s like, “I don’t know.”

The people in Vermont are very, very unique and honest. When I look at some of the stills from the production, the making of it, I’m just like, wow, what an incredible place. I really wish that I could still be there just filming aimlessly forever.

Mustari: It is a budget line that we were missing — the infinite Vermont shoot.

McIntyre: I can’t believe you went to Vermont in the winter and you’re sad you didn’t stay longer.

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Sweeney: I loved it there. We got really dirty as well. Sam, do you remember, we were there for these big snowstorms… Do you remember… you were, like, swimming in the snow at some point?

Mustari: I’m in New York, I don’t drive a lot. Driving up in Vermont, that was a fun one. I definitely was sliding down the hill in the snow. It was great.

McIntyre: If you haven’t trained in the snow, I know it’s hard. I’m from Massachusetts, actually. Part of why I love Noah so much is I understand the sensibilities when he references New England. I get it.

Mustari: I went to Emerson in Boston and actually went to a bunch of games at Fenway. So I really was excited for him, and when he was telling us initially about how excited he was to go play these shows at Fenway, I was like, “I know Fenway shows. I’m not a New Englander, but a temporary New Englander during college.” I understand what a big deal that is, right?

McIntyre: The film isn’t always flattering to Noah’s family, and he really puts everything out there. What stood out to me was how open his parents, and especially his siblings, were. They didn’t seem to shy away from any of it. How did you work with them to make them feel comfortable speaking so honestly?

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Sweeney: We were really upfront about what it was that we thought was interesting that was happening in Noah’s life. I think one of these questions about wanting to be a better son is something that all of us can relate to in some way. As we saw Noah struggling with those types of things, we were really honest with him and said, “Hey, this is something that all of us think about, and it would be really interesting if you let us film these conversations that you’re planning to have or that you’ve been putting off. As you go back and finish this tour and start to confront these questions.” He totally understood why it was important to include those types of things.

Same with his family. We were very, very open with them. We said, “This is the reason why we think this is interesting, and we know that these types of conversations are happening already. So how would you feel about us capturing some of it?” Laurie, Noah’s mother, gives this amazing line that Noah’s music makes their family’s dirty laundry seem like being human. I think she has, in a way, made peace with the idea. It’s helpful for people to see those parts of their lives, because it helps them deal with the same types of problems themselves. I really love how Laurie says that.

Especially in this area that we’re in now, we go to such great lengths to make our lives look perfect and to hide the dirty laundry. And here is Noah putting his family’s dirty laundry in these huge songs. And they’re okay with it, because they understand why it’s helpful.

McIntyre: Part of what made Stick Season stand out so much was Noah’s directness about his family, about mental health, body dysmorphia, but he seems to take it all a step further in this documentary. What did you all learn from following him and spending that time with him that we wouldn’t get just from the music?

Mustari: You see in the film, his family are, in a lot of ways, as funny and charming and smart and witty as Noah. We had the best time filming with them. They were just so generous with their time and letting us into these situations.

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His family is so unique in so many ways, but I think there’s so much that’s universal about them. Even though I have a different upbringing than Noah, I see a lot of my own relationship with my siblings in his music, and my relationship with my parents in his music too.

I’ll speak for myself, but I think a lot of members of our team, in working with Noah and his family and crafting a story, turned to our own lives in the process. I definitely had conversations with my dad and my mom throughout the production of the film. I think as somebody that’s in a very exceptional situation, in a lot of ways, he’s going through stuff that everybody’s going through with family.

Sweeney: He says, “You may never have the discussion with your parents that you want to.” That’s really interesting because we see him tortured by that. I think that’s something that so many of us feel, like there are these unspoken conversations that we wish we could have.

One of the things I love is that we see Noah having these types of conversations, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. For example, with his mom, they have this discussion about Noah finally apologizing for never having asked them whether he could include these stories in the music. And I think it’s such an interesting scene.

Then there are also these unspoken versions of that. Towards the end of the film, we see him play a song with his dad, one that is really significant to them, “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens – the first song they ever played together. There’s something really unspoken in that scene. There’s this sense of dialogue, even though it’s happening through the music.

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Sweeney: There’s also this other line, which I think is something that we took away from that, to see that there are ways to start to have these types of conversations that you want to have, that you might have been avoidant about. There’s this line that Noah says — it’s not about curing body dysmorphia and issues around body image. He says something like, “I’m not curing it, but I’m just walking near it and I’m poking it with a stick and saying, what are you?” I think that really is a good encapsulation of the film. It’s not a magical fairy tale ending where everything’s perfect. It’s more just about starting to recognize the things that you’re struggling with, and maybe trying to look for a way to talk about them, or give a name to them.