All About Noah Kahan’s Parents, Lauri Berkenkamp and Josh Kahan

Noah Kahan’s parents not only raised him, but also inspired many of his most famous songs.

The “Stick Season” singer was born on January 1, 1997 in Vermont to Laura Berkenkamp and Josh Kahan. Kahan often sings about his parents and the struggles he experienced growing up and after his parents divorced.

In “Growing Sideways,” he sings, “I’m still mad at my parents for what my parents did to them,” and in “Stick Season,” he says he hopes he can heal from the “darkness” his dad inherited.

In January 2023, Kahan shared with VT Digger that while some of his lyrics appeared to be critical of his parents, they were more of an exaggeration and did not come as a shock to his parents, who he said were understanding and supportive.

“It was definitely a conversation I had with them before the record came out, ‘OK, I’m sorry if you feel uncomfortable about this,'” he said. “And I don’t know if they are or not, or if they are. I still have a great relationship with my parents.”

From his childhood in Vermont to his parents’ divorce, here’s everything you need to know about Noah Kahan’s parents.

They live in Vermont

Noah Kahan and his mother Lauri Berkenkamp.

Noah Kahan Instagram

Kahan and his three siblings lived in Strafford, Vermont, before his family moved to nearby Hanover, New Hampshire. However, the family kept their land in Strafford and would return there on weekends to camp while his father, who worked as an IT technologist, cleared the land to build a house. Josh eventually finished the house and the family moved permanently to Strafford while Kahan was in high school.

“All these trails — my dad cut down all these trees and made this huge trail system,” Kahan said The New York Times in December 2023 “You can walk around all day and still be on my property.”

Kahan, who often sings about growing up in a “lonely” state, will eventually write his debut album Stick season in his father’s stable on their property.

His mother is a writer

Kahan’s mother had a career as a book author and publisher, writing parenting guides and children’s books. Her work, including the 2003 title Because I Said So!: Family Feuds and How to Solve Themis available on Amazon.

Berkenkamp now works as the director of integrated communications at Dartmouth College, a position she has held since December 2019, according to her LinkedIn.

His parents helped him nurture a musical career

Noah Kahan and his family on Christmas Day 2018.

Noah Kahan Instagram

Kahan’s father taught him to play the guitar at a young age, which inspired his future career as a musician. Meanwhile, his mom kept her iPod full of songs by artists like Paul Simon and Cat Stevens, whom Kahan listened to from an early age and came to appreciate their writing style.

“My mom was a bestselling author. My dad was a great musician,” he told the Vermont Public in August 2022. “So having music in the house was really important and inspired me to write from a very early age.”

As a writer, Berkenkamp also helped give Kahan constructive criticism when he first started writing music, as early as age 8, he told VT Digger.

“I would play songs to my mom and she would give me a pretty good critique,” he said. She was never mean or harsh, but she would say, ‘Yeah, this is why you have to fix this,’ or ‘I don’t like that one for this reason,’ or ‘I like this for this reason.’ ”

He added: “I think at the time I wanted to be told that everything was really good. But looking back, I’m really grateful for that advice because it helped me become a better writer.”

They are very open about mental health

In many of his songs, Kahan talks openly about his lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression, something he says he inherited from his father. Growing up, however, Kahan said he felt supported by his family, who were eager to help him find a therapist and work on his mental health.

“However, I was very happy to be in a family where it was encouraged to talk about feelings,” he told the Vermont Public. “Where seeing therapy was encouraged. There was a really positive environment in my household around talking about mental illness and that helped me never feel that discomfort writing about it.”

Kahan added that his parents’ acceptance of his problems and encouragement to seek help made it more natural for him to write about his experiences below.

They divorced during the COVID-19 pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic was underway in March 2020, Kahan decided to return home to his family in Vermont. However, shortly after he returned, his parents divorced.

“I was at home through it all, and I had some really complicated feelings about it all, obviously, like when your parents get divorced,” he told VT Digger. “It was really sad. A lot of times I have a great relationship with my parents, but it was definitely something that was very difficult for me to go through.”

Kahan said his emotions at the time heavily influenced his music, especially since he wasn’t going to therapy, and he started using writing as a way to cope. Not being able to open up to his parents about his divorce battle made it even more difficult, he said.

“It was difficult to talk to both parents about it because they are obviously biased,” he said. “You know, they go through it in a bigger way than I do. So it’s hard to have that dialogue and get to a place, like reality, or get to a place of understanding with them.”

Time at home was still what Kahan said he needed, and he appreciated the opportunity to reconnect with his siblings and parents, he told PEOPLE in 2022.

“We had to kind of come to terms with a lot of things that were going on in our family and in my life,” he said. “Writing the songs made me feel a little less alone, and especially when I saw that they started connecting with people… I kind of felt like I was pulled into Vermont and it never left.”

They support Kahan’s career

Noah Kahan performs during the 2023 Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park on October 14, 2023 in Austin, Texas.

Erika Goldring/FilmMagic

Kahan’s 2022 album. Stick season, touches on the most sensitive parts of his life, including his mental issues and his family life. However, this does not bother his parents, Kahan believes that it only helped their relationship.

In “Stick Season,” he sings, “So I thought if I piled some good on top of all my bad/That I could undo the darkness I inherited from my dad.” In the January 2023 episode of The Song Exploder podcast, Kahan explained that the lyrics had to do with both of his parents’ own struggles, but especially his dad’s.

Although some pointed out that it might be embarrassing to sing about such personal matters, Kahan said he felt a “responsibility” to do so.

“I felt like I had a responsibility to sing about it, so maybe people can relate to it and feel understood in their own experience through my songs,” he told VT Digger. “So it was important … it helped me process it. And hopefully it helped other people going through it. You know, in many ways, I think maybe my parents, through my songs, at least heard a little bit of how I felt.”

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Source: HIS Education