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 tracks.

The “Stick Season” singer was born on Jan. 1, 1997, to Lauri Berkenkamp and Josh Kahan in Vermont. 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 angry at my parents for what their parents did to them,” and in “Stick Season,” he shares how he hopes he can heal from the “darkness” he inherited from his dad.

Kahan shared with VT Digger in January 2023 that while some of his lyrics seem to be critical of his parents, they are still more of an exaggeration and didn’t come as a shock to his parents, whom he said have been understanding and supportive of him.

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

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

They live in Vermont

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 to camp there on weekends while his dad who worked as an information technologist, cleared the land to build a home. Josh eventually completed the house and the family moved back to Strafford permanently when Kahan was in high school.

“All these trails — my dad cut all these trees down and built this huge trail system,” Kahan told 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 the “lonely” state, would eventually write his debut album Stick Season in his father’s barn on their property.

His mother is an author

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

Now, Berkenkamp serves as the director of integrated communications at Dartmouth College, a position she’s held since December 2019, according to her LinkedIn.

His parents helped foster his musical career

Kahan’s dad taught him how to play guitar at a young age, inspiring his future career as a musician. Meanwhile, his mom kept her iPod full of songs by artists like Paul Simon and Cat Stevens, which Kahan listened to from a young age and grew an appreciation for the way they wrote.

“My mom was a best-selling author. My dad was a great musician,” he told Vermont Public in August 2022. “So, having music in the home was really important and inspired me to write from a really young age.”

As a writer herself, Berkenkamp also helped give Kahan constructive criticism when he first began writing music as early as 8 years old, he told the VT Digger.

“I would play the songs for my mom, and she would give me pretty good criticism on them,” he said. “She was never mean, or too harsh, but she would be like, ‘Yeah, this is why you need 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 everything was really good. But when I look back, I’m really grateful for that advice, because it helped me get better at writing.”

They are very open about mental health

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

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

Kahan added that his parents’ acceptance of his struggles and encouragement to seek help made it more natural for him to write about his experiences down the line.

They divorced during the COVID-19 pandemic

While the COVID-19 pandemic was underway in March 2020, Kahan decided to move back home to his family’s place in Vermont. However, soon after he got back, his parents divorced.

“I was home through all of that, and I was having some really complicated feelings with all that, obviously, as you do when your folks 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 really hard for me to go through.”

Kahan said his emotions greatly impacted his music at the time, especially since he wasn’t going to therapy, and he began using writing as a way to cope. Not being able to turn to his parents about his struggle with the divorce made it even harder, he said.

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

The time at home was still what Kahan said he needed, and he treasured the chance to reconnect with his siblings and parents, he told PEOPLE in 2022.

"We had to kind of come to terms with a lot of stuff that was going on in our family and my life," he said. "Writing the songs made me feel a little bit less alone, and especially when I saw them start to connect with people… I kind of felt like I got sucked into Vermont and it never really left me again."

They are supportive of Kahan’s career

Kahan’s 2022 album, Stick Season, touches upon the most vulnerable parts of his life, including his mental health struggles and his family life. However, his parents don’t mind, rather, Kahan thinks it only helped their relationship.

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

Though some pointed out that it could be awkward to sing about such personal things, Kahan said he felt a “responsibility” to do so.

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

In February 2024, Berkenkamp attended the Grammys with Kahan. The singer was nominated for best new artist, and his mother opened up about what an emotional experience the night was for her on the Live From E! red carpet pre-show broadcast.

"Well, I cried three times in the car over [here]. I'm trying really hard not to cry. I don’t usually look like this, so I'm trying to keep it together," she said.

“You look beautiful, mom,” Kahan added.

They joined Kahan on stage at Fenway Park

When Kahan closed out two sold-out shows at Boston's Fenway Park in July 2024, his family, including both of his parents, joined him on stage as he performed "Stick Season."

In footage from the concert that a fan shared on X (formerly Twitter), his parents can be seen dancing and singing along to the song with Kahan.