Gabe Simon was already having a pretty good day on Sunday (May 3) when he found out that Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide, which he co-wrote and co-produced, had debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 all-genre chart dated May 9.
“I had a turkey leg in my left hand. I was at the [Tennessee] Renaissance [Festival]. My kids are running around dressed up as fairies, and I get a text from manager Drew [Simmons] saying that we’re No. 1,” he tells Billboard.
Kahan’s fourth full-length studio project is his first chart topper in the U.S., earning 389,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate. That makes the Mercury/Republic Records release the largest rock album since the Billboard 200 began measuring by units in late 2014. The title also landed the largest streaming week of any album so far in 2026 and had the biggest vinyl sales week for a rock album since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991. The album also had the largest streaming week of any album in 2026.
And the news got better. Monday (May 4), all 21 songs from the standard and deluxe version of The Great Divide appeared on the Hot 100, making Kahan only the sixth non-rap artist to chart 21 or more songs on the chart simultaneously.
Simon met Kahan through Simmons, who also manages Kahan, and began working with the folk rocker on 2022’s Stick Season, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and turned him into a star. Simon produced The Great Divide with Kahan and Aaron Dessner, The National guitarist and composer best known for his work with Taylor Swift, and co-wrote 10 of the 21 tracks.
Given The Great Divide’s often dark and occasionally vitriolic subject matter about relationships and the chasm that exists in communication, sometimes the mood during the album’s creation would be appropriately downcast.
“I couldn’t give you one particular vibe because it kept oscillating depending on where we were in the process,” Simon says. “Early on, it was angry and dark. I remember heading up to [Dessner’s] Long Pond [Studio in upstate New York] with Noah, and he goes, ‘I just want to write dark, angry sh-t.’ And I was just like, ‘Let’s do it.’ That’s when we did ‘Downfall’ and ‘Lighthouse’ and ‘A Few of Your Own,’ which is not sad or angry at all.”
But while recording and living at a farmhouse outside of Nashville, regardless of the sad content, the mood was upbeat. “We’re riding dirt bikes and shooting shotguns and we’re cooking our dinners for each other,” Simon continued. “We’re hanging out with cows and feeding chickens, fishing and just having fun.” Despite writing and recording such songs as the gaslight-fueled “Deny, Deny, Deny,” “we were just in a spot of contentment,” Simon says.
Over the last few years, Simon and Kahan have built up a circle of trust. “We have an unspoken language that really does something beautiful, and I love it,” Simon says. “I’m grateful for the trust, the companionship, that [Noah] lets me be critical of him and lets me push him,” Simon says. “I mean, that’s not the case with everybody, especially as they get bigger. In this moment right now, we’re seeing the fruits of that labor.”
Below, Simon takes Billboard behind the scenes of creating several songs on the album. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
