Sheds, Vibes & Pretty Boys: an Interview with Noah Mac & Chris Thach
In the San Francisco Bay Area, a small town in the Tri-Valley region hugs the base of Mount Diablo. Dublin, California sits in a dip in the endless hills and mountains, a safe haven of suburbia that reigns the valley. This pocket of land is home to the unique creative partnership of Noah Mac and Chris Thach. Noah, a singer/songwriter/producer, released his debut album Pretty Boy in July of 2019, two years after his time on the television show, The Voice. Leaving the mainstream music scene behind, Noah used Pretty Boy as a means to find his true voice and redefine himself as an artist. The shed in his backyard became his home studio, where he created the entire album. Chris, an aspiring filmmaker, became friends with Noah in high school, and around this time, their relationship grew and the backyard shed became their shared thinking place for the Pretty Boy music videos. Their close friendship carried them through the making of four music videos for the album, perhaps the most special being the video for “Keepmelookingforward,” which Chris shot, edited, and directed.
In an industry that asks artists to compromise and change, Noah and Chris have found their own pocket of trust to create freely and fulfill each of their creative visions together. Much like their hometown, the two have built their own safe haven in the valley of the music and film industries. As they continue to work together, their mutual respect, admiration, and true friendship are what sets them apart amidst all the noise.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about yourselves.
[NOAH:] I’m Noah Mac, I’m a singer/songwriter/producer, and I’ve been making music in a shed in my backyard for, I think, four years now? I want to say four years, it might be more.
[CHRIS:] I’m Chris Thach and I’m an aspiring filmmaker. I’m currently a student and I want to transfer to become a film major, but I’m a communications major right now. I try to make films that bring new perspectives to households - that’s what I put on my college app.
[NOAH:] I was gonna say, that was really good.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Noah, how would you describe your music style?
[NOAH:] Ah, shit. That’s the hardest question ever for me. It’s constantly evolving because I’m constantly learning. So, I started off more in the pop realm, and now I’m kind of evolving more into elements of R&B, I suppose? But, it’s still outside of most genres, I would say.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How did your partnership begin?
[CHRIS:] So, in high school, I saw Noah walking around in the hallways. I knew he was a musician, so I looked him up on Spotify. I was like, “Oh, this is really good,” and then, Joe - my friend, Joe - was in his class, and I was like, “Joe. Can you buy his CD from him? For me?” I had already listened to it, but then, he did that and I got the CD. I listened to it again and after that, I was like, “Joe. I’m gonna be friends with that guy. Just you wait.” I guess that was kind of a joke, but it just happened. We met through another music video shoot that we did.
[NOAH:] Yeah, I had kind of heard of Chris and I saw him do some cool things with the high school stuff that everyone was doing at the time, and Chris was just, like, really, really incredible from just the small things that I’d seen. I was working with another guy in high school and we decided to bring Chris on the project to help out, but through working with him, I realized that Chris is not just fantastic and incredibly talented, but I feel like a lot of our vision meshes well together. Our styles work very well when we work together and he’s just a cool person to have around. He’s become my best friend.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What is the nature of your partnership? What does your back and forth look like when you collaborate?
[CHRIS:] There was one day where I just had some ideas flowing, and I said them aloud to Noah when we were out on a trip to Tahoe. We just sat down and we started fleshing things out. When we went back home, I had classes until 1, but right after, I would just go straight to Noah’s house. We’d sit in his shed until 7 at night, just working and fleshing out things.
[NOAH:] It was, like, almost every single day. It was just a thing; it was like, “Yeah, we’re gonna work on the Pretty Boy videos and sit in my shed,” and my shed had no insulation, so-
[CHRIS:] There’s, like, mold everywhere.
[NOAH:] Yeah, there’s just, like, spiders coming down the ceiling, but we were in there every single day, getting really excited to collaborate on something, but mostly, just to create something that would be really cool.
[CHRIS:] It kind of was my first time working with someone who is really, really artistic in the way that Noah is. I think music is that purest form, because you hear a song and you just give it a treatment; the music video’s already written with it, so it was a really interesting experience for me. Before I even worked on Pretty Boy with Noah - I talk about Pretty Boy in the way that it was my awakening to artistic things because before, I just thought - oh, this is so bad, but I thought that art was just doing shit that’s cool, and you know, it sort of is, but it didn’t seem that crazy to me. Noah showed me a depth to it where it can be your life.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What do you admire about each other’s work?
[CHRIS:] Every time I walk into Noah’s house, it’s a very artistic family, and Noah sits in his studio and gets to the core of how he feels, either in his life, his music, or anything artistic. What I admire is how easy it comes to him. It was just mind-blowing to meet someone like Noah, who’s very in tune with himself and knows what he wants, and artistically, loves to explore. I don’t think I’d ever met anyone like that in Dublin, up until that point.
[NOAH:] Yeah, for me, I had always been fascinated with different types of mediums within art, but when I met Chris, I understood how much depth there was to film. Actually, I still don’t understand it, but I got a glimpse into how much depth there was, how deep his mind specifically goes within film, and how powerful being a filmmaker can actually be. I had no idea, and when I started hanging out with him, I equated it to an author of a book; where, in order to truly understand the things you are making a film about or any kind of story you are trying to create, there’s a level of having to dive so deep into every single detail and every single nuance of every single bit of that story that just blows my mind. For me, I generally work in abstracts. In any form of art, I stay more towards the abstract side, and even just the length of a song and how short of a time that takes to develop, versus a film or the thought process behind a film. It brought in my sense of what art can be and how much you can put into something.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What is special about your partnership and why do you work well together?
[CHRIS:] I’m always so happy that we can work purely off of, like - I don’t want to say, but, vibes? Especially now, with travel vloggers and student short films and online everything, and marketing yourself and all that stuff, it’s easy to be like; “We’re gonna make something that appeals to a certain audience.” Obviously, that’s how film is, but this feels like - This kind of reverberates in our friend groups, but it feels like our coming-of-age. When I hang out with everybody or we film, I always feel cinematic. It just feels good. It’s really nice to just experience.
[NOAH:] I think there’s a selflessness to Chris, and an exploration within both of us that feels safe. Growing up in the suburb that we grew up in, I always felt like I could relate to people in certain ways, but the type of art that I made never felt like I could relate to a lot of people. It always felt like I had to sacrifice a lot of what I did in order to make art or collaborate in any way with other people. Even in LA and when I was within that industry pretty heavy, I was working with mainstream pop producers and having these great connections that anyone would be thankful for, and it never felt safe, like, truly safe or free. Chris is the person that I finally felt like I could express my artistic choices and visions, like, pure. It just felt pure. That is really powerful as an artist to experience, to be around people that empower your artistic choices.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Noah, why did you decide to have Chris work on ‘Keepmelookingforward’ on his own? Why that song in particular?
[NOAH:] Well, for me, ‘Keepmelookingforward’ is a really special song. It was one of the most special songs on the entire album, and when me and Chris were talking about the beginning stages of music videos and ideas and concepts and stuff, it was the first thing that Chris talked about that he had a straightforward vision for. I remember him talking to me about it, and me being kind of like, “Eh, I don’t really - I don’t see it as much as you see it.” But, he just knew. He had some kind of really distinct vision for it from the beginning, before we even fleshed out any of the music videos, and as we were working on the other ones, he was already working on it because he just wanted to work on it, which is sick. But, as we started working on the other music videos, I saw his vision. I saw his vision within the project, I saw the incredible stuff that he brought to every single music video, and there was a trust that I built with him through seeing his intuition. It was just at a point where, like, I felt so grateful to have Chris make this music video for me. All of the others were as a team and we both worked on it together, but this felt like an entire art piece. It felt like his sculpture that he created for the purpose of the song. It feels like the masterpiece of the music videos to me. It fits so well with the song. It’s such a special song to me and it only made sense that that music video ended up being as special as it was.
A shot from the ‘Keepmelookingforward’ music video
[UNPUBLISHED:] Chris, what was the concept and process for ‘Keepmelookingforward?
[CHRIS:] The first idea I told Noah - I remember I wrote it down, it was; “images that are reminiscent of childhood.” If you see a music video about childhood, you see crayons and teddy bears and stuff like that. I really wanted to look at the images that stick with kids without them knowing, like their mom’s purse, or their dad’s coat that he hung up after coming home from work, or a light refraction coming into the car. It’s those tiny moments. This is something that I’ve always been intensely fascinated with since I was a kid, like, how we take in things as people. I would look at other kids, and I’m like, “Why does he not pay attention to everything? And why does this other kid pay attention to everything?” Why do they look at the tables that they do? Why do they hold their pencil a certain way? There’s so much developmental stuff. ‘Keepmelookingforward’ felt really pure and tender, so I wanted to evoke a feeling.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What was your favorite project that you’ve worked on together?
[CHRIS:] Pretty Boy as a whole, I think, is my favorite. That’s the main, main thing. How do you feel, Noah?
[NOAH:] Dude, I don’t even know. I feel like ‘Keepmelookingforward’ is the best project that we made. But, that was all you - I just made the music, and you just made the video. For the process of something that we worked on together, I feel like the entirety of Pretty Boy was just super exciting. Being able to collaborate with an artist that I really respect, and feeling really free, like, saying, “This vibe, just, reminds me of this,” and having that validated, instead of criticized. I think a lot of people, in general, when working on art or any kind of project, tend to focus on asking; “What’s the reason?” Like, there needs to be some set goal, there needs to be some kind of direction towards achieving some kind of financial gain at the end of whatever you do, and it was kind of magical to be like, “Let’s just explore and do things that feel right and see what happens.”
A shot from the ‘Closer’ music video
[UNPUBLISHED:] As you continue to collaborate, how do you work to challenge and grow from your previous projects?
[CHRIS:] We’re getting better at planning and organizing and budgeting. We have walkie talkies for whatever the next music video is.
[NOAH:] Hell yeah!
[CHRIS:] I think we’re just growing and letting life happen. It’s interesting because what we’re working on now feels like a different realm of maturity, like, new beginnings. It feels different and it’s really nice. Pretty Boy was really bright, nice colors, lots of fruit, and I think Noah said multiple times throughout that he was like, “I’m sick of doing dark stuff.” Now, what we’re doing feels like a hybrid type thing. It’s cool and it’s fun exploring.
[NOAH:] My progression as a music artist went from having no idea where I was to having a lot of angst after going on a certain television show that painted me to be a certain way. That angst ending up being the result of a kind of depression that I went through after all that and questioning who I was; I was seventeen, I was questioning who I was, just like everybody else was. It sent me into this really dark, deep place with my music and Pretty Boy was a reaction to that, coming back into light and color and finding happiness within myself and loving the process of making art. The next project that we’re working on is, like Chris said, a hybrid of self-love and the deeper, darker aspects of one’s self.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How would you describe your friendship?
[CHRIS:] Our friendship is like, one second, we’ll be laughing and then literally, someone will ask a serious question about our existence. Like, Colby will bring something up and everything will halt, and we’ll actually dial in on the question. It won’t be like a, “Oh, what the hell?” It’ll be like, “Oh, yeah. I think this.” It gets so serious.
[NOAH:] I would agree. It’s kind of like being high all the time, where we’ll be meming around like crazy and the next, we’ll be in the deepest talk about our feelings and going through an entire therapy session or talking about the economic state of politics and how we’re destroyed by things going on in the world. It’s cool because it hits every single point that you want hit from a friendship.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Walk us through a typical day of hanging out when you’re not working.
[CHRIS:] I think, usually, how it starts out, is somebody texts. Noah used to never text anybody to hang out, but he does now. He’s trying now because he’s actually dying and he wants social interaction.
[NOAH:] Yeah, I actually crave social interaction now.
[CHRIS:] Usually, it’s just me being like, “Hey, do you guys want to go somewhere in 20 minutes or 5 minutes or something?” It feels really small-towny because we’ll just drive around and we’ll do stuff. Hanging out with Noah is always an adventure, like, he wants to go slacklining, or he wants to go through a tunnel or explore. There are also moments where we just drive up to Colby’s house without even saying anything and then we’re like, “Um, Colby, do you want to hang out?” And he’s like, “I think I have a lot of work,” and I’m like, “What if I told you that I was outside?”
[NOAH:] Yeah, Chris usually starts the hangout session, and it’s usually something like, “Let’s just go to someplace and look at a view.” So, we do that and it’s always really nice. And then, afterward, I’m like, “Okay, now it’s time to almost kill ourselves doing something really physical and crazy.” I feel like that’s the best way to sum it up. And after that, we go back to somebody’s house and we just have the deepest talks until four in the morning, and then we go home.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What can we look forward to from you in the future?
[CHRIS:] Right now, we’re still in pre-production of the next project that Noah has. It’s a short film music video of five songs in one continuous thing.
[NOAH:] I have an album, which is what the short film is ultimately for - to publicize and get people ready for it. It kind of acts as a teaser to the full-length album. But, that is so far in the future, especially with everything that’s going on in the world, that it’s hard to say when that’s going to be ready. So, it’s hard to say dates, but we’re working as hard as we can. We’re trying to be as safe as possible because the last thing we want right now is to make anything worse or contribute in any way to making this last longer than it already has.
Noah Mac - Keepmelookingforward (Official Music Video)
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Stream Pretty Boy here.