KVNF Music Director Dre Castillo sits down with Noeline Hofmann ahead of her Telluride Bluegrass Festival Debut. Hofmann talks about her calling to do do music, how she was discovered by Zach Bryan on Instagram and what it means to be a singer-songwriter.
Noeline Hofmann will be performing at Telluride Bluegrass Festival on the Main Stage, Thursday, June 18th at 1:15 PM
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Dre Castillo: "So your family worked the land as crop dusters and you also have experience in cattle operations. You were tagging cows and delivering vaccines as a teenager. When did music start competing with that life for your attention?"
Noeline Hofmann: "After I graduated high school, I went to work for a couple of years. During high school, I started working on a couple of local farms/ranches and started learning more about cattle and the grasslands and helping out during calving seasons out there. I was so interested in it and passionate about it. I'd always wanted to do an agriculture exchange in Australia and New Zealand after graduating, but when I was in high school it was during COVID time, so the world and travel wasn't really an option. So I ended up, instead of deciding to go to school, stayed and worked.
I found a similar opportunity just within Canada and eventually moved out to Manitoba to work on a ranch out there and during that time and during my work time, (It's been my dream for ages and ages since I was a kid to do this, even though I couldn't really imagine what this actually looked like. It's been in my heart for a long time.) When I was working, in the back of my mind, I was always saving up my money to put towards getting to jump in with both feet and pursue a music career 100%. I have that kind of personality that can't really be one foot in and one foot out. So I just, I really credit that last ranch job that I had to sort of build up the courage, the life skills and belief in myself that it takes, or took me, to find the courage to finally jump off the deep end and go after what I really wanted."
Castillo: "Do you recall that aha moment where you made that decision for yourself?
Hofmann: "Yeah, I had moved home to Alberta from that job after my job was done there and I was a bit of a lost ship because I didn't want to go to school is the truth. I could have went to school, and do anything, but what I really wanted to do was music and see if I could really take a stab at it. My parents, bless them, were like, 'Okay, like, if this is what you really want to do, there's no better time for you to try than now.' They were like, 'How about you give it three months? How about you give it three months and give it everything you got for three months?' And so that's what I did. And of course, like, I appreciate them for their blessing. I would have eventually done it either way, but I'm glad that their blessing, at that point, helped me get there a lot quicker and have that confidence. It never really was three months in my mind. That was kind of the trick that I told myself. And then there was no looking back.
Growing up in an agricultural community, and really doing anything, like pursuing a music career, I had a lot of examples of seeing people working at something that could never keep afloat with only half of a heart, you know? You have to give it everything. And I guess my mentality in my own career has been 'too stubborn to quit'. It's going to take you out before you take yourself out of the game, you know?"
Castillo: "And the TikTok that you posted, could you walk me through that day?"
Hofmann: "Yeah, it's so funny going back to that time, because the months before that I had been really stubborn about trying to build my grassroots foundation as good old fashioned way as possible. I was going out and I was playing anywhere that they'd let me. Open mics all over, driving like six hours to play an open mic.
And then I was booking gigs, shoving my foot in the door at all those things and showing up to people's shows and shaking hands. I really hadn't put any focus on my social media at all but I sort of reached a point where I accomplished my first goal of meeting everybody that I could think of in the regional music scene here in Western Canada and building my community. I had a community, I was gigging every weekend. I'd sort of reached that goal. And I was like, well, what's next?
Sort of begrudgingly, I thought, 'I guess I should use this tool, and start focusing on social media, see what I can do here, post some videos.' And then, I had wrote this song and I had kind of dug myself in a hole. I couldn't tell if it was good or not anymore. Sometimes if you're beating yourself up on a song. I get that way. So I was like, well, I'm going to throw it up and I posted it. Then I woke up in the morning, (and I had like 300 followers on TikTok at the time.) I basically opened my account and it started to pick up traction and it was just a funny thing throughout the day.
My dad and I were driving up to Canadian Thanksgiving and I was playing at a cowboy poetry gathering on the way up to Thanksgiving. It was getting views and views and we just thought it was like the darndest thing. We were having fun checking every hour like, 'how many views has it gotten?' It was just crazy. I could have never expected that.
The most views I probably had on a video before at that point was like 800 views, you know?
Then, I started getting DMs from people on TikTok that were asking if I would post the video on Instagram and I wasn't going to, is the craziest part, but then eventually I did. And long story short, it came across Zach Bryan's feed and he reposted it on his story and that's when it really got real, because then my Instagram blew up. My phone was going crazy. Honestly, everything to follow that moment was crazy. I think the first month felt like my world had got turned upside down in the best way. "
Castillo: "So when Zach Bryan reached out, what was your first reaction?"
Hofmann: "I just remember, we were sitting around the table Thanksgiving weekend in the morning and I got a notification said, 'Zach Bryan mentioned you in a story' and my first thought was that it was probably a fake account, but then I looked and I just dropped my phone. I knew that everything changed in that moment. I just had a feeling that it didn't have to go the way that it all did. I could have never expected all the different things that unfolded afterwards, but I knew that it was going to be different from here on out. So I'll never forget. My hand was shaking, just at the realization of like, okay, here we go."
Castillo: "So what's the version of your life that didn't happen? The one you were living before this?"
Hofmann: "Yeah, that's actually such a good question. I think about this a lot. I definitely I could have stayed on ranching track. That's something I hope to pick up again later in life. Of course, right now, I'm focused 100% on music and my career but hopefully my music can allow me the opportunity to have the means to break into that again and spend more time out there but yeah.
My life could have looked a heck of a lot different. I definitely I could have stayed. I could have been a farmer's wife. I mean, that's a lie I tell myself. I don't think I ever, ever would have been a good farmer's wife. I know I'd be good at it. That's the world that I grew up in. I didn't ever feel, in my heart, that I was built to stay within it which is why I started pursuing other things. I don't know. I think about different versions all the time."
Castillo: "So 'critics' keep using the words like 'authentic' and 'rooted' about your music. Does that feel accurate to you? Or does it miss something?"
Hofmann: "It's funny, when I write songs, it's always for myself first. Maybe that's what they're really trying to say. Of course, once the song is posted or released, it becomes up to the interpretation of others and that's the other beautiful thing about songs. But I think I'm just not trying to contrive anything or fabricate a story. I'm just writing what I want to write. And I'm lucky to just be myself and do whatever resonates at the time and that's going to ebb and flow throughout my life. I think I just work from that space first and maybe that's what translates with people as authenticity or truth."
Castillo: "So when you do sit down and write, are you pulling from memory typically? Or are you processing something that's happening right now?"
Hofmann: "A bit of both. Now that I've been on the road so much, the times that I write are different. A lot of times, I'll build up ideas when I'm on the road and be writing down snippets or tidbits that come down to me and then I'll finally get a few days and just sit down and get into that space. It's not always songs about my personal life, it's, a lot of times, observations about others or character portraits and stuff like that. It's things that I observe and then it becomes something else. Sometimes it's about questions in my own mind."
Castillo: "Since you're starting to tour and kind of breaking through this industry, what does a live audience give you that recording and writing alone can't?"
Hofmann: "I think just that automatic feedback. And I'm a writer first, but performing those songs that are written is one of the most rewarding experiences for me that there is. I think, at the risk of sounding cliché, it's this opportunity to share a common moment with all these different people. The connection is unmatched and I feel really fortunate and take it as a responsibility to hold that opportunity to create connection with people."
Castillo: "What do you want someone to walk away feeling after they see you at Telluride Bluegrass Festival?"
Hofmann: "I think I might be a new face for some of the audience there, which is always really exciting. I hope that people walk away pleasantly surprised that we exceeded the expectations that somebody might have seeing us for the first time."