An Interview with Runnner

In early August, KCSB General Manager Avery Morgan chatted with musician and producer Noah Weinman (aka Runnner, or nnnoah) about his upcoming album “A Welcome Kind of Weakness” (out now on Run for Cover records). Read on to find out why he released half of the album as singles, his thoughts on artists changing lyrics, and how his experiences as a producer shaped the sound of this release.

AM = Avery Morgan / NW = Noah Weinmann

AM: Thank you so much for talking with me today. For people who are new to your music, could you give a brief intro about where you’re from and how you describe your music to a new listener? 

NW: Sure, I’m Noah. I make music under the name Runnner with three N’s.

I’m from Los Angeles and I’ll still live in Los Angeles for a couple more months, but I don’t know if that is necessarily a good indicator of the sound… or maybe me saying that is a better indicator of the sound. The music is mostly written on an acoustic guitar and then heavily embellished in the recording process. Sometimes, quite digitally and in recent times less so, I would say.

AM: Nice, thanks. Where are you moving to after LA? 

NW: I’m going to go to New York.

AM: That’s so exciting. Well, you have an album coming out on August 29th called A Welcome Kind of Weakness. In between this and your last album, you’ve been doing a lot of production work for other artists. Do you feel like working on others’ music has influenced or changed your sound for this release? 

NW: I think so. I mean, just sitting in the producer’s chair for other artists definitely teaches me a lot more about recording. I think a lot of the things that I would have shied away from on this Runnner album in years past, like single track vocals, or just doing anything in a studio and going for a little bit more of a higher fidelity sound are all things that I feel like I’ve like improved my skills on by working on other people’s music over the years..

AM: How do you balance your production work alongside the Runnner project? Are you taking a break when you start touring again? 

NW: Yeah, I’ll take a break. For the past few years, it’s been pretty concurrent, which has its upsides and downsides. I think that it’s nice to have like a bunch of different projects to work on at the same time, because they can all kind of inform each other. But after doing that for a few years, I’m looking forward to trying to separate them a little bit more. So I’ll do this Runnner tour, and I can’t produce when I’m on the road. But then when I get back, I have certain projects lined up that I’m only going to do one at a time. And I’ve never done that before. In the very beginning, when I was doing like, early, early Runnner stuff, I was splitting my time between working at restaurants and making Runnner songs. Then I stopped working at restaurants when I could start paying rent by producing for other people. And then those two things just started to build simultaneously.

AM: Are there any bands that you feel like really influenced the sound of this new album? Some of the promotional material I saw talked about how you grew up really loving Coldplay and Radiohead, and that kind of high fidelity sound? 

NW: Definitely those two, but I think more than those two was Snow Patrol. That was a big band for me when I was like, 13. And I was around the age when I started playing guitar and having my first band and stuff. So it was, it’s kind of a return to that. And obviously, I think those bands like Coldplay and Snow Patrol are bands that I maybe listened to then and then didn’t listen to for a long time in my later teens then came back to. But bands like Radiohead and bands like Death Cab, I feel like I was always kind of listening to. But it wasn’t until like a couple years ago where I had like a bunch of those albums all on CD, and I was running them one after another that the idea of making a record that sounded kind of like that came to be in my mind. 

AM: That makes sense. I’ve been revisiting a bunch of those bands, too, because those are always CDs you can find in Goodwill.

NW: Yeah, they’re so nice to revisit.

AM: This is also your first studio record. What was that experience like? 

NW: It was cool. It’s funny because yeah, like a studio record also refers to just like anything that’s not a live record, but it is my first time recording in a studio. So I think you’re more correct in saying that than what the rules say about. 

AM: Ohh, okay, that makes sense. 

NW: Yeah, but it was interesting. It was difficult at times because I’m a little bit of a control freak and I need to touch the songs every day and when I have them on my computer in my little home studio, I can do that. But, you know, to make a record in that style, you also kind of have to record in that style. You book like days at the studio and you go in and you do sessions and the whole process is a little bit more split up. And I tried to lean into that and there were some really good creative sparks that came from that. But then there were a lot of days where I wasn’t in the studio or I was kind of just gnawing to get back into it and to keep working on the songs.

AM: Yeah, that sounds like a fun thing to adapt to. In the past, like for your album Stars Dust, you’ve reworked instrumentals that you’ve already had recorded from the album that came before it. I’m curious if you reused any pre-recorded materials for this upcoming album. 

NW: The first track on the album is a little ambient overture that has at least one piece of all of the songs on the album. 

AM: Nice. This is another Run for Cover records release, right? What’s it been like to work with them for this release?

NW: Yeah. You know, we started working together in 2020. So, I’ve met them a lot and they’ve been great. This is the last record on our current deal, and it’s been a really awesome five years with them. They were a label that I was a fan of before I signed to them, and they put out a lot of records that I liked. So it was cool and very surreal to start working with them. Some of my friends who I used to play music with started working at the label kind of randomly. They’ve had personnel changes, and I’ve gotten to see the changes. But a lot of the core people have been there the whole time that I’ve been there, and it’s just cool to build those relationships. 

AM: Yeah, that’s awesome. I’ve been seeing you do some fun promotional methods. I used to do the street team for one of your tours where I put up posters around LA in exchange for free tickets. And I saw recently you’ve been sending out CDs to people who have bought concert tickets. I’m curious if these are efforts that you started through Run for Cover or if they were your own ideas.

NW: The street team thing is a Run for Cover thing. But the CDs thing was my idea. Because we’re doing the album, basically as singles, like by time the album comes out, it’ll pretty much already be out. 

AM: Yeah, there’s like six or seven singles out right now… 

NW: There’s six out right now, and there’s gonna be like, kind of one and a half more. And there’s only 11 songs on the album. So it’s definitely a lot of singles, which was kind of how I wanted to do the album. Because each song felt kind of big to me, in that there was like a lot to digest in each song. And I wanted to show each piece to the audience, one at a time. But I also wanted to preserve, you know, for the people who really want to have that album listening experience where you hear it all for the first time, I wanted to preserve that. So we have this idea of giving away the free CDs to, you know, the most diehard fans. Also, those are just people who have bought tickets, but for people who aren’t in those cities, if they DM me, and they’re like, “I just want to hear the album”, I’ve just been sending people the record. 

AM: That’s awesome. I respect that.

NW: I don’t want to make them wait, but for people that are maybe just discovering the project, I’m kind of trying to like, do both at the same time.

AM: Well, you’ll be touring this album in the fall. How do you approach making your set list? Have you been starting to think about that at all? Or is it going to be a full playthrough of the album? 

NW: I don’t know if it’s gonna be a full playthrough of the album. It’s hard because like, I don’t want to play for two hours, and I want to mostly honor the new album, but we don’t tour enough, I think, to justify only playing the new album because there are people who are coming, and, you know, paying all sorts of ticket fees to see certain songs that they really want to see. So I also want to honor that. So making the set list is hard. I’m trying to maybe split a 50/50 divide between songs from the album, and then a selection of old songs. I’m also gonna maybe poll some fans and see what they want to hear.

AM: Yay, that’s exciting. Yeah, I’ve seen artists like Beach House, using certain websites where you can request a specific song in your city. 

NW: Yeah, that’s cool. I don’t think I have the infrastructure to pull that at all. I’ll do an Instagram poll or something. Because I think there are certain spots in the set list where I’m like, it could be one of two songs.

AM: Right. Nice. I’ve seen you live a couple times. I’ve seen you in Dallas when you’re opening for Vundabar. And then I got to see the LA show that turned into a live album; it was awesome. Your songs always feel really dynamic to me. I guess I’ve seen ones that you frequently play live a couple different times now. Sometimes they’re accompanied by new instruments. Do you have plans to revisit or rerecord older material similar to how Pinegrove does, or if you shift around lyrics ever?

NW: Shifting lyrics is interesting.

AM: Do you know how Pinegrove does the different versions? 

NW: Yeah. They dropped the Nancy Kerrigan lyric.

AM: In Size of the Moon!

NW: Yeah, which I always liked. I think changing lyrics is hard because every time I’ve heard a rerecorded version of a song by a band that I love, I like the original more. 

AM: Oh, wow. Hot take. 

NW: Yeah, I first experienced that, I think in like eighth grade, there’s a song called You! Me! Dancing! by Los Campesinos. And there’s the EP version, and then the album version. And the EP version is way rougher, and I can totally understand why they would want to rerecord it as the album version, which is much cleaner. But I love the EP version. 

AM: Sounds similar to Streetlight Manifesto and the Keasby Nights re-record.

NW: Yeah. But I will say that there is a small EP of some rerecorded stuff in the works. And I like rerecording stuff, as hypocritical as that is to have just talked about. You know, it’s just kind of the paradox of making music. Like as a fan, your favorite thing is usually the first thing.

And then as an artist, your favorite thing is usually the next thing. 

AM: That makes sense. I think you have some stuff on Bandcamp, too, that isn’t out on other streaming platforms?

NW: The very first Runnner album, when I just vomited out every song I had. 

AM: Is this when you’re like 20, 21, maybe? 

AM: Yeah. Some of those songs are rerecorded and appear on Always Repeating. And then some of them are just only there.

AM: Nice. Are there any cities on the upcoming tour that will be new to you? 

NW: Um, no. There will be a few that are new to headlining. Never headlined Houston or Boise. But everything else we have been to. 

AM: In 2022, you put out an acoustic guitar ambient album called guitar outside that I really liked. It wasn’t released under the Runnner name. It was nnnoah with three N’s.

What was the reason for the different release method? And do you have any plans to release more under the nnnoah name? 

NW: I have plans to release more under the Noah name. I think that it just didn’t feel like a Runnner album. I didn’t want it to be kind of all lumped in with the same discography. Stars Dust and Dust 2 were a little bit more in-step with the project. But guitar outside was just too much of an experiment to put on main. 

AM: Well, I really enjoyed it. But I totally see how it’s different, obviously, just less produced than Stars Dust.

NW: It’s just like this little guy. 

[holds up handheld cassette recorder] 

It’s just a little handheld cassette recorder, and I just sat outside. Yeah, it was two days of sitting outside. 

 

AM: Nice. I read before that Death Cab for Cutie is one of the first bands that you fell in love with. I’m a bit of a Death Cab mega fan. I was curious if you got to catch the 20th anniversary shows with the Postal Service and them doing Transatlanticism. 

NW: I did go to that show. I went to the Hollywood Bowl. I was there when the Beths opened.

AM: Do you have any plans to see the Plans anniversary shows?

NW: No, I don’t. I didn’t look at that one. I love Plans, but… Transatlanticism, like that’s my favorite album of any album by any band. So I had to shell out for that one.

AM: Yeah. It was really amazing. That was a great show. And some quick questions… Have there been any non-musical hobbies or interests that you’ve been into recently?

NW: My friends and I do a lot of bar trivia, which is funny. It’s become a weekly staple. 

AM: Are there any categories you’re really good at?

NW: I wouldn’t say I’m particularly good at any category, but I have the advantage in that the ones that we go to play a song while you’re answering, and the song will have some sort of clue to the answer. And because I know a lot of music, I can usually guess the song. 

AM: Nice. Well, thank you so much for coming in today. Before you go, I wanted to give you a chance to shout out any musicians that you’ve been liking right now. 

NW: There’s a couple openers for the tour, so those are all great. Buffchick, Hana Eid, Truman Sinclair, and Shallow Alcove. They’re all great. I just worked with Hana Eid on her album that’s going to be coming out at some point, and that’s a really good album. So all four of those I really like, and then I have to shout out my sister who just put out her first EP, and that is called Horsepower. 

AM: Okay, great. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming in! 

NW: Of course.Thank you!