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“Live from Nashville!” Well, sort of. Jonah Kagen didn’t take the stage at a honky-tonk on Broadway — instead, he set up three microphones in the middle of an open field and strummed his 12-string Guild guitar, singing his new single “Candyland” in a stunning live performance.
I used to own that same acoustic — a Guild with two truss rods. That’s a serious amount of string tension on the neck, but Jonah plays it with ease and conviction. The performance is so pure and unfiltered you can even hear the wind rumbling into the mic near the end of the track. Now that’s raw.
Kagen’s down-to-earth creativity runs deep. He recorded and produced his entire debut album, Sunflowers and Leather, in an Airstream trailer while traveling across the country. After packing up everything he owned, he hit the road and started over — capturing the heart of America in both sound and spirit.
Off-camera, he’s hysterically funny and endlessly genuine. His dog, Mars, even makes a cameo at the end of the Candyland video, stealing the spotlight in true Nashville fashion.
Jonah Kagen may be out in a field instead of on Lower Broadway but make no mistake — this is as live from Nashville as it gets.
With Sunflowers and Leather, Jonah Kagen has planted himself firmly among the most exciting voices in modern music. The record’s breakout single “God Needs The Devil” shot straight to #1 at Alternative Radio, while the album itself made an impressive debut at #3 on Spotify’s Top Albums Chart. Since release, Sunflowers and Leather has surpassed 35 million streams and drawn praise from fans and critics alike.
Publications like People Magazine, Holler, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Stereogum, and Ones to Watch have all echoed the same sentiment circulating online—Sunflowers and Leather is one of the standout albums of the year.
To bring the story to life visually, Kagen teamed up with acclaimed creative David O’Donohue (Noah Kahan, Lainey Wilson, James Bay) for a 16mm documentary titled Sunflowers and Leather: The Field Guide. Shot across the U.S., the film mirrors Jonah’s own path—from South Carolina to the wide skies of Montana—capturing the solitude, landscapes, and hard-won resilience that shaped the songs.
Fans can dive deeper at jonahkagen.com/slfieldguide, where the immersive “Field Guide” experience lets listeners explore behind-the-scenes footage, unreleased photos, and stories from the Airstream studio where Jonah wrote and recorded the entire album himself.
With more than 500 million global streams and nearly 6 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Kagen’s momentum is undeniable. His connection to fans runs deep—just recently, he staged a surprise pop-up show in Vancouver, and within hours, more than a hundred people showed up to sing along.
Sunflowers and Leather isn’t just a title—it’s a statement of duality, a balance between beauty and grit. Jonah Kagen’s star is rising fast, and if this album is any indication, he’s only just getting started.
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