Like many American teenagers, 16-year-old Noah Faulkner is obsessed with music. He will spend hours exploring the rabbit hole, listening to every note played by his favorite artist and researching new discoveries. He recently spent months doing a deep dive into banjo player Clarence Ashley, who recorded during the Great Depression, and “made me feel like an old man,” Faulkner said. Ashley's music “has a very eerie feel and I imagine it's like an abandoned place somewhere.”
Unlike most teenagers, Faulkner is channeling these influences into a dedicated music career. Using the handle Pedal Steel Noah, he posts daily covers of 80s new wave and post-punk hits on Instagram and TikTok, interpreting works like The Smiths and Tears for Fears, one of the most difficult instrumental pieces to master. Along the way, he made fans of Neko Case, Big Thief, Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, and many others who were captivated by his moving performances and captivating settings. There's a large Texas flag in the background and his brother Nate, 13, playing the bass and shaggy instruments. The Aussiedoodle gasped.
In March, brothers and father Jay performed several showcases at the South by Southwest festival in their hometown, opening for a keynote performance by the Black Keys. Dressed in a western shirt, black cowboy hat, and colorful crocs that have become his signature shoes, Pedal Steel Noah puts his Texas stamp on songs by Duran Duran and the Cocteau Twins.
“It was amazing, but I was exhausted,” he said via video call while his family was gathered around dinner. “I wish I could reward my friends at parties.” On Monday, he'll take the next step in his young career with the release of “Texas Madness,” an EP featuring three covers and two original tracks.
Faulkner, who has autism, has developed a strong curiosity about music throughout his life. As a child, he spent hours at the piano every day, experimenting with the pedals and listening to the sounds each key made. His mother Christine later said: “We sent him to speech pathology school and at the time he couldn’t speak. One day the director ran up to me and he said, 'Noah sang a song!' He sang before he actually spoke. “It’s his native language.”
Faulkner's interest in pedal steel stems from his early dive into country music. “When I wanted to hear upbeat, faithful music, I was listening to George Strait,” he explained. “I love the pedal steel in his songs. I like the sustained, ambient sound.” His music teacher, Bukka Allen (son of Lone Star artist Terry Allen), introduced the Faulkners to Robert Earl Keen, Joe Ely and Lloyd Maines, Texas country royalty who played with two generations of Allens.
Maines helped his family find a good beginner pedal steel, Mullen, the same brand he plays. After installing it at home, he gave Faulkner his first and only lesson, teaching him how to hold the bar, how to wear picks, and what each pedal did. “I played him an old Bob Wills song called ‘Steel Guitar Rag,’ which was a tricky song to play,” Maines recalled in a phone interview. “It took him a while to figure out how to hold the bars, but he played me the basics of the song right away.”
Faulkner immersed himself in the history of the instrument, imitating his favorite players to master their techniques and exploring the range of sounds that could be elicited from the strings. After he began recording covers and original compositions in GarageBand and uploading videos to YouTube, his parents sensed an opportunity to introduce some structure into their son's life and perhaps create a lasting career.
“He organizes his schedule very well,” said Jay, who played bass and guitar in “obscure bands” around Austin. “So we asked him to make one video a day for a year. It was simply to help him hone his skills as a musician. He started waking up in the morning and we wrote a song and posted it. We’re going to do it really quickly.”
The video soon had the whole family involved. Jay usually played acoustic guitar off-screen, and after football season ended and Nate was no longer practicing, he learned to play bass and took up a position right behind his older brother's left shoulder. As their dog Kara continued to wander into the photos, Christine held her slice of bacon next to her camera to keep her quiet. “I’m so glad I get to do something fun with my family every day,” said Nate. “It’s the best thing ever.”
At first Faulkner played country songs for thousands of fans, but soon branched out into new genres. Christine, who spent her teenage years loving 80s music, asked for a favor. “After she'd done a bunch of country covers, she said, 'Why don't she play some of her favorite songs from her mom growing up?'” She asked the Cure to do something and they ended up choosing 'Just Like Heaven'. Faulkner turned the song into a dreamy honky-tonk second stage, and his audience grew into the tens of thousands.
Faulkner said the song “feels like teenage life.” “I like playing synth parts. I learned that some minor chords can be confident, and major chords can be happy and emotional. Emotional music is good for people.”
He quickly developed into a refined player, balancing technical proficiency and artistic insight. He doesn't simply recreate these old hits, but reinterprets them in a way that uses familiar motifs to explore a specific mood or idea. This is an approach that strips away both novelty and nostalgia.
Tim DeLaughter, who hosted Faulkner for his long-running funk choir Polyphonic Spree, sees him as a unique Texas artist who embraces the freedom and lessons of older performers. “It resonated with Texas,” DeLaughter said in a phone interview. “Noah brings in pop music from all over, but he adds a Texas vibe to it. That really resonates with me because we are a devastated state that produces a lot of left-wing art. At the same time, Noah does his own thing. “There is joy in that.”
Pedal Steel Noah's EP, “Texas Madness,” cements him as an artist of the Lone Star legacy, even though his source material originates thousands of miles away. He turns Joy Division's emotionally jarring “Love Will Tear Us Apart” into a dreamy road trip through the Texas backwoods. Two of his originals, “Cleopatra” and especially “Lucy & Dixie,” capture the full emotionalism of local post-rock veterans Explosions in the Sky.
The family recorded the EP at a studio near Dripping Springs, Texas, with Nate and Jay reprising their usual roles and family friend Brian Beadle on drums. Despite never having worked in a studio, Pedal Steel Noah immediately took control of the session. “When he goes into the studio, he’s like a machine,” Jay said. He was directing everything, telling me what to do, telling the engineer what he wanted. He sang 10 to 15 songs over three days. He is very driven.”
His older son agreed that making music was hard work. “My arms are really tired. The best thing to do is exercise. “I do a lot of push-ups,” he said. “When it was over, I was definitely proud of myself.”
“Texas Madness,” named after an episode of the reality TV series Faulkner is writing, will be released on Lightning Rod Records, a Nashville label run by Jay’s childhood friend. The label offered the Faulkners a unique record deal that ensures all profits from Pedal Steel Noah's releases, including EPs and full-length albums scheduled for late 2024 or early 2025, will go directly to Noah Faulkner.
“Once you turn 18, services for people with disabilities almost fall off a cliff, and disabled adults suddenly have very few options,” his mother said. “When we started all this, we wanted Noah to be a studio musician. Maybe he can make a living. Maybe he could have avoided the cliff. Now I'm hoping it might actually give him a social circle. “As a mother, all I wanted was someone to play with her.”
Audio Production: Jack Decidor.