Trying to achieve a full-time music career following college graduation is one of the more challenging careers to pursue. Just ask Noah Floersch.
Floersch is a 23-year-old Omaha native. He graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the spring of 2021 with a degree in marketing after initially starting as a music composition major.
Floersch changed his major after his freshman year due to the fact that he wanted to find more ways to promote his indie music. Following graduation, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in August of 2021 to pursue his biggest, yet challenging, dream: a music career.
Floersch has had a strong passion for music ever since he can remember. He grew up taking piano lessons. In seventh grade, he purchased a banjo because of his love for the band, Mumford and Sons, and would teach himself notes and songs to play.
Tim Kaftan has known Floersch since the two were 10 years old. They have been friends ever since. Kaftan knew from a young age that Floersch was musically gifted.
“I was impressed from a very young age. You could tell Noah always did have a strong passion for it. It wasn’t a chore for him, but it was something that he genuinely enjoyed,” Kaftan said.
At Creighton Prep High School, Floersch started to write lyrics and notes but did not share them with anyone. It wasn’t until his junior year of high school that he joined the choir class.
He released his first song, “Girl from the Sidewalk,” in 2018 and saw that it got thousands of listens over the first three months. Floersch continued to release songs every few months and continued to see them succeed.
Floersch recalls how it was his senior year of college when he definitively decided he was going to move to Nashville to pursue his music career, and people were shocked.
“I would tell people I’m moving to Nashville after graduation and they would say, ‘Wow! That’s so brave of you,’” Floersch said.
Now located in Nashville full-time, Floersch is enjoying his time. He admits that trying to start a full-time music career has its hardships.
His music is supporting him, but Floersch also wants to ensure his audience is getting his best work.
“Financially, I’m trying to support myself while also making art,” Floersch said.
On top of the financial side, trying to find opportunities for himself to perform his music has been a struggle.
“People are always asking, ‘when are you going to play a show in Nashville,’ and I have to tell them I don’t know. It’s hard to move to a new city that is so established music-wise and then try to ‘infiltrate’ it with my music,” he said.
As an independent artist, Floersch has not signed with a record label. However, this has not stopped him from finding success. Floersch’s music producer, Ross Grieb, has seen this first hand.
“He is phenomenally talented, both as a singer and a songwriter. I feel very grateful to work with him every day. He (Noah) is well on his way to becoming a legitimate and established artist,” Grieb said.
Grieb grew up in Omaha and attended Elkhorn South High School. He also attended UNL and knew Floersch throughout his college career and even helped him produce his first song.
“The journey so far has been awesome,” Grieb said. “Me and Noah have such a great creative relationship. We’ve been working together for four years now and we have outstanding trust.”
One thing that Grieb appreciates is that he and Floersch have been able to grow their careers simultaneously.
“I’m currently a free-lance producer and Noah is my primary portfolio piece. We’ve very much grown together and it’s been so fun to start our music careers together,” Grieb said.
As for the future, Floersch has big plans in store. At the start of the new year, he set goals that he hopes to accomplish. Specifically, he hopes to grow his audience following. As of now, he has close to 2,000 followers on YouTube, almost 4,500 on Instagram, 15.3 thousand followers on Tik Tok, and on Spotify, he has close to 127,000 monthly listeners.
“A lot of my focus this year has been audience growth. In the time I haven’t been releasing music, I’ve been focusing on social media,” Floersch said. “Goal number one is to get 10,000 followers on platforms I care about (Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube).”
Floersch created objectives he hopes to accomplish to overcome his struggles in Nashville, which include meeting other independent artists and trying to make a name for himself.
“I want to shoot three to four music videos, go on tour, and lastly (in all caps) MAKE GOOD MUSIC,” Floersch said.
