“I remember feeling happy in my heart when I first heard a pedal steel”: Meet Pedal Steel Noah, the teenager going viral with country-fied covers of everything from Judas Priest to Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine

A Texan teen, his shoeless brother and the family dog are making waves over guitar Instagram with the help of some ‘80s and ’90s classics and the timeless, plaintive wail of a pedal steel.

Videos by Austin’s Noah Faulkner see him gliding through the catalogs of Joy Division, the Cure, the Cocteau Twins and others with the Mullen 10-string that gave him his nom-de-plume: Pedal Steel Noah.

Meanwhile his brother, ‘Barefoot’ Nate, handles the low-end on a Geddy Lee signature, while a blissed-out Aussiedoodle named Kara sits in the foreground, panting along to the music.

With an Instagram following of more than 65,000 – and supportive online shoutouts from the likes of Peter Hook, Love and Rockets’ David J. Haskins and Pixies’ Frank Black  – it’s clear that the family band has caught on with folks.

Part of the appeal is the siblings’ infectious exuberance. They’re a feelgood balm – people are tuning in to watch how Noah recontextualizes the shoegaze haze of My Bloody Valentine, or the inkiest bits of Sisters of Mercy’s goth, with tone-bending pedalwork that slips through the chicken wire in your local country bar.

Asked how the material translates so well, Pedal Steel Noah tidily summarizes: “It’s because the songs are so good in the first place.” The way he hears it, the music already “felt like country” to him.

For Just Like Heaven, he conjures former Cure guitarist Porl Thompson’s iconic, chorus-trembled B-string odyssey, using a ‘verbed-out slide vibrato. His flesh-and-blood fingerpickin’ subverts the digital iciness of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Perhaps most ambitiously, the adaptation of Tears for Fears’ Head Over Heels tumbleweeds away from studious UK art-pop towards a Texarkana daydream of undulating string bends. 

Cover choices, he allows, are often informed by his mother’s love of ‘80s pop and new wave. He and his father, Jay, explain that the family discuss their next homage over dinner, before the boys work things out on their respective instruments. 

Because they’re minors, Jay keeps a keen parental eye on his sons’ social media presence by maintaining their profiles – but he does much more, programming GarageBand drum accompaniment, or providing the occasional rustic strum on a Gibson J-45.

“My dad helps me with the uploads, just to make it look perfect – because for Instagram you’ve always got to make perfect videos,” Noah says. “What I do before making a video is relax myself, breathe, and feel the music.”

Before he ever sat behind his steel, though, he was soothed by piano music. Before he was in double digits he’d worked out the triplet-measure piano hook of Coldplay’s Clocks by ear – leading to music lessons from Austin musician Bukka Allen.

When it came to pedal steel, he was attracted to the sustain and vibrato of homestate hero George Strait. “I remember feeling happy in my heart when I first heard a pedal steel,” Noah says.

“I wanted to be able to make those same sounds in my GarageBand recordings. I was making songs with just a MIDI keyboard and guitar then, but I wanted to record a steel part, too.”

Austin City Limits hall-of-famer Lloyd Maines helped the kid pick out his Mullen, which is currently run through a Fender Slide King combo and a Boss DD-5 delay. Maines gave Noah one lesson back in 2019, offering pointers on pick positions and pitch-shifting with the pedals. (Together, they worked up a version of western standard Steel Guitar Rag.)

Noah continued his education via YouTube tutorials and general on-the-steel experience. He handles the instrument with a three-pick style – an essential part of his sound is palming harmonics: “Whenever I do that on this pedal steel, it feels like magic!”

While certain covers gave him trouble when he started posting in the fall of 2022 – he names UK synth-pop duo Erasure’s A Little Respect – he’s realized that “songs with a clear riff or melody to follow are easy for me to pick up.”

‘Barefoot’ Nate only started playing bass last summer, but he’s become an integral part of his brother’s videos. Recently he brought his nickname into question when he appeared in cowboy boots, and even played at this year’s South by Southwest in Crocs. “Maybe I can call him ‘Goofy Two-Shoes’ Nate,” Noah quips.

As the siblings’ skills have evolved, so have their visual presentations. Early on, Noah experimented with over-the-shoulder and front-facing viewpoints. Sometimes they’re playing in front of a Texas state flag. Most ambitiously, a Thanksgiving road trip last November found the family digging into a dobro-driven take on Depeche Mode’s moody Policy of Truth from deep within a New Mexico desertscape.

“It was hard to hold the slide because it was chilly,” Noah recalls. “We didn’t notice until we left, but there was a dead deer close by – Kara wanted to go over and mess with it. That’s why she keeps looking over there in the video!

“It took us about three takes to get it right. It’s a cool song, and I thought it would sound good on the dobro – I’ve played it on steel, too.”

Pedal Steel Noah’s supporters include Dallas psych-pop oddballs the Polyphonic Spree, who’ve invited him to open a number of concerts around the Lonestar State. Their vocalist, Tim DeLaughter, has even joined Noah onstage to perform Sonic Bloom by his old band, Tripping Daisy.

Noah was gifted his dobro from onetime Emmylou Harris sideman Steve Fishell, while he’s also been talking technique over Instagram and in real life with pedal players including Kurt Orzan, Whit Wright and Kevin Skrla.

His debut EP, Texas Madness, was recorded across sessions in Austin and Nashville. It features dad Jay supporting Noah and Nate on electric and acoustic guitars, with drummer Pat Manske keeping the beat.

The record features two originals: a country-blues ballad called Cleopatra and a cheery finale called Lucy and Dixie (which Noah explains is about a love story between a pair of dogs).

Outside of the pedal project, the young musician reports that he’s also crafting his own “epic science fiction soundtracks,” and he’s working on metal riffage on a Jackson shred machine and his father’s California series Strat.

Though Noah and Nate recently buffed-up prime British Steel with a take on Judas Priest’s Breaking the Law, the pedal steel prodigy was skeptical when his dad suggested attacking Metallica’s Master of Puppets next.

Noah, who’s on the autism spectrum, released Texas Madness on April 1 to mark Autism Acceptance Month. More covers and original music is planned for launch throughout 2024, with roughly 15 studio cuts banked for a full-length album.

Jay hints at – but can’t confirm – guest contributions from some of Noah’s new friends. And of course, there’s always the daily posts on Instagram. For many, guessing what Noah will cover next is almost as exciting as his stirring, slide-driven sound.

• Texas Madness is on sale now.