When indie-folk artists noah richardson If he’s not writing songs or performing for growing crowds across the country, there’s a good chance you’ll find him in an unexpected place: Planet Fitness.
It may not sound glamorous, but Richardson isn’t chasing flashy workouts. He is chasing consistency.
As his music career takes off, the Philadelphia native has learned that success on stage isn’t all that different from success in the gym. Both require patience, discipline and the willingness to continue performing long before the results arrive.
That perspective comes from honesty. Richardson grew up in the bodybuilding culture thanks to his father and uncle, who introduced him to the greats of the sport at an early age.
“I was really big into Dorian Yates,” Richardson explains. Muscle and health. “My uncle and my dad were big into bodybuilding in the ’80s. My uncle was telling me about Dorian Yates and his workout plans, and I wanted to do something different.”
Richardson eventually found himself following Yates’s famous “Blood and Guts” philosophy, a high-intensity training style focused on pushing sets to failure.
“I really liked the training-to-failure aspect of it,” he says. “I thought it was cool to push myself. And I hadn’t been in the gym for so long. I love being in the gym, but I have a lot of work to do. It was nice to work really hard and then get out.”
Planet Fitness Tour is life’s unsung hero
Unlike professional athletes who travel with trainers, chefs, and recovery specialists, most independent musicians have to figure things out as they go. For Noah Richardson, that often means relying on a familiar purple and yellow sign.
“Planet Fitness is old reliable,” says Richardson. “It’s all there. I can get work done and do everything I need to do.”
While social media often glorifies luxury gyms and elaborate workout routines, Richardson’s reality is far more practical. Between long van trips, late-night engagements, sleeping on the couch, and driving hundreds of miles between shows, consistency matters far more than finding the right training environment.
That’s why Planet Fitness has become one of their most trusted tour stops.
“Especially if you’re roughing it and sleeping on couches and stuff,” he explains. “You can go take a shower. You can do all that.”
The gym is more than just a place to lift weights. On the road, it provides a sense of normalcy amid the chaos of travel. A workout can help reset both his body and mind before another day of driving, soundchecks, and performances.
Hockey built Noah Richardson’s competitive foundation
Long before he turned his full-time focus to music, Richardson was a hockey player.
Growing up in the Philadelphia area, he spent much of his childhood on the ice, eventually joining the Hockey Foundation founded by the late Flyers owner. ed snyder. While his time on the rink is now limited due to touring, hockey continues to influence his life and approach to music.
“I think both sports and weightlifting taught me that things aren’t going to happen overnight,” says Richardson. “With hard work you will get somewhere.”
That lesson continues to guide him in building his career as an independent artist, one song and one show at a time.
“Learning to skate, learning all those skills, I apply that same work ethic here,” he explains. “I’m learning skills in the studio, learning to track, learning to do everything. Practicing every day and getting into my zone is definitely something I’ve done.”
Growing up around death taught Noah Richardson how to live
Most musicians can connect their outlook on life to a creative experience. For Noah Richardson, it happened inside a funeral home.
Long before touring the country and building audiences through vulnerable indie-folk songs, Richardson grew up around the family funeral business in Philadelphia. While most kids spent their weekends at sporting events or birthday parties, he was witnessing moments that most people don’t encounter until much later in life.
And according to Richardson, it gave him a front-row seat to the best and weirdest parts of human nature.
“I’ve seen a lot of crazy things,” he says, laughing. “A lot of crazy things, we might add.
Over the years, he’s seen grieving family members argue, funeral processions turn into celebrations, and enough bizarre requests to fill the stories of an entire album.
“People used to say, ‘I want to be buried with a pack of cigarettes. I want to be buried with a six-pack of Miller Lite,'” Richardson recalls. “And we’ll say, ‘Sure, we can do that.'”
Growing up in Philadelphia added another layer to the experience.
During the Eagles’ historic Super Bowl run, Richardson recalls services where mourners came in Eagles jerseys and celebrated their loved ones with chants usually reserved for Lincoln Financial Field.
“At the funeral everyone was wearing Eagles jerseys and doing the Eagles chant,” he says. “I was like, this is amazing.”
Then came moments that could only happen in Philadelphia.
“I saw a lot of people trying to run and jump into the grave,” he says, laughing.
As bizarre as some of those memories may seem, growing up around loss gave Richardson a perspective that very few people develop at a young age.
He learned that every person has a story. That life rarely goes according to plan. And people ultimately want to be remembered exactly for who they were. Quirks, flaws, obsessions, and everything.
Those lessons still influence his songwriting today.
The honesty that defines Richardson’s music comes from spending years observing people at their most vulnerable, most emotional, and often most human.
That’s why he doesn’t seem too concerned about timelines, trends or comparisons. Because after looking at what really matters to people at the end of their lives, he’s learned something that many people spend decades trying to figure out:
come. Work hard. Love your people. And maybe don’t take yourself too seriously.
Everything else resolves itself.
Therapy changed more than just their mental health
Richardson’s music has appealed to listeners because of its emotional honesty, but he admits that his relationship with songwriting has evolved as he has become more invested in his mental health.
“For a long time, writing was solely my outlet,” he says. “Then I started going to therapy and looking for professionals.”
The change created an unexpected challenge.
He says, “I found myself thinking, ‘Man, taking therapy won’t make me a worse songwriter, but I’m not really putting everything into the songs anymore.’ “I was learning healthy ways to deal with some of the things I was dealing with.”
Today, Richardson sees songwriting and therapy as complementary rather than competing forces.
“My favorite writing sessions start almost like a therapy session,” he explains. “Everyone is talking about what’s going on in their lives, and it ultimately influences your creation.”
The willingness to process emotions openly extends to life on the road, where Richardson credits his bandmates for helping him deal with the challenges that come with touring.
“Life’s still happening when you’re on tour,” he says. “Family things, personal things, whatever. I’m lucky to have good people around me who are good listeners.”
sleep cannot be compromised
Ask Richardson what has changed most about him as he’s aged, and the answer comes immediately.
Sleep
“Oh my God, sleep is everything,” he says.
At 27, he learned that recovery meant much more than it did in his early 20s.
“I used to be able to stay up until three in the morning and be fine,” he says. “That’s not the case anymore.”
This realization has become especially important to protect their voices. Richardson compares vocal health to strength training. Both require proper technique, recovery and consistency.
“It took me a very long time to learn proper vocal technique,” he says. “Just like lifting, there are many different mechanisms involved.”
After performances, he often limits interactions with his bandmates to give his voice time to recover. A tough task for a man who clearly enjoys the camaraderie of life on the road.
to warm up between shows
Nutrition work is in progress. Richardson laughs when discussing the realities of eating habits after the show.
“You don’t eat all day and then after the show you’re starving,” he says. “That’s when the $40 Taco Bell order comes into play.”
To maintain his protein intake while traveling, he has developed a surprisingly practical strategy.
“A 42-gram Core Power, a Barebells protein bar, and one of the lunch meat packs from the gas station,” he says. “That’s equivalent to 75 grams of protein.”
This isn’t a meal plan that will impress a bodybuilding coach, but it is a system that works when traveling hundreds of miles between locations. For Richardson, health ultimately boils down to this: doing the best you can with what’s available.
Whether he’s training like Dorian Yates, finding Planet Fitness between tour stops, or learning to balance therapy, creativity, and recovery, Richardson looks at growth the same way he looks at music.
One day at a time.
And like the bodybuilders he admires, he’s betting that consistency will eventually take care of the rest.
