Courtney Barnett Is the Biggest Thing in Australian Music at the Moment
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MUSIC & SILENCE Courtney Barnett is the biggest thing in Australian music at the moment. And she’s found fame by following no one’s star but her own. By David Leser. Photography Gen Kay magine you suffer from It was all too true. Barnett had basic elements of treating other humans because Barnett is getting to pose for shyness and, at times, suffered an anaphylactic attack – caused in positive ways. And animals and a photo with her marsupial friend. crippling anxiety – and here either by an allergy or anxiety – and the nature … Not being selfish.” A few hours earlier she discovered you are waiting to go on stage lyrics were paraphrasing the real In 2013 Avant Gardener was named she had been nominated for seven ito perform in front of millions moment. “The paramedic was trying to track of the year by Pitchfork Media, ARIA awards, including best female on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. put me at ease because I was freaked a Chicago-based online music artist and album of the year, and is It gets worse. The person you’re about out,” Barnett says. “She was like, ‘What magazine. That same year, A Sea of Split expected to clean up at the November to follow is none other than the First do you do?’ And I go, ‘I play guitar in Peas was named album of the week 26 ceremony. Lady of the United States, Michelle a band.’ I was kind of crying, trying to (actually two previously released EPs In the meantime, she’s already won Obama, who’s just brought the house breathe, and she was just trying to make put together for the international best cover art for Sometimes I Sit and down with a rousing, hip-thrusting general conversation and calm me down. market) by music website Stereogum, Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit at an dance-off with the host herself. “And that’s why I thought it was and one of its songs, History Eraser, was ARIA pre-awards ceremony. “I never If that weren’t enough pressure to important to put it in the song, because nominated for song of the year by the thought I’d win an ARIA for something make you want to disappear through the she was like, ‘Wow, that’s so cool. I wish Australian Performing Rights I drew with a felt-tipped pen on printed floor, DeGeneres then announces to her I played guitar.’ And at that moment I Association (APRA). Suddenly, Barnett paper,” the former art school student expectant audience: “Our next guest is was like, ‘There’s nothing impressive was being written up in prestige said when called to the stage. one of my favourite new artists. I love about it. What you’re doing is impressive. journals like The New York Times and And just getting up on that stage her so much. Here to perform Depreston, What I’m doing is whatever.’ ” Rolling Stone and being touted as a required, yet again, considerable nerve- all the way from Australia, please Courtney Barnett’s “whatever” is a young Australian Patti Smith. steeling. “I was caught off guard and got welcome Courtney Barnett.” fast-growing catalogue of romping, And that was all before the release up and said something unintelligent,” And out comes a bashful 27-year-old ragged tunes that have won international in March this year of her debut album, she says as we take shelter from the woman in jeans and a white Darren acclaim over the past two years – from Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes wind inside one of the zoo classrooms. Hanlon T-shirt with a guitar slung Melbourne to Madrid to New York and I Just Sit, which led leading American “I’m not good at public speaking. around her shoulders to sing a lovely, beyond. Her songs combine a unique music writer Rob Sheffield to comment: I have never accepted an award before. slow-walking song about looking for an left-handed picking style with a deadpan “Courtney Barnett makes it sound so It’s my worst nightmare. I always affordable house in Melbourne. singing voice and sprawling lyrics that insultingly easy. Why aren’t there three seem to avoid awards nights. I get This is March 2015, and it isn’t the lurch from the heartbreaking to the or four rock’n’roll singer-songwriter too nervous. You want to say something first time Courtney Barnett has taken prosaic to the downright hilarious. records this loose and frisky and funny profound and intelligent and I just get herself into the “petrified zone” to present Songs of love and loneliness. Songs and stout-hearted every year?” all shaky-voiced and freeze up. It’s her musical and lyrical offerings to an of lying awake at night and having terrible. I’m sure it stems back to my enormous television audience. A year breakfast on the run. Songs that explore I meet the “stout-hearted” Courtney high school drama class. I would come earlier, while promoting The Double EP: A her own troubles and vulnerabilities, as Barnett on a leaden, windswept October on stage and panic.” Sea of Split Peas, Barnett had appeared on well as that of her generation. Songs afternoon at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, in Courtney Barnett grew up in the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that aim – in their purest form – to anticipation of her “Twilight at Taronga” bushland arcadia of Church Point on playing Avant Gardener, a song about inform the way we all might relate to concert in late January. The singer- Sydney’s northern fringe, before moving waking up in the garden on a 40-degree one another. songwriter is wearing a check shirt, with her older brother, Blake, and their day suffering an anaphylactic attack:The “I suppose I’m trying to make small, black jeans – with a de rigueur hole in mother, a dancer, and father, a stage paramedic thinks I’m clever cos I play guitar/ subtle changes in a positive way,” she the right knee – boots and green socks designer, to Hobart when she was 16. I think she’s clever cos she stops people dying/ says with disarming, halting modesty. with grey koalas on them in honour of She first picked up a guitar at the age Anaphylactic and super hypochondriactic/ “I think that’s why lots of my songs are her favourite animal. of 10, and begun listening to songs from Should’ve stayed in bed today. looking at small moments … all those It is a historic day, and not just mix tapes that her neighbour had given sl • 14 “A LOT OF MY SONGS ARE LOOKING AT SMALL MOMENTS … ALL THOSE BASIC ELEMENTS OF TREATING OTHER HUMANS IN POSITIVE WAYS. AND ANIMALS AND NATURE …” sl • 15 “THE MUSIC she’s done that already. What would you call it? ‘Barnettian’, I suppose. I wish I’d written Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t I LOVE IS Go to the Party.” There is a moment of silence in our WHEN SONG- zoo classroom before Barnett exclaims, “Wow, PK. When did he say that?” WRITERS This morning. “Wow, that’s so cool.” TAKE A Ask her now why she thinks her songs have resonated so widely and she says, RISK TO BE “I try not to analyse it too much … but I would assume it’s just that quiet, plain, VULNERABLE. honest view on things. “Maybe that vulnerability opens up something when they listen to it. The WE ALL music I love is when songwriters take a risk to be vulnerable. We all have an HAVE AN automatic self-defence … sometimes you have to have it. But when you let it AUTOMATIC down every now and then … I like it when people do that. You can connect.” SELF-DEFENCE Earlier this year Barnett not only appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres … BUT WHEN Show and Conan, where she sang about possum road kill on the Hume YOU LET IT Highway, she also returned to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon DOWN YOU with a barnstorming version of Pedestrian at Best, with its ironical, fame-flouting Feeling reflective: Courtney Barnett’s conversational songs, often about unusual chorus: Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only or everyday topics, have earned her a devoted international following. CAN CONNECT.” disappoint you/Tell me I’m exceptional, I promise to exploit you. This evening she’ll be returning home her and her brother: Jimi Hendrix, THREE FACTS: He was shaking in his seat, riding through to Thornbury in Melbourne to celebrate Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, Presidents of COURTNEY BARNETT the streets/In a Silver Top to her door. her swag of ARIA nominations with her the United States of America, and a song What had happened to this man? romantic and creative partner of four she kept playing over and over, EMF’s She hadn’t ever been Why was he shaking? And why did it years, singer-songwriter Jen Cloher. Unbelievable. Slowly, tentatively, she overseas before being work better calling it a Silver Top, rather “I think we’re cooking pizza,” she says. began trying to sing and play at the same invited to play at the than a plain old taxi? “I’ll cuddle my cat and eat pizza.” time – but always behind closed doors. CMJ Music Marathon in “I think that was a bit of a turning What, no big party? “I’ll probably “I was too afraid to sing in front of New York City in 2013. point, lyrically,” she says, fixing her eyes have a beer at the airport and a little anyone,” she says.