If you passed Courtney Barnett in the street, you might think she worked at a stock feed and grain store. Her zipped parka, dark skinny jeans and elasticised work boots fail to reflect American Rolling Stone’s comparison of her to an “early Bob Dylan”, or her status as Independent Breakthrough of the Year nominee at Britain’s recent AIM Independent Music Awards.
Aligned with her apparent wardrobe indifference is her tendency to understate her achievements, such as being chosen to support Billy Bragg at the Sydney Opera House in March.
“My aunt and uncle came,” she says. “I gave them a ticket. After the show I think they bought me a beer and we sat around and talked.”
Barnett’s song, Avant Gardener, a quirky, deadpan account of suffering an anaphylactic fit during 40-degree Melbourne heat, has propelled the former Melbourne shoe-shop assistant to hot international status.
Sold-out shows in the US, France, Spain and Canada, as well as much talked-about festival slots at Coachella, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, and a spot performing on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show in the US, have cemented her reputation as the next big thing to come out of Melbourne’s independent music scene.
But the left-handed guitarist views them all as just gigs, insisting it’s not the venue size or location that’s important but the message of the songs.
“I’m still trying to figure out what that is,” she says.
“Everything I write is about myself, so it’s realising that parts of me can be interesting and not as boring as I assume.
You know, like when you talk down to yourself. Most of my stuff is about throwing away that idea that you’re worthless, which I sometimes do.”
Such a notion seems unfathomable for a musician whose music was hailed as “intoxicating” by The Guardian reviewing a February pub show in London.
“I’m proud of myself and all that stuff,” she says.
“But happiness doesn’t come from success. It comes from something else, which I haven’t worked out yet. I’m only 26.”
Barnett was born in Sydney and grew up at Church Point, 23 kilometres north of the city. Life at the Northern Beaches was like a “Home and Away set”, with weekdays spent at Pittwater High and weekends occupied by soccer and tennis.
Her mother was a classical ballet dancer and her father a graphic designer who became a production director for the Sydney Dance Company. Along with her older brother, Blake, the family frequented art galleries and the ballet, which Barnett now admits she pretended to hate but secretly found interesting.
She looked up to Blake and wanted to do everything he did. His enjoyment of CDs by Metallica, Silverchair, Offspring and Nirvana became her enjoyment, and when he began to learn guitar at 10, she shadowed him.
“I must have been eight when I heard Lithium by Nirvana. I was like, I could do that, easy,” she says with a laugh.
She began songwriting at primary school, on subjects including a fantasy boyfriend, friends, animals, and household items. “I wrote a song about my Doona,” she says. “Being in bed and sleeping under it.”
When she was 16, the family moved to Hobart. It was here at St Michael’s Collegiate girls’ school that she discovered a lyrical style she admired when an English class was spent deconstructing the lyrics to Paul Kelly’s To Her Door. She says it illuminated the possibilities of prose within songs.
After high school, she began an arts degree at the University of Tasmania. Art history was compelling, at times more so than music, but the romantic notion of being an artist or photographer faltered.
“I was s— at both,” she says.
All the while she penned songs derived from her diaries and played gigs.
By 20, she had moved to Melbourne and was living in Richmond, where she worked at a shoe shop.
Her first show was at the Empress Hotel in Fitzroy, in front of a handful of people.
After many “ups and downs”, in 2011 she joined a jangly sextet, Immigrant Union, where she met her future band mates, bassist Bones Sloane and drummer Dave Mudie.
To lend credence to her lounge-room-recorded I’ve Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris EP, in 2012, Barnett formed Milk! Records with her buddy and fellow songstress Jen Cloher. Barnett’s grandmother lent her $1000 for the pressing.
Since then, Milk! has released more than 20 albums, including Barnett’s The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas. A percentage of profits from the label’s current compilation, Milky White, will be donated to help save Victoria’s Leadbeater’s possum. “Milk! Records is community-based and driven,” she says. “We wanted to give the money to something worthwhile.”
Right now Barnett is relishing her first proper Australian headline tour.
“It’s nice to be here after being away so long,” she says. “I get homesick when I’m overseas. I miss the place, but mostly the people.
“I love Australia. I love nature. I love getting out of the city and spending time in the bush.”
» Courtney Barnett picked up the Best Independent Artist and Best Single awards (for Avant Gardener) at Wednesday night’s (October 8) Independent Music Awards in Melbourne. Barnett edged out fellow Melburnian Chet Faker, the John Butler Trio, Violent Soho and Sia to claim one of the Australian Independent Record Labels Association’s most prestigious awards.
