Courtney Barnett
Courtney Barnett
Courtney Melba Barnett is a singer-songwriter and guitarist from Melbourne, Australia. Known for her witty, rambling lyrics and deadpan singing style, she attracted attention with the release of her debut EP, I've Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris. International interest from the UK and North American music press came with the release of The Double EP: A Sea Split Peas in October 2013. At her well-received performances at the CMJ Music Marathon, Barnett was mentioned by both Rolling Stone and...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth3 November 1987
CountryAustralia
People are like, 'Wow you started your own record label,' and treat me like I'm some sort of innovative genius, when I'm not at all. You've got the Internet and music - you put them together, and people hear your music.
Sometimes I have something stuck in my head and that directs the rhyme that I'm writing with.
I grew up listening to Nirvana, and then went through some bad 90s pop stuff - a lot of Australian one-hit wonders.
I definitely grew up on a lot of American bands. I didn't really know that there were any decent Australian bands until I was around 20.
The first song I wrote was called "You" and it was a love song about somebody who didn't even exist. I remember them all because I used to always write terrible poetry. I keep all my notebooks.
Every time I write a song it feels like it could be the last one I do, or it always feels like a fluke.
I try to take notes of things that happen that I think are important or interesting or just little tidbits here and there that happen in life. And some of it's even just one line or like a saying and I just go off that.
I try to write a lot and my process is kind of back and forth. I procrastinate a lot so when I do sit down to write, I'm pretty lazy at it. And it's such a frustrating thing sometimes - writing - when you don't do it all the time, you get that thing in your head that you have nothing to talk about and you can't write songs.
The music, I think, is just as important as the lyrics; it portrays the emotion of the song. I play the kind of music that I want to listen to.
I've never really had a certain style of music in mind that I make, or am really adamant on how something should sound, but I like the process of not knowing, of just seeing what happens and what comes out.
I reckon that growing up, listening to so much different music, I think over time I just kind of sucked it all in and it probably comes back out through my music.
People should be free to take whatever they want from music and I think that over time I realized that different people always find different things in my songs, which is really good.
I don't know anything except being female, so I don't know the opposite of it.
I don't really feel like a rock artist, but I guess in the small category of the world of music genres, that's where I fall in because I've got a guitar.