Last night on Beats 1 Courtney Barnett stopped by the London studio to chat to Matt Wilkinson ahead of her biggest London show to date.
MW: I believe this is the first time you’ve played in the UK since October last year, is that right?
CB: If you say so? Yes, wow, it feels like too long. There are other places in the world, I didn’t realise it had been so long.
MW: On playing at Somerset House - does it feel funny to have a sell-out show?
CB: Yes and a much bigger show than we’ve ever done. It kind of blows my mind a bit, it’s nice to come back here, we must have launched the album here a bit over a year ago. We played the whole thing in full down in a little basement, so it’s nice to come back and play in a nice fancy place.
MW: Why don’t we go through one of your songs and dissect it. Where did “Depreston” come from?
CB: I was sitting on my front porch of my share house, I think it was warm, might’ve been wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and I’d been house hunting for a while, and I’d come back from one of those trips and I was playing guitar. It’s pretty much two chords for the whole song and I had been playing a bit of Australian band Go Betweens - one of my favourite bands, and the song “Straight to your Town” I had been playing that that day. And then I just kind of, it moulded into this idea, I got the idea for this other song and it happened pretty quickly.
MW: Is there ever a worry of ripping other artists off and crediting them?
CB: Yeah, I think there was a period I didn’t listen to much music and maybe it was kind of for that reason, but also because I couldn’t find anything that I connected with at all, I don’t know what I did, I didn’t listen to any music, I just kind of wrote a lot. I’ve been writing a lot lately, and it’s just that idea of when, you don’t know if it’s recognisable because it’s been sitting in your brain for a bit or because it’s something that you’ve totally stolen off a song in the supermarket, or it’s a song you’ve been working on for two years, it starts to become familiar but it could be an old Smiths song or something.
MW: What is the story behind the ‘Depreston' lyrics?
CB: It’s kind of the idea of a conversation between a couple, talking about house hunting I guess and moving further out into the suburbs to be more affordable, and whether you want to sacrifice certain elements of whatever, but then it kind of turns into more about the, you know, I started realising the house was being sold because the old lady had died and all of her stuff was still in there, so it took on a whole different story and different perspective.
MW: On making friends with other musicians at festivals
CB: Yeah definitely, most of the time it is quite a revolving door of bands, and you just get to know each other, you have rooms next to each other and on the stage. We did a festival in Australia called Laneway which is like a travelling festival, you all get the plane to the next stop and it’s kind of like school camp. That one was two summers ago with Angel Olsen and Matt Demarco and St. Vincent, it was a great lineup. And then you get to watch them everyday as well so it’s cool.
MW: Who have you been hanging out with this festival season?
CB: I don’t know, not hanging out with but I did get to watch PJ Harvey a couple of times, that was really good.
MW: On writing songs
CB: I write everywhere, I think when I tell myself I need a specific thing then I’m just making excuses, like I need this pen and this kind of paper, and then you realise you’re just making excuses to not get it done, but I normally keep a journal so I write in that, but then i’ve been taking a little acoustic guitar on tour and writing on that, so it’s been good, i’ve been doing it all the time.
MW: On Running Her Record Label - Do you have the time to look into that when you’re on tour?
CB: A little bit, we divide up our jobs.
MW: It’s a great label, you’ve got a pedigree of talent. Tell me a little bit about East Brunswick All Girls Choir
CB: They’re a great band, that album, Seven Drummers, must’ve been the year before, I think they’re making a new album next year, so it might be a busy year, Jen Sholakis who plays drums in that band, she plays drums in Jen Cloher’s band which I play in guitar. I don’t know what the actual reason is, I guess we never actually really left Melbourne, we work in the area and then played gigs on the weekend, and so you just divide your time between whoever is available, I think it’s the share house thing as well. I’ve lived in a lot of share houses, like there’s supposed to be three of five people living there, and it’s normally like ten to fifteen coming in and out, and there’s a band room set up out the back and you just do it for fun.
MW: Talking of Melbourne - that was where the video for Elevator was filmed, did you enjoy it?
CB: Yeah it was actually a lot of fun, it was kind of stressful, everything is stressful.
MW: On music videos and acting in them
CB: I think I’m getting there, I really enjoy it. They all start out, when I did the album, at the same time of doing the artwork and getting other stuff finished, I wrote a video for every song basically, like a little script or synopsis, and I just really enjoy it. I did it just in case then I found it was just a kind of element and it can take on a different personality, it’s fun to think through the ideas and how it comes to life.
