Courtney Barnett's 'Still Writing The Same Stupid Songs'

For a songwriter as wordy and confident as Courtney Barnett, she's something of a reserved character offstage. The friendly, quietly spoken 25-year-old chats without pretence, but that shouldn't be any surprise after hearing her instantly relatable songs. “I've hired out a room at my friend's house and I've locked myself in it for a week,” she says down the line from Melbourne. “It's kind of the first time I've sat down to properly try and write songs.”

The past few months have seen this young songwriter catapulted into the spotlight. She was on just about every end-of-year list from every music publication around the world and most of them have picked her as an “artist to watch” in 2014. “It's a bit weird that all of a sudden people show interest in me, but that's nice if people connect with the songwriting,” she says. “It is a bit weird though, all of a sudden to be selling out shows and having photos everywhere and stuff like that.”

It might be weird, but not much has changed for Barnett. “Nah, I'm still writing the same stupid songs. I just find myself a lot busier, which isn't completely a bad thing, but for someone like me, I stress out when I have more than one thing to do per day, so I've found I've really gotta focus my energy on how to do things.”

It's not just writing and performing that Barnett has on her plate; she's put out all her releases independently through her own label Milk! Records (also home to the likes of Jen Cloher, Fraser A Gorman and Royston Vasie). “I like doing things myself, I think mostly because I'm a bit of a control freak, but we're trying to make some changes this year to try and make it make more sense. I find myself not writing and not playing music – all I'm doing is trying to do the bloody HTML on a website or spending my whole day writing emails. I'm trying to find a healthy balance so I can continue doing what I like doing, which is mostly writing. Now stuff's picking up a bit it's obviously getting busier and busier… I want to keep doing it, but find a better way to do it.”

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