Courtney Barnett on Kurt Cobain Jaguars, writing for the song, and why she’s learned to push down the feeling she’s “wasting everyone’s time” to nail her guitar solos
When Cournet Barnett was 18, she was hopping around at open mics, performing original songs to anyone who would listen. Soon enough, however, she found herself playing guitar in her first-ever band: the gritty, Melbourne-based grunge collective, Rapid Transit.
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The music was riotous, punchy garage rock that only lasted a year, with the outfit releasing a one-off self-titled cassette in December 2010. Barnett is no stranger to seamlessly slipping into new projects – from Immigrant Union to The Olivettes. But, now, as she mulls over her past on a call from LA, it’s clear that phase in her life was one she recalls fondly.
“It’s so cool that you found that,” she enthuses. “I loved that band. I love that music that we made. My friend Chris, that was his band. I joined other bands and did whatever felt fun at the time. Chris and I worked in this bar together, and he asked me to play guitar in his band, and it was so different to what I was doing with my songs, and I loved it.
“Actually, I’ve never really written like that. I didn’t even know what key the songs were in or what chords we were playing! I just remembered all my parts, but I didn’t understand absolutely any of the theory or anything that was going on.”
Image: Lindsey Byrnes
Learning Curve
There are few better ways to cement your place in the music industry firmament than getting a nomination in one of the super prestigious “Big Four” categories at the Grammy Awards, but that’s exactly what happened to Barnett a decade ago when she was nominated for Best New Artist at the 58th Grammys.
Ten years and one month later, she released her poignant, brilliant new album, Creature of Habit. Reflecting on her coming-of-age guitar moments, the Australian musician picks out a quietly confident trick.
“It’s wild to think back to that time now. I would still be scared to go into an open-mic. There’s something really nerve-wracking about it. But I was looking at all those moments as a place to learn, and that’s something I’m always trying to do,” she says. “Every step of the way, with every different-sized show, it’s always good to remember that I’m just trying to serve the song and the storytelling. It doesn’t matter what size the venue or whatever it is, I always want to do a good show.”
It’s early morning and Barnett’s dog, Rosa, is pacing around the flat, eager to get outside. In some way, there’s a similar glimmering enthusiasm of routine in Barnett’s latest full-length album. Creature of Habit emerged in the quiet of Joshua Tree, where she could experiment and chip away at her album, sticking to what felt like the right path. Wisdom, then, is something Barnett is coaxing out of all situations. She explores openly, sinking into the feelings of creative limbo, looking, searching for a moment that strikes, something that feels authentic and right.
“There’s a beauty in an in-between moment of figuring something out and capturing that sound in the studio. It’s usually a guitar solo or something like that that I would typically leave to the last minute and do it based on feeling,” she says. “I’m figuring it out in the moment, and I feel like I’m wasting everyone’s time, but then, at the same time, I think it captures something really raw; it’s right on the edge of falling apart, or you can hear me searching for the notes and I like that. It feels really, really honest.”
Image: Lindsey Byrnes
Breaking The Habit
Finding those moments and little breakthroughs is, as anyone who has tried to write a song can surely attest, is where the real magic is found. But even after more than a decade of making her own music across myriad projects, Barnett still cherishes the lessons she’s learned on the back of Creature Of Habit.
“I think my biggest lesson for this album was about finishing things, especially lyrics,” she reveals. “I left a lot of the lyrics to the last minute and, often, didn’t finish a song. I kind of thought that I’ll figure the rest out later and I’ll get around to it or in the moment, I’ll figure it out, but that just psyched me out and stressed me out.
“It’s normally a bit more structured and things would be more finished. I was experimenting, but I knew if I didn’t have a deadline, I wouldn’t get anything done. I would sit around looking at the sky and waiting for some grand idea to happen.”
One of the album’s standout tracks is Mantis, and this was another song that taught Barnett some valuable lessons in the studio – and was so impactful that the insect the song was inspired by ended up being the album’s cover.
“When I finished writing that song, I felt the album come together like that,” she reveals. “The song felt like the glue. I don’t 100 per cent know why, but it just made all of the songs make sense as a collection, instead of them just being random songs placed together.
“I couldn’t come up with the chorus. I had some random lines that didn’t really make sense. Then, one day, I was at home, and I looked up at my windowsill and saw this praying mantis. I was in a moment where I was feeling really lost and really sad, and I was really having a hard time, and this tiny little mantis felt like this weird sign from the universe. This supportive little creature was kind of telling me I was, I was going in the right direction, and so it became this symbol for me.
“Around that time, I was getting up every morning, I was making a coffee, and then I was sitting down to write, and one of the phrases I wrote one morning was something about being a creature of habit. Then, a year or so later, I was coming up with the album title at the last minute, which I always do, and I thought that line represented all the songs really nicely, both in a kind of abstract way, but also quite an obvious way.”
Tried And True
The album’s title is the sort of thing that obviously promotes discussion about Barnett’s tried and true ways of doing things, and when it comes to her captivatingly jagged and raw approach to guitar, she has a relatable process for how it all comes together – finding the familiar and then pushing beyond it.
“It’s funny how there are always little things that I fall back on,” she explains. “I always pick up a guitar and I’ll go to the same chords I learned as a kid with my guitar teacher, and the pentatonic scale. When I’m soloing or finding notes, I find myself following similar patterns, and then I have to force myself to kind of break out of that. I’ll definitely jump on the tremolo arm often, if I feel kind of lost I’ll make noise with it. But if I pick up a guitar, I go to a G-A-G, and play some kind of country-style strumming pattern – that’s my go-to.”
Fruitful collaboration has been a regular feature of Barnett’s career, and so it’s fitting that the album’s lead single, Site Unseen, sees her working with another indie-rock big-hitter in the shape of Kathryn Crutchfield, aka Waxahatchee.
“I wrote that song at the last minute before we went into the studio the first time,” Barnettt recalls. “This album was recorded in a couple of different sessions, and I wrote it at the last minute. I was sitting with my girlfriend in the studio, and we were talking, but I had the guitar in my hand and the melody in my head.
“I was so distracted, because I was like, ‘Oh my god, what if I forget this song that I’ve kind of written as we’ve been talking…’ My girlfriend was saying something and I was like, ‘I’m so sorry, but I need to record this song and can we just stop talking for one second?’ I did a voice memo of this song idea and then a couple of days later, I showed the band, and we tried to track the song, but I hadn’t really fleshed it out properly.
“Then, six months later, I did a different version of it that wasn’t right and then another one. Finally, it sounded right and I had this idea to get Katie. I asked her if she would be interested in singing this harmony idea that I had floating around in my head, and I thought her voice would be so perfect for it. I really love her songwriting and I think she’s such an amazing artist. I just knew that her voice would be perfect. So I texted her and asked her and she was into it. She did a vocal and it all sounded right to me, but it was a real journey. It took over a year to get it right.”
Image: Press
Going Big
For many fans, the squall of Barnett’s guitar is a magical component of her music, though it was something that took a little bit of a back seat in the sparser arrangements of 2021’s Things Take Time, Take Time. When she started talking about Creature Of Habit, she declared that the guitars would be more overt this time around – a notable thing that begs the question why she felt the need to make such a promise…
“Lots of people seemed to comment that my last album wasn’t guitar-heavy,” she says. “It seemed to be a bit of a comparison, not so much for me, but a few observations from other people. But this does feel bigger, wider and louder. I wrote Things Take Time… in a small apartment during Covid lockdowns on acoustic guitars. It was quite small, quiet and intimate. With this album, I started writing it in the desert with big landscapes and no kind of noise restrictions. I was just playing more guitars, playing electric guitar instead of acoustic on that album. I think, sonically, they’re so different.”
Speaking of playing electric guitars, it would be remiss not to chat about Barnett’s most synonymous guitar – her lefty Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar that has been a constant companion throughout her musical life, and was a key player on Creature Of Habit too.
“I’ve just been using it for so long, and I don’t have that many guitars,” she demures of the guitar’s significance. “I don’t like rotating between a lot of guitars and always come back to it like that. It feels like such a workhorse and it does everything I want it to do; I can play all my songs on it. They all sound good to my ear on that guitar. At the moment, I have that guitar and this white Strat, and they’re the two guitars that I use. I don’t really have any other ones here. I find that Jag can do everything I want it to do.”
A little over a decade on from the debut album that propelled her to global indie-rock stardom, Barnett has understandably learned and experienced a huge amount, but it’s also a career that seems to have gone by in a flash.
“It’s funny that 10 years feels so long ago, but also so like it was kind of just yesterday as well,” she agrees. “It’s such a weird way to look at a time. It feels like another lifetime. I was thinking about this album the other day and there’s always this feeling of nerves and vulnerability as you’re just about to release something. I’m so proud of it and I’m just excited to release it and to perform the songs. I have been working on this for three years, so it feels like such a journey.
“But when other people listen to the music, it kind of becomes something else. People interpret it in different ways, and often I learn more about the music once it‘s released. It’s really interesting to see how songs evolve over time and how they kind of change. Sometimes they might even change meaning or just gain a new meaning. I sat with these ideas for so long. I struggled with a lot of the lyrics. I went through a lot of emotional turmoil and I learned a lot. Now, I can let it go and I can move on with all these lessons learned and perspectives gained. It feels like I can take a breath. It’s a nice bit of closure.”
Courtney Barnett’s Creator of Habit is out now via Milk! Records
The post Courtney Barnett on Kurt Cobain Jaguars, writing for the song, and why she’s learned to push down the feeling she’s “wasting everyone’s time” to nail her guitar solos appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
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