Sure to be a Barn-stormer
Aussie rocker reaffirms her Brooklyn cred with return to NYC
They say you never forget your first. And for Courtney Barnett — indie rocker from Down Under — that means New York City will always hold a special place in her heart.
“That’s actually the first place I ever played outside of Australia, which is kind of cool,” says Barnett, 30, of her debut US showcases at the CMJ Music Marathon in 2013. “I played lots of little venues in quick succession over a couple of days. We’ve gone back [to New York] a lot and played for some really great crowds. They’ve been pretty good to us.”
After playing in Williamsburg in May, Barnett will take her grungy sounds out of beer-scented clubs and into the open air when she headlines a concert at the Prospect Park Bandshell on Wednesday.
Barnett will rock tunes from her latest album, “Tell Me How You Really Feel,” the follow-up to her acclaimed 2015 debut. That LP scored her a gig on “SNL” and a Grammy nod for Best New Artist, but the singer-guitarist lost out to Meghan Trainor.
“That was kind of good,” says Barnett, who attended the “pretty crazy” ceremony in Los Angeles. “It was a relief that I didn’t have to get up and say anything. I’m really scared of public speaking.”
After releasing an album with Philly rock god Kurt Vile last fall, Barnett appeared on the Breeders’ comeback album, “All Nerve.” Breeders twin sisters Kim and Kelley Deal returned the favor on “Tell Me.”
Barnett has learned well from the alt-rock icons: “They don’t seem to take much bulls - - t or waver from their own kind of path. They just do things the way they do them, and that’s inspiring.”
Barnett admits that it’s not always easy being a woman in rock. “There’s challenges just putting up with the sh - - ty behavior and sh - - ty assumptions and condescending people. It’s something you kind of fight,” she says.
In “Hopefulessness,” the moody opener of ”Tell Me,” Barnett offers encouragement, paraphrasing Carrie Fisher: “Take your broken heart, turn it into art.”
“I read [those words] somewhere,” says Barnett. “I thought it was a really beautiful and simple line. You can take a lot from it.”
And so Barnett did on “Hopefulessness”: “That song deals with trying to turn something negative into a positive, finding hope among hopelessness. Most people can probably relate to that feeling.”