"I've had women interviewing me where they're like 'so, what's your style?' And I'm like 'are you fucking kidding? Can we talk about my music?'" laughs Courtney Barnett, pulling at the grass as we sit backstage at London's Field Day. "It's this whole sexist bullshit thing."
She laughs and rolls her eyes. "They're like 'oh, here's the female Kurt Cobain because I'm wearing a t-shirt and jeans'. I think lots of people wear t-shirt and jeans. It's just funny, the way people like to make a comparison because it's easy and new things are scary. People want to feel safe."
You wait. One day she'll wear a dress and people will accuse her of 'selling out'. "I know," she smiles. "I've only ever worn a dress like, twice in my life."
Indeed, the idea of Courtney Barnett having 'a style' is laughable. Few new artists have caught the imagination of music lovers and seen their star rise so fast quite like her. Alternative radio favourite 'Avant Gardener' has become a real breakthrough sleeper hit, charming listeners with its laissez faire sound and sharp-witted lyrics to soundtrack the tail-end of 2013 and the summer of 2014. It's not contrived, there's no grand plan, it's just a young woman singing about real life. Simple. But to call Barnett 'carefree' is a disservice, she works bloody hard - and to pass her off as just some comedy alt-folk act undermines the many layers to her personality.
"I see lots of the key words that pop up in things and people always say 'quirky' or 'funny' and stuff like that, but I think a lot of my stuff is really dark - not in a dark-dark way but black humour, sarcastic," she admits. "Sarcasm is a low form of humour. I think it's fair that some people focus on the songs that became the singles and I think there are heaps of other songs that are on a totally different level to those songs, but you aren't going to talk about every single song all the time. "
Watch the video for 'Avant Gardener' by Cournett Barnett below
So beyond the singles and we've heard on her impeccable A Sea Of Split Peas double EP, her debut album is almost done. Pencilled in for release at the end of the year, now they just have to figure out the tracklisting and allow Barnett the time to draw the cover art in between an absolutely insane touring schedule. But to call it a debut feels strange, especially as the Sea Of Split Peas sounds so complete.
"It's definitely more focussed than the two EPs because they were never supposed to be put together when I wrote them, but I still feel like it's more of a collection of songs and ideas that are really focussed as an album," she says. "I've never really thought about that much but now I keep thinking of very thematic ideas and stuff like that but I think it's really a collection of the last year of so and a brief picture about what I've been thinking about. Travelling, general life, dealing with stuff like work, friends and relationships. Nothing too crazy.
"It feels like my third release, which it is. I guess I made a song and dance about the first thing not being an album to everyone else made a really big deal about not calling it that and now the next album feels like it has all this 'debut' stuff attached to but it's the third thing I've put a whole bunch of work into. I don't really care what it's called."
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Courtney Barnett live at The Great Escape 2014 (Richard Gray)
Those who have caught Courtney and her awesome band (The Courtney Barnettes) live may have been caught slightly off-guard by how much heavier they are than on record - with a much harder and grungier approach than heard on her folksier early material.
"Yeah, lots of people say that," she nods. "It's just because the first EP, I wrote in my room when I was working in a pub and used to come home to a shared house at like 2am and write songs but had to be super quiet. That first EP is quite chilled out and almost whispery. The second one, we'd been touring a lot and playing as a band, so by the time of the album we'd been touring and playing real loud so it's just a reaction to the environment that we've been in. A lot of the first stuff I wrote by myself on a keyboard, so it's like a different mood to playing with a band. You feed off each other and we have a really good time fucking around."
"Sometimes when rehearsing we just get as drunk as we can and play as loud as we can and see what happens. It's usually really shit!"
And the plan from then on?
"See how I go. It's fun to experiment with different things. If you know what you're going to do then it loses the excitement."
Whether she's drawing, running her own record label, rocking out or 'fucking around', she may not know where she's going but we know it will be far, and we can't wait to watch it happen.
A Sea Of Split Peas by Courtney Barnett is out now. She'll be performing at Glastonbury on the Park Stage at 3.30pm on the Friday and on The John Peel stage at 5pm on the Saturday.
Below: 9 exclusive shots of Courtney Barnett at Islington Assembly Hall
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