Courtney Barnett will launch a U.S. tour in support of her new album, Creature of Habit, Friday in Austin, Texas.
“I’m just really excited, to be honest, I’m really excited to play the new songs,” Barnett tells ABC Audio of the tour. “We tracked most of the songs pretty live in the studio and added a few bits here and there. I feel like it’s really gonna come to life when we play it onstage.”
Creature of Habit marks Barnett’s fourth studio album, and over the years she’s found she’s “become more grateful just for the act of performing and for sharing music together in a room.”
“Even going to shows as an audience member these days, I feel more connected to the people in the room and to the people onstage,” Barnett says. “I don’t quite know why that is, it could be a post-COVID thing.”
Along with songs off Creature of Habit, you may hear beloved Barnett songs “Pedestrian at Best” and “Depreston” on the tour. On “Depreston,” which appears on Barnett’s 2015 debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, she recounts a search to buy a home as she sings, “If you’ve got a spare half a million/ You could knock it down and start rebuilding.”
While the frustration of house hunting is still very relatable over 10 years later, Barnett’s lyrics probably underestimate the rise in housing costs. Barnett laughs that “Depreston” has maybe “outdated itself,” but she probably won’t be changing the lyrics anytime soon.
“Honestly, I reckon if I changed the lyrics I would lose my train of thought or something,” Barnett says.
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