Australian songwriter Courtney Barnett is riding ever higher this year on the wave of her 2013 ‘The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas,’ in particular the song “Avant Gardener,” which has gotten a surprising amount of radio play in the States over the past few months. She stopped by Billboard’s tent backstage at Lollapalooza this weekend, where she’ll make one of the many festival appearances she’s slated for this summer, to chat about the Australian music scene and her first full-length album, which she and her band finished recording earlier this year in their hometown of Melbourne.
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“It was cool to work on a full album as opposed to the two EPs we kind of recorded in a very staggered way over two years, when I had enough money to do it, or when I got enough money from the Australian government to fund studio time,” Barnett tells Billboard. “So this time we went into the studio and spent ten days and did it, but it was nice after touring for so long to go and create something new. Not that touring isn’t fun, and not that playing the songs isn’t fun, but it’s like a different part of your brain is working to do different things, so it’s new and fresh and exciting.”
Watch the full interview below, and don’t forget to check out all of Billboard’s Lollapalooza coverage this weekend here.