Courtney Barnett opens up about her personal and 'confronting' new documentary Anonymous Club
In a Q interview, the Grammy-nominated musician spoke about the toll that touring took on her mental health
Click the play button above to listen to Courtney Barnett's full interview with Tom Power.
In 2018, Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett was touring cities across the world and playing sold-out shows in support of her sophomore album, Tell Me How You Really Feel. But despite her massive success, she was dealing with self-doubt, exhaustion and anxiety.
Now, a new documentary, Anonymous Club, is giving audiences a deeply intimate look at Barnett's struggle with the spotlight during that period of her life. The film was directed by Barnett's frequent collaborator Danny Cohen, who encouraged her to open up about her fears and use a Dictaphone to record an audio diary, which she did over the course of three years.
"I liked the idea of just capturing [that period]," Barnett told Q's Tom Power in an interview. "It ended up being, like, a lot more personal, which is fine. You know, it's something that [Danny and I] talked about along the way, and it was confronting — and it still is confronting to watch and think and talk about — but I guess in hindsight, it was, for me, quite a useful process."
WATCH | Official trailer for Anonymous Club:
Anonymous Club isn't your typical music documentary. For Barnett, making the film was a process of self-discovery that helped her assess her own feelings and motivations.
"I personally don't really see this film so much about me being a musician," she said. "I think it's just me having a hard time in life when I happen to be a musician at the same time."
Known by fans for being intensely shy and private, Barnett has at times experienced difficulty communicating about heavy topics, not in her music, but in press interviews. At one point in the film, she talks about an online comment someone made that criticized her interviews.
"Someone left a note saying, 'You are great at music, but please, God, stop doing interviews. It's horrendous,'" she says in the documentary. "And I got really bummed out. It made me really sad because, I mean, I don't know how to say these things that I want to say, and I know I end up sounding like a f--king moron."
Reflecting on that moment, Barnett told Power she could see "the truth" in the comment at the time. "That stuff hurts sometimes because we find the truth in it … we find the thing that scares us the most. And whether it's true or not, in the moment, it kind of backs up the story that you're telling yourself and, you know, I think it just kind of perpetuates, like, a negative cycle."
WATCH | Courtney Barnett performs in the Q studio in 2018:
Toward the conclusion of the documentary, it becomes clear that the person Barnett was at the start of her tour is very different from the person she was at the end, as there's a greater focus on the love her fans have for her and vice versa.
Barnett told Power it can be challenging to concentrate on the positive moments when she's in a certain frame of mind.
"It's kind of like when you're heartbroken — when you listen to music all you hear is, like, songs about heartbreak and songs about love and loss," she said.
"You can only focus on the negative moments … and you got to kind of take it all, you can't just pick and choose. But to be able to, like, truly accept and appreciate those beautiful positive moments, I think, is something really special and something I'm really grateful for."
Written by Vivian Rashotte. Interview produced by Kaitlyn Swan.