Barns Courtney

Courtney spent a large part of his childhood in Seattle,USA, before returning to home country UK as a 15-year-old. This change of scenery comes across as clearly in his eclectic mix of US blues-rock, hip-hop and grunge with British indie melodic sensibilities, as it does in his hybrid US-British twang.

Playing in various projects and bands growing up whilst developing his sound, Barns incarnation as a solo artist has been an unexpectedly fast paced one. At the end of 2015, his first track ‘Glitter and Gold’, with its rocking gospel-blues and Barns’ honey and sand delivery, soared to #1 on the UK Spotify Viral Chart, #2 on the iTunes Alternative Chart, was added to the BBC Introducing Playlist, clocked hundred of thousands of plays on YouTube, and was featured on the ITV Winter 2015 drama reel, all in the span of two months.

‘Goodbye John Smith’, a poignant piano ballad that channels ageless song-and-voice men such as Johnny Cash and Tom Waits, hit the radars of tastemakers online and further spread the word about Barns, earning him a spot as one of Channel 4’s Future Sounds artists that year.

Barns Courtney released his debut EP, ‘Hands’, a four-track collection, in 2016 on Virgin EMI. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.