Aussie Musician Mom Kasey Chambers Unleashes Wild and Wise Music and Memoir
There’s an intoxicating wildness to Aussie singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers’ blend of Americana, from the big, belted-out longing within “A New Day Has Come” to the wistful ballad “A Love Like Springsteen.”
Uplifted by the soft and often melancholy slide guitars and fiddle, Chambers writes songs that are an anthem to the trials that shaped her, pains and all.
Case in point: The cheeky bittersweet ode to separation (“The Divorce Song”) was penned with ex-husband Shane Nicholson). These are just a handful of tunes listeners can enjoy while reading of her escapades in the album’s companion book Don’t Be a Dickhead.
The memoir recalls life lessons and experiences — from her childhood in the Australian outback to the heights of her international success as a singer songwriter. Like her album, the book also delves into one of the more inspiring aspects of her life: motherhood.
“I approach motherhood the same way I approach music,” Chambers tells Rockmommy. “Sometimes it’s beautiful, heart filling and rewarding and sometimes it’s challenging and frustrating but there’s always something to learn from every mistake and every hard part.”
We recently caught up with Chambers to learn more.
Rockmommy: Congratulations on the new book and album! For those who don’t know your music, can you share some of your early inspirations? Who did you listen to, and what resonated with you?
Kasey Chambers: My dad brought me up listening to Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Merl Haggard and the likes and then when I started writing songs as a teenager and getting into music on my own I was very influenced by by Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Nancy Griffith, Paul Kelly and Fred Eaglesmith. These are still some of my favourite artists today.
Rockmommy: You’ve had a life full of adventures, which you chronicle in your book. But that title! Where did that come from? (is it a life philosophy)?
Kasey Chambers: The book is filled with life stories, experiences and most of all, the lessons I’ve learnt along the way and probably the most important one simply being ‘just don’t be a dickhead’. My dad used to give this to my brother and I as advice and even though it doesn’t sound profound it evenly became profound wisdom that I try to live by most days. (Not always reaching the goal of course but I’m trying my best.)
Rockmommy: What wisdom do you hope to impart by chronicling your journey in such a personal and intimate way?
Kasey Chambers: I don’t really think I’m trying to impart anything so much as I just like sharing a lot of myself in a creative way and this time it just so happened to be in book form. I let all this stuff I was feeling, learning and experiencing pour out of me and then I thought I would just share it. I honestly don’t really mind what anyone else gets out of it.
Rockmommy: Is writing a book harder than writing an album?
Kasey Chambers: It was a very similar experience to writing an album. Sometimes enjoyable, sometimes uncomfortable and excruciating, sometimes easy and sometimes hard, sometimes freeing and sometimes fearful. Just like life I guess. I believe being creative in any way is supposed to feel like that.
Rockmommy: Your father played guitar! Did you jam together growing up? To what extent did he shape your career as a musician?
Kasey Chambers: I grew up in the Australian outback for a lot of my early childhood so we lived a very isolated lifestyle. My dad was a professional fox hunter and we travelled and lived a lot in a 4 WD and a handmade van towed on the back across the Nullarbor plain which is one of the biggest deserts in the world. Our only form of entertainment was to sit around the campfire while my dad played guitar and we all sang as a family. We would sing old gospel songs in harmony by the firelight.
This is what I consider my musical education. The title track to my new album BACKBONE (The Desert Child) is all about this memory. My dad still plays in my band today and I travel everywhere in a 4WD and a caravan with my kids now and we often still sit around the campfire and play music together.
Rockmommy: Your new album is just stunning! How do you approach songwriting these days? How has your craft evolved over the years? Do you find different sources of inspiration?
Kasey Chambers: Thank you so much. My approach to songwriting is slightly different all the time. I don’t think I really have an exact formula that I stick to every time (in fact I try not to) but I guess I have an overall method that I’ve honed over the years where I know my writing works best when let the combination of natural inspiration, hard work and craft work together.
Each song is a bit different where sometimes it takes mostly all natural inspiration and the rest only takes a little nudge and then other songs require more hard work and craft before the natural inspiration takes over.
I like to treat every song differently though and let it have a life of its own. I’m not really interested in sticking to a ‘formula that works’ with my creativity. I like to learn something new about myself with every song.
Rockmommy: Can you tell us about who the players are on your latest record — and how you selected them?
Kasey Chambers: The first musician I based the whole record around was the drummer Brady Blade. We have known each other for many years and our families clicked together whenever we crossed paths. We played together a lot but never worked together in the studio so it was a bucket list moment for me after almost 30 years.
My long-time bass player Jeff McCormack (we’ve played together for over 25 years) played on the record and my partner — and one of my live band guitar players — Brandon (Dingo) Dodd added in a bunch of different instruments along with Same Teskey (from the Teskey Brothers) playing all the slide guitar.
This was the main band and whole record was mostly done live in five days in our studio-The Rabbit Hole Recording Studio-on the Central Coast of NSW in Australia. My dad (Bill Chambers who is my other live guitar play) also added some parts on the record.
I produced the record myself and my main objective was really just to surround myself with musicians who I click with personally and musically and jam all my songs in a live band setting so we were all creating magic at the same time. I don’t love overdubbing or overthinking too much so every vocal on the record is one take, no redos or editing or fix ups which means there’s a lot of imperfections of course but that’s how I like it. Real. I then pass the whole project over to my brother Nash Chambers, who is based in Nashville now where he mixed the record for me at his studio Troubadour House.
Rockmommy: For those of us who don’t know, what are some of the biggest differences (and similarities) between the music scene in Australia and the U.S.?
Kasey Chambers: The biggest difference between the two scenes is really based on population I think. You have more people in Texas than we have in our entire country. Based on this, you guys are able to have so many different music genres with a full scene behind them with a lot of public and industry support. In Australia our ‘Country Music scene’ has a lot of different styles all lumped in under that one hat. So most of the time when I play a country music festivals here in Australia, I usually share the line up with pop country artists, Americana artists, folk country artists, bluegrass musicians, bush balladeers, bro country artists etc.
I don’t really mind either way because I’m happy to share the stage with any genre of course but I love going to America and playing festivals like Telluride because I get to see all of my personal favourite singer/songwriter/musicians all playing in the one place.
Rockmommy: You are a mom of three! What’s the best part of it all?
Kasey Chambers: My parenting style is very free-spirited. I grew up with very open parents who let us kids be as creative as we wanted. They let us find our own path and encouraged us to be unique and different and not let anyone else tell us who we should be. I am extremely grateful of that upbringing and I try to do the same with my kids. The best part of that approach is to witness my children discovering who they are. Who they want to be. They are learning and changing all the time and creating their own journey based on their own choices, wants and needs. It’s not always the same as mine but I support them in finding themselves in their own way. It’s the most beautiful thing to watch.
Rockmommy: How does motherhood inform your music?
Kasey Chambers: I approach motherhood the same way I approach music. They are often very similar. Sometimes it’s beautiful, heart filling and rewarding and sometimes it’s challenging and frustrating but there’s always something to learn from every mistake and every hard part. The more I tune out the outer noise and bullshit that society tells me, like, ‘parenting/music should look like this’ and just tune back into my heart and inner voice (I call her my inner foghorn) the better I am at both of those jobs. The less I try to control the outcome of my children or my music the more I start to see beautiful things happen right before my eyes.
Marisa Torrieri Bloom is the editor and founder of Rockmommy.
