Country Update Features

EVE OF A NEW ERA

The thought of a 9.00am interview with anyone is never something I relish. I do most of my talking
after lunch, and interviews can be awkward, difficult and uncomfortable at best and morning time
for musicians is never the preferred option for introspection and analysis.

Of course, I’m interviewing the delightful Kasey Chambers and her talented partner in life and music
Shane Nicholson; it’s the most glorious morning, warm after a series of cold days and freezing nights
up here on the NSW central coast, the birds are singing, the surf is rolling in and it’s as serene as a
weekend at Bonnydoon (ah the serenity....)

I was expecting a bustling household of yelling kids, daytime TV (one of Kasey’s confessed passions) strewn with musical instruments, wires and recording devices, ringing telephones.......I couldn’t have been more off the mark. On arriving I thought I’d got the wrong house, The Chambers/Nicholson family home was virtually silent (maybe they’ve forgotten about the interview, I thought)...but I hear a rustle and the door opens and replete with beaming smile Shane welcomes me in , and Kasey appears as if from nowhere warning me to keep my distance..... “I’ve got the flu......again!” she confesses apologetically.

Devoid of all make up, not feeling her best, and probably not looking forward to a series of interviews to fill up her day, she looks remarkably radiant, her clear blue eyes glistening in the sunlight and skin as clear as photo-shopped make-up model. We settle in with a little catch-up chit chat while Shane makes tea and before I’ve even got my tape recorder ready she’s spitting out quotable pieces too good to miss so I tech up and let her go.........

Having recently returned from the initial run of dates on their current national tour promoting the superb Rattling Bones CD, already a number one album on both the mainstream and country charts and fast on its way to platinum certification, they seem to be pretty happy with the way things are progressing.

It’s a return to the roots of country, the hillbilly, folk, gospel elements that have always been there at the heart of Kasey’s music. Although hugely influenced by her Dad’s personal repertoire and the family’s eclectic record collection from the Carter Family to Cold Chisel, it’s the old time music that comes to the fore in this uncompromising collection of songs and styles.
Of course this is not the new Kasey Chambers album; this is a different kettle of fish altogether in that it’s a collaboration with husband Shane Nicholson.

Brisbane born and raised singer/songwriter Nicholson is no newcomer himself. He is an ex band member of (Pretty Violet Stain) and with two accomplished major label solo albums It’s a Movie and Faith and Science under his belt.
But for country music fans I guess it’s hard to imagine how the transformation from pop/rock singer to back porch, harmonizing hillbilly picker has come about. He fills me in.

“Well we did actually grow up listening to very similar music, I listened to country a lot but didn’t really think of it as country, it was just what my Dad played, but it wasn’t the kind of stuff we listen to now, I wasn’t listening to Gram and Emmylou like you were as a kid, my Dad might have had Ronnie Milsap”,

“But you were very influenced by Bob Dylan and Neil Young” Kasey interjects.

“Bob Dylan and Neil Young were the reason I started playing music, but it was my Mum, she didn’t like Neil Young’s rock stuff, so I only ever heard his country stuff, I thought he was a country artist until my teens. With Rattlin’ Bones it’s funny, we didn’t set out ( well from my point of view) to make a country album”.

Kasey clarifies “ I think we had more of an idea of how we wanted to record in a very country way, but when we sat down and wrote the songs it wasn’t like ‘this isn’t really country enough so we’d better lean it more towards that’, it just fell out like that!”

Taking a year off after touring to promote Carnival and giving birth to new son Arlo, only venturing out to the Avoca pub to play covers with The Lost Dogs (her Dad, Shane and assorted mates) Kasey started to rekindle a bit of a spark and a few songs started to emerge.
“I hadn’t written a song for over a year, didn’t even try, didn’t even want to, it was playing with The Lost Dogs that got me back into music, getting up there every week having no pressure and every week learning whatever songs we felt like playing ....and the audience, well we had to train them, and after a while they stopped calling out for Kasey Chambers songs”

With only a couple of co-writes in the past until last year, songwriting for Kasey has been predominantly a solitary pursuit, “When Shane and I started getting to know each other, we kept discovering that we loved the same artists and I think that’s when we started thinking that maybe we could write together one day but it just never happened”

“The first song we sat down and wrote was in April last year and it was ‘Rattlin’ Bones’. We had planned to for a long time, even before we got together, but mostly it was my fault. I put it off and put it off ..... I can’t co-write with people,. It’s a bit daunting for me, Shane’s done a lot of it....you’re a good co-writer”

“Yeah....for other people” Shane explains.

“Not for myself, I spent a lot of time co-writing for other projects but I’ve never been able to do it for mine. That’s what was interesting about this, because we were so musically connected for a long time before we were even a couple. We toured, played and recorded together but we’d never written together, so it was really a new thing......”

Kasey picks up the thread, “It was never about making an album, never once did we mention making a record together...of covers or our own songs or whatever, it was all about writing together. And when we did end up making a record, we didn’t care what happened after it came out, we’d all like to think that we don’t care what happens once it’s out....you love your record, of course you want people to hear it and like it, but even if it didn’t come out.... that wasn’t the important thing. This time I felt different about it, I really felt it was more the journey of making it...

Spending the whole year writing and going into the studio and making this record the way we wanted to make it, doing it all ourselves was really liberating.”

It’s been a couple of weeks off now recuperating from a crippling dose of the flu and it’s only a few days away from the next leg of the tour and Kasey’s already got her second bout, one of the unfortunate downsides of taking the kids along, but hey it’s the Chambers family and that’s how things work around here.

With the upcoming release of Rattlin’ Bones in the US through the Sugar Hill label, plans are afoot for a promotional tour later in the year.
“Yeah we’re going to the States in September for a couple of weeks just doing shows in LA, Austin, Nashville, Chicago and New York. The Sugar Hill label have been interested for a while....I’ve been on Warners in the US up until that last record but Sugar Hill had said to keep us in mind when your Warners deal is up and we just felt like it fit there, it feels like the right kind of record for that kind of label”

It’s been a beautiful morning, sitting round the kitchen table with Kasey and Shane sharing their life, music and family; it’s a long way from award shows, TV make up rooms and the vacuous world of celebrity.

Their humility and genuine enthusiasm for their music and nothing more is a refreshing change from the tiresome over hyped self promotion we’ve come to expect from the world of contemporary music; it’s a rare pleasure and in this day and age those qualities, like their album are timeless.