We don’t get a chance to see Australian country musician Kasey Chambers often in the States, but when she makes it here, she delivers the goods. She recently put on a stunning show at The Birchmere filled with great songs and stories, filled with heart and humor, celebrating family, that was one of the most emotionally powerful performances I’ve ever seen.
Some might be surprised to find out that Australia has a tradition of country music. The genre was introduced to the Land Down Under by American GIs who were stationed there during WWII. Singers like Kasey Chambers have brought their country’s unique spirit to the music. Her influences, like Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle, are often characterized as Americana, and she’s similarly eclectic, equally talented at intimate, confessional songs as she is at getting loud and bringing rock muscle, as she did to her cover of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”
Chambers definitely brings a unique spin to this music, owing to her unusual upbringing. When she was three years old, her father Bill — who plays in her band — packed the family up and moved them to the Outback, where he worked as a fox hunter in the Nullarbor Plain, a vast stretch of desert in Southern and Western Australia. (One might note the parallels with the deserts of the American Southwest, which have influenced the western part of country and western music.) The appropriately named “Nullarbor Song” is the “first song I ever wrote about [my] memories of living on the Nullarbor,” Kasey said at The Birchmere on June 28.
Life on the Nullarbor was often isolated, and there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment there. It was there that Chambers was introduced to traditional country and folk music, when Bill would bring out his acoustic guitar and the family would have singalongs around the campfire. These sings eventually evolved into the Chambers family playing gigs as the Dead Ringer Band, and then to Kasey’s career as a solo artist. She explained that, when she was first signed, she didn’t know anything about the music industry, including what a record label really was. This didn’t prevent her from making a banger of a first album, and she still plays the title, “The Captain,” which remains one of her favorite songs.
Watch Kasey Chambers perform “The Captain” live for Paste Studios on YouTube:
When she became involved in the music industry, Chambers was exposed to the prevailing norms for women at the time, pop stars like Britney Spears. Having had an isolated childhood, she’d been sheltered from the pressure exerted by standards of femininity and beauty, and this came as a shock. Kasey became emotional talking about this, choking up as she introduced “Not Pretty Enough.” “The more I shared my insecurities with people,” she said, “the more I connected.” I certainly connected and was moved, as I continue to struggle with my self-confidence, even as I’m nearing 45, after a childhood filled with vicious bullying.
Chambers kicked off her set with the blistering “Ain’t No Little Girl.” After the song, she promised, “I won’t be that angry all night,” and went into the title track of her most recent album, last year’s Backbone. Between numbers, she told the audience that The Birchmere “is my most favorite place to play in the whole world,” and it’s “always the best gig of the tour.” After “This Flower,” she poked fun at herself, saying that some of her songs are “more screechy and annoying than others.”
The set continued with an old favorite, “Pony,” and “A Little Bit Lonesome.” “The Divorce Song,” she explained, was cowritten and sung on the album with her ex-husband Shane Nicholson; it’s about how they do divorce better than they ever did marriage. Her guitarist, Dingo, who she called “my future ex-husband” — reminding me of Marty Stuart’s response to a woman in the audience that “we could be divorced by now” — filled in Shane’s parts admirably. Kasey joked, “I think this is going to be my favorite divorce yet.”
Family is a big part of Chamber’s music and was a big part of the show. As I’ve noted, her dad plays in her band. She talked about her three kids. The oldest, Talon, 23, who lives on the West Coast of Australia, is an actor, and can be seen — for one scene, as a dead body — in a movie on Netflix. Kasey wrote “Arlo” for her middle child when he turned 13. She noted how big a change happens when a boy turns that age. (This echoed the ancient wisdom of my Jewish heritage, in which we mark this with the Bar Mitzvah.) For “Little Red Riding Hood,” she brought out her youngest child and only daughter, Poet, as well as her older brother Nash. Nash, who handles the front of the house for her band, lives in Nashville where he runs a studio. In a couple of weeks, he’ll be getting his US citizenship.
Stream “Little Red Riding Hood” by Kasey Chambers on YouTube:
“We’re All Gonna Die Someday” featured an unusual instrument called the lagerphone, which is made using the bottle caps from beer. Kasey finished the main set with “A New Day Has Come.” For her encore, she did a song she’s never sung for an audience, “I Don’t Want to Talk About It,” written by the late Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse. She ended the night with “Barricades & Brick Walls,” which she wrote with her right-hand man and best friend Worm.
Sunny Sweeney, who has “made a career writing songs about my ex-husbands” opened the show. “I don’t remember which one of them this about,” she said, introducing “Staying’s Worse Than Leaving.” After her second divorce, she moved back in with her mom at the age of 45, and, when she moved back out, she left behind a safe behind containing, as she titled her song, “Diamonds & Divorce Degrees.” “I’ve only got one love song,” she said, and it’s about her five-pound Yorkie, Doug, who she imagines speaks in a British accent. She sang “Grow Old With Me” for Doug and her guitarist, Harley Husbands. The hilarious “Backhanded Compliment” is all about the cringeworthy things fan have said to her at the merch table. Introducing “Poet’s Prayer,” she mentioned she’d just replaced her van, with which was totaled by a drunk driver while she was playing a gig. She finished with what she called the only kind of love song she wants someone to sing to her, Bob Dylan’s “To Be Alone With You.”
Sunny doesn’t get to the DMV often, and I hadn’t seen her or Kasey in about seven years. Both proved to be worth wait, with great songs, engaging stories, and a dose of refreshing realness.
