It’s mid-morning on the highway leading into Canberra and Kasey Chambers has pulled her camper van into a park to chat about her new album Backbone and accompanying memoir, Just Don’t Be A Dickhead (And Other Profound Things I’ve Learnt).
In a few hours, Backbone will hit #1 on the ARIA Australian Albums Chart. Kasey doesn’t know that yet.
Traversing Australia
Peering into her partner’s laptop for a Zoom chat, Kasey has no qualms traversing the highways and byways of Australia. It’s a life she was born into.
In 2024, the drive is relatively plush. When she was a kid she rode with her family in her Dad’s home-made caravan with hand built bunks in the back. That’s where she learned her craft as a singer and songwriter, sitting around campfires in the bush.
A lot of living
She might be the youngest female artist admitted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, but she’s done a lot of living. Looking back over her life, reflecting on what’s been learned along the way, inspired the book and the record.
Her story is a broad one. Hearts have been won and lost and won again. Marriages have ended. Children are being raised. And songs, so many of them, have been sung.
The book began when Kasey started typing ‘lists’ into her phone for her own benefit. Maybe that engagement grew out of the mediation she now practices daily? Either way, Kasey found herself tapping the keyboard on her iPhone for so long that a book was born.
‘It’s a weird thing, because as I wrote about what I think I’ve learned in life, the lists and the ideas came to me like my songs do, but they were evolving into chapters.
‘It’s not like I really set out going, oh, I’m really going to challenge myself and become an author now. I still don’t consider myself an author. I’m always sharing stories – now they’re in a book.
‘Personal stuff was coming up for me and I started writing it down. I thought I’ll figure out later where it’s all going to end up. It just started turning into a book. I thought, yeah, this might be something I actually do want to share … just like my songs.’
Album, book produced at same time
As the book was taking shape, the songs on Backbone were being recorded at a rapid pace at her home studio which she calls The Rabbit Hole. It’s there she assembled a core group of musicians including bassist Jeff McCormack, her life partner Brandon Dodd, her father Bill, Sam Tesky and gifted American drummer, Brady Blade.
Desert child
On the title track, ‘Backbone (Desert Child)’ Kasey writes about her experiences: looking back and singing about her beginnings:
‘Well they call me the desert child
I was born out in the wild’.
‘My dad was a professional fox hunter and so on the off season, which was over the summer months, we would go to a normal school. When I say normal school, it was very small. It had about 30 kids in it. In the hunting season, we would go into the outback and my mum would teach my brother and me, homeschooling around the campfire.’
The songs on the new album were written over a seven year period. Arlo was a birthday gift for her middle child, ‘because the middle kids always feel left out’ she laughs.
Collaborations
A Love Like Springsteen, co-written with Dodd, is a message to herself and her fans to live your own ‘glory days’ now. The Divorce Song was co-written (via text) with her ex-husband Shane Nicholson.
Together the once estranged pair sing:
‘It was til death do us part
Til we knew our hearts had already died
It’s a long road to get to the gold
We made it through paper and wood
We couldn’t survive as the marrying kind
But we do divorce pretty good.’
Throughout the book Kasey talks about listening to her ‘inner foghorn’. There’ve been times when she ignored that voice and it caused regret. That’s all part of growing up. As for the book’s title, it’s a line Kasey cribbed from her Dad, Bill.
Keeping it simple
‘As much as I often get caught up in the beautiful, inspirational, poetic quotes that go onto Instagram that are worded so well,’ she admits, ‘I’m just like, you know what? Sometimes, it needs to be as simple as in: just, don’t be a dickhead. I know that sounds kind of funny and not profound, but it’s become profound for me.’
IMAGE: Chloe Isaac
In a few hours Kasey will be playing to a full house. Before the house lights go up she’ll hear that Backbone is sitting at the top of the charts.
And the caravan rolls on.
Kasey Chambers Backbone is out now on LP and CD. Her book Just Don’t Be A Dickhead is out now through Hardie Grant in paperback, e-book and audiobook or $34.99, $16.99 and $39.99 respectively.
Kasey Chambers is on tour from now until June 2025. Tour dates are here
PHOTO at top of story by Chloe Isaac
