I am 400 kilometres south-east of Adelaide
to meet someone who's been breaking our hearts for 15 years.
And we've loved every minute of it.
She's a true storyteller.
It's the wonderful Kasey Chambers.
(LAUGHS)
There she is!
Is it freezing? That's what I just said about you.
Hello. Hi.
Are you freezing? I'm freezing.
Thank you for bringing us out here. Look at this.
I know, it's amazing. That is incredible.
Is that the Antarctic out there?
It feels like it's right there. Oh, it's incredible.
Let's get in the car and I'll take you somewhere warm.
This is not good for the hair. I know!
That's why I had to move away, the wind wasn't good for my hair.
Ooh, it is nice in here.
Oh, that's much better.
Oh, gee, it's good to have you on board, Kasey Chambers.
It's exciting. So exciting.
I'm excited 'cause the music that I play now and the way that I write
has so much to do with my childhood and how I grew up.
SONG: ♪ Jump in my car
♪ I wanna take you home
♪ Mm, jump in my car
♪ It's too far to walk on your own. ♪
Kasey Chambers' parents packed 3-week-old Kasey and her brother Nash
into a beaten-up Landcruiser
and took to the deserts of South Australia to live off the land.
The free-spirited Chambers became the Dead Ringer Band
and performed across the continent.
Kasey's solo career kicked off with the Captain in 1999.
ANNOUNCER: Kasey Chambers!
International acclaim and many ARIA and Golden Guitar awards followed,
as have a swag of deeply personal, often heart-wrenching songs,
all delivered in her incomparable vocal style.
I love bringing my kids back here.
Still feel that... that childlike freedom.
So, we're in South End now,
but indeed, your childhood was a split between this coastal town
and the desert.
Yeah, they're really opposite
and yet, at the time, I didn't find that weird or conflicting at all.
Your house didn't actually even have a number, did it?
No, South End doesn't have numbers. They don't need numbers.
Oh, wow, it's completely different.
It was just this tiny little shack,
which I imagine is probably that bit at the back there.
But all of this is new.
I remember my mum and dad had a caravan parked up the side
that became their bedroom so that we could have a music room,
so that we could rehearse as a family band.
Incredible. Should we go in?
We should. (LAUGHS) What are these people gonna say?
(LAUGHS) Oh, this is just like complete...
..'cause none of this was even here.
This was the yard, this was trees.
Wow. Yeah.
Um, that did not even exist, this is much nicer...
..than when I lived here.
And I actually think...
So, this through here is probably looking like it would be the...
That was orig... Oh, no, that looks new though, too.
But I reckon
this is where the caravan would have been pulled up against
and the door of the caravan went into the house.
And did your dad make a hole?
Yeah. To get into the house?
Yeah, just knock down half the wall. Why wouldn't you?!
Put a caravan up.
And in the living area, what was the Chambers' family dinner like?
I mean, are you... A lot of chat? Is it noisy?
Yeah. I remember dinnertime being a very happy time.
We had lots of, um, Bible studies.
Is that right? Bible studies.
So, my dad's family were quite religious,
um, Seventh-day Adventist,
and we would have...
I do remember lots of my mum and dad's friends
coming over from the church and singing gospel songs
and all of us kids would run around and play,
stop in every now and then to sing a song with mum and dad
and then off we'd go.
Yeah, lots of music, all the time.
Wow. Always? Yeah.
Yes, I think this was the kitchen. Yes.
Obviously it's completely different now.
But, um... Who cooked in your family?
Yeah, my mum did... did all the cooking.
My dad was not a great cook.
So I think my bedroom would have been down here.
And did you have your own room? I did.
Well, this actually, this was my bedroom.
It's not even a room anymore. It's just a cupboard now.
This was my bedroom. That's how small it was.
Yeah, I know. (LAUGHS) I probably fit in there.
I probably still could. What did you have on your walls?
I remember going through this stage
where I just loved anything that my dad hated.
So, it was Metallica and Motley Crue
and, um, you know, anyone that kind of looked a little bit weird
and sounded like grungy guitars that my dad didn't really get into.
Actually, I remember standing about here...
..and he used to have this area right here
that had a record player and also a tape player and all these...
And I remember him coming home
with a tape of Steve Earle Copperhead Road
and I remember looking at the cover of this thing going,
"Maybe my dad's cool.
"Maybe I'm the only person in the world that has a cool dad."
I used to sneak out.
There was a window there that went out to here
and I'd sneak out there in the middle of the night
while my mum and dad didn't know.
Do you think you come from a conventional family?
I knew that would get a laugh. So conventional.
(LAUGHS) Very unconventional family.
I mean, you know, I was three weeks old
and my dad sort of packs up the family,
moves us out of our little shack for a few months of every year
and moves us into a Toyota Land Cruiser and then drives us out
to the most remote area in the whole of Australia
while he becomes a professional fox-hunter.
How did your parents meet?
They were introduced by my mum's cousin,
and my dad said to my mum,
"You know, what sort of music do you like?"
And she said, "I like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash,"
and he was like, "Oh, I'm gonna marry this one."
Yeah. They were Seventh-day Adventists.
What does that involve?
Like, what are the rules around that?
All I remember is that it meant that we didn't eat meat.
So you can't be a vegetarian
when you are out hunting foxes for a living,
that's just not an option,
so we were vegetarian when we lived back here.
And I do remember, like, my brother and I
would get a little bit of pocket money
to walk down to Mrs Campbell's shop, right, and get some lollies
and come back, and I remember Nash, every time he went in there
he would just get, um, luncheon meat
because he wasn't allowed to eat it at home.
So he'd spend his lolly money on meat.
So, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Did you know what you might want to do?
Yeah, I did, I always wanted to marry a fox-hunter like my dad
and live in my car and travel around the Nullarbor Plain.
Obviously. Obviously.
Every girl's dream. Every girl's dream.
Who wouldn't want to do that?
Your, um, grandparents still live in the area,
we'll go and visit them,
but can you take me for a little drive around South End first?
Yeah.
Bye-bye, house.
So, in '92 we went to Tamworth for the first time
because my dad had written this song that Slim Dusty recorded,
Things Are Not The Same On The Land.
My God.
And then it was nominated for a Golden Guitar.
Oh, my God.
And they ring up my dad and they said,
"You've been nominated for a Golden Guitar
"and we'd like to know if you're gonna come to the awards?"
And my dad said, "What's a Golden Guitar?"
Oh, I love it!
So, we had no idea. We didn't hear about things like that.
Oh, God, I love it.
We went along to the Golden Guitar awards
and dad wins the Golden Guitar for Song of the Year.
Oh, my... I mean, unbelievable. Like, it was incredible.
And then they all heard about it, back here in South End,
and I remember when we came back into town,
all of our family and friends from South End
have gone and put up signs
saying, "Congratulations, Dead Ringer Band! The Chambers family!
"We're so proud of you."
And then we get there at our house
and they've decorated our whole house.
There's a Golden Guitar cake that our neighbours have made.
Oh, my God. It was beautiful!
And they were so proud of us.
So, this is my Nanna and Poppa's house.
Nanna Judy, Poppa Jake.
Poppa Jake. Yeah.
Nanna Judy.
My dad told me he did his first gig in that shed.
Really?
That's where he did his first ever gig.
Poppa Jake and Nanna Judy, thank you so much
for having us here in your home.
Where does the Chambers' wandering spirit come from?
I don't know. It's sort of always been there.
Have you, yeah? Always wandered around.
Do you enjoy being free in that way?
Out, fox shooting and...
..shooting. Done a lot of rabbit shooting.
Rabbit shooting.
I used to drive round in the old kombi with the open-up windows
and she used to... when I used to work the light
and she used to do all the shooting.
Good aim. She shot thousands of rabbits.
I used to be. Used to be. Right.
But when you first came here, what was in South End?
When I come here about 68 years ago,
there was... practically nothing, and it was terrific, really.
The few people that lived here was just like one big family.
Now, are there musical genes in the Chambers family
apart from Bill and Kasey?
Judy, do you like a sing?
Oh, a little bit. Not on my own. Yeah, she sings with me.
BOTH: (SING) ♪ I'm waiting, watching and longing
♪ That beautiful sight to behold
♪ Do you lie, shall awake some bright morning
♪ In that city with streets of pure gold
♪ My saviour has gone to prepare it
♪ For all who accept his grace
♪ And that's why I know I'll be welcome
♪ To a home in that beautiful place
♪ When I reach my home in that city
♪ Shall I find you waiting up there
♪ With the saints who have gone on before us
♪ Throughout all eternity. ♪
Oh, well, you see where Kasey gets it from.
Just one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.
And I don't get to hear it much anymore,
hear them sing like that, so...
So, what was Kasey like as a kid?
What are your memories of her as a child?
A bit of a ratbag. Ratbag.
Correct, yes, ticking that off.
Uh, possibly, possibly that's not right,
because uh... because...
Possibly. Because I...
Happy-go-lucky child.
I see the kids as bits of ratbags. Always happy.
They're all ratbags, are we?
But then when I think of meself,
well, they might have been pretty good, you know?
Yep.
Thank you for that beautiful song, that was amazing.
Oh, look at Judy, she's going, "Oh, beautiful song, I don't think so."
I was surprised that she sung it.
Thank you. I hope most of it's not on there.
(ALL LAUGH)
Did you go to school locally?
I went to Millicent High.
I didn't like school much. OK.
High school was not my favourite time of my life.
I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, I'm not hyperventilating...
You're not the first.
..going, "Get me out of here, I can't handle it."
It's nothing like that.
But honestly I just did not really like that time in my life,
I didn't feel like me.
It'll be nice to wander around,
but I will have no desire to go back to school.
Well, luckily, we're grown-ups now.
You're not going to leave me here, are you?
We can leave. That'll be good. You are gonna take me?
It's exactly how I remember it.
I don't have, like, overly fond memories of going to high school
but, as I'm walking along here,
I'm kind of thinking, "Oh, doesn't look that bad."
(LAUGHS) What was I worried about?
What was I whingeing about all this time? Yeah.
Well, it wasn't outside, it was the inside.
I can imagine that having been in the desert with all this freedom,
it must have been absolutely stifling.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I get it.
Because you... you... you haven't done...
You know, you've had quite an unconventional lifestyle
and then, bang, you have to be in order.
Yeah. Yeah, I just... It didn't sit well with me, I don't think.
I like that euphemism. "It didn't sit well."
Yes. Mm. It was a little bit shit.
(LAUGHS) That's what she means.
This is it.
This is the music room.
Yep, my school music room that I failed music in.
OK, how does that work? (LAUGHS) I'm serious.
Can you talk me through that? I'm serious, I failed music.
How does that work? In this room. In this very room.
I just didn't like people telling me
what I should and shouldn't be doing in a creative field,
it just didn't really suit me
I just wanted to, um, be a free spirit with music,
like my dad had taught me to be.
I was playing gigs on the weekends. Already?
You know, I was playing, yeah, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
I was playing gigs on those nights
and so school was just getting in the way of that.
Uh, yes, the gym. (LAUGHS)
What are you laughing for? Is this a place you never came?
Were you sporty? No, not really. Not really.
Not really? No.
I didn't hate it, but I just wasn't a very sporty person.
I wasn't a very anything person at school.
I really wasn't. I was just...
You make yourself sound like you were a ghost.
I mean, I do remember in this room,
I had the lead in one of the musicals, the school musicals.
What about boys, where did boys fit in?
Any crushes? Oh, yeah, I was a bit of a tart.
No, could you tell us the truth? Well, I still am.
Come on, let's face it.
Um... (LAUGHS) ..yeah, I had lots of crushes.
Did you?
Yeah, lots of crushes, lots of boyfriends.
Oh, that's great.
Often it's like... May I say, often it's like,
"No, no, I was a wallflower, no-one loved me."
Oh, no, no, no.
I reckon you are one of the first people
to ever have gone, "Yeah, heaps."
Oh, yeah, yeah, heaps of boyfriends, a couple of girlfriends, you know?
Brilliant. Not a wallflower at all.
I was, yeah, I was getting around.
Brilliant.
Well, I have to say I would have loved a little bit more of that
when I was a teenager.
Oh, man, I really hope my kids don't watch this.
They won't. It's on at 9:30. Ah, they kind of know it.
It's on at 9:30. It's on late.
So, no basketball, then? No basketball.
I did pash a guy over there, though.
Of course you did.
Of course I... And over there. Oh.
(LAUGHS)
Look at this. Does this classroom look familiar?
Oh, well, it looks like every classroom, yes.
Other? Yes.
Did you, uh, wag a lot?
Yeah. And where would you go to wag?
Well, I don't... I can't give it away
because there's probably kids still wagging there now.
Still doing it. A little place not too far away.
Yeah, off school grounds. Off schools grounds.
That we would all go and hang out. Near the beach, possibly.
And, funnily enough, it probably doesn't these days,
but back then when I used to wag, it had a little camp fire.
That felt like home to me. Of course!
I would sit around this little camp fire
and I would go, "Yeah, this is where I'm meant to be."
So, how did school eventually finish?
How did you get to leave here?
What year were you in?
I was... almost 15.
My parents chatted to the principal of the school,
I don't think he was going out of his way
to talk them into keeping me here.
When does music become quite serious?
It is not just something, you know, I have done with the family,
it starts to get serious.
Well, I sort of have two moments.
My mum and dad split up,
they... we stopped The Dead Ringer Band
and I really had this moment
where I was like, "OK, I have to either make a solo album
"or I have to get a day job."
My dad took me to see Rosanne Cash in concert in Adelaide,
and on that show was this lady called Lucinda Williams
who I'd never heard of before.
I've never heard a woman put her heart on her sleeve like that
and be so raw and open in a creative way,
and that changed my life, literally changed my life, that concert.
I just started writing songs every day from then on.
And there's a certain feeling that I get from writing a song
that nothing else in my life is anything like.
It's just this feeling about being in a song and writing it
and having that moment with a song that I can't really describe,
but it's amazing and it's one of my favourite things of my life.
Shall we go to the desert?
We should. Such a massive part of my childhood.
It would be weird to be doing this and not go to the desert.
Alright, and shall we let Bill, your dad, drive?
(WHISPERS) Probably not.
Oh, oh. (LAUGHS)
That's not the answer I was after.
How exciting is this?
I'm in the van with Bill Chambers and Kasey Chambers.
Bill, you would have done this trip countless times with the family
in a car like this?
It was very similar to this and, uh, it's been probably 30 years
since I drove an old girl like this, but it feels like home.
Does it? Yeah, it's great.
I'm glad. I love it!
It's a very bumpy home.
So, did you actually sleep and live in a van like this?
All four of you? Yeah.
Lived in it. This was my home.
We had a double bunk on the bottom, right across.
Like across that way.
And then the kids had...
I built two little bunks up the side of the van.
One along there behind you that Nash used to sleep in.
Because he was a bit longer. Yeah.
And then one going across that way right at the back.
For you.
That was my bunk because I was so little. Still so little.
Hello. (TRUCK HORN HONKS)
Hello. You have seen a few of these in your time.
Thank you.
What is it about the desert that attracted you, Bill?
Why come out here? I did it all for the money.
That's the thing!
I was gonna say,
how did you know that you could actually make a living out here?
Um, it was in the '70s, when furs were fashionable
and you could actually hunt foxes, dry the pelts
and send them off to Europe,
make quite a bit of money, about... round about 20 a pelt.
Right.
And some nights, we were shooting 20 or 30 foxes a night.
So in the '70s, that was huge money, so, uh...
And I loved the outback, I loved to camp.
Uh, I loved camp fire living, camp fire cooking.
The whole idea appealed to me.
And we weren't going to stay there for long,
we were just gonna have a working holiday.
Oh.
We went for about four or five weeks
and we ended up staying for 10 years.
Unbelievable.
The beauty of living in the outback, it doesn't cost anything.
Yeah. We were living off the land.
We would hunt rabbits and make rabbit stew.
We even made, um, emu steaks and, uh, roasts.
Occasionally, not too often. I didn't know that.
There's not a lot of fibre in the diet is what you're telling me.
No, but... Not much vegetable work.
No.
Well, luckily, once a week
the tea and sugar train came along the railway line
and we would jump on the train as, like, a supermarket, right?
And you can buy a few fresh vegetables and fruit.
Oh, OK.
So, once a week we would stock up with stuff then.
Now, I should ask, where are you taking us, Bill?
We're going back to have a little look at the life we used to live
and, uh, we're gonna light a camp fire...
Yes!
And, uh, just get a taste of the life we grew up on.
There better be singing.
There'll be singing. There's always singing, no matter what we do.
Even when you don't want it.
Do you like being alone?
I don't like it even now.
The only time I like being alone is when I'm songwriting.
Mm.
Kind of glad I didn't end up marrying that fox-hunter.
Yeah, right!
'Cause I think I would have been spending a lot of time
alone on the Nullarbor.
That's right.
In The Nullarbor Song, you sing
"I'll learn to live in a new town, but my heart is staying here."
Is that still true, do you think? Yeah. It is true.
I mean, my heart is big enough to be in a whole lot of different places.
Because... And it is poetry too, they're lyrics.
Look, some... You know...
Look, putting lyrics into songs,
I... I try to put as much of myself as I possibly can,
my true, real self.
Sometimes they just rhyme, and that's all it is.
Can we just have a listen?
To flies?
Well, not the flies so much, just the bush.
See, I'm finding it uncomfortable because it's too quiet.
Are you really? Yeah.
That's great! Because I was a little bit, too.
I was, like, "Hurry up and say something, Julia."
Come on, say something. Isn't that funny?
So, you're a bit of a silence filler?
Oh, my God, like no-one you've ever met in your life.
I am a silence filler big-time, big-time.
When your parents divorced, did your mum still stay a part of your work
and your career?
Yeah, my mum is on the road with me
all the time still, selling all my merchandise.
Oh, great. My dad's in my band.
They're obviously not together anymore,
but they're really great friends, they work together.
And we all go out on the road together.
We're one big, happy, dysfunctional family and I love it.
It's beautiful. A travelling band.
Yeah.
Now, after your fourth album, Carnival,
you kind of fell out of love with music.
What happened there? I did, yeah.
I mean, that was like this real whirlwind of...
..of, you know, just all these different emotions going on
and I was just enjoying the ride a whole lot
and then, you know, Not Pretty Enough going to number one
and that was just...
You know, the album at number one at the same time,
and I went on tour in America and came back
and all of a sudden everybody knew who I was in the country
and it was wild, it was really fun.
I loved it and was just like, "Yep, just take it while you can
"'cause it ain't going to be there forever and just enjoy it,
"don't whinge, don't bitch and moan about anything
"'cause you're bloody lucky to be able to do this for a job,"
and I still feel that.
In saying that, I think I got to a point where
I didn't allow myself to just have normal hard times,
like, normal person hard times.
You know, I was so hell-bent on making sure that I was happy
all the time and just appreciative to be alive and be making music
that I had lost a lot of myself.
Just because you're appreciative of your music being successful
doesn't mean you can't be sad
about the fact that your baby kept you up all night
and you haven't slept properly for six months.
And, you know, things are hard
and you're learning how to be a parent
for the first time of your life
and while your song is at number one, you know, it was freaky.
Yeah.
When you fell out of love with it, what brought you back?
How did you find your mojo again?
Um, funnily enough, music did it.
Who knew? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You have a new album, have you changed as a songwriter?
Can you get better? I hope so.
I hope it gets better.
I think I am writing my best music now.
I want every album to feel like
the best songs that I've ever written in my life
and the best music that I've made
and, um, the best that I can put into my craft.
Turning 40. Yeah.
How's that been?
I own who I am more than I ever have in my whole life
and I'm really proud of that.
And I am proud to feel that at 40.
That's a really nice feeling to have, you know?
Don't get me wrong,
I still sometimes wake up and look in the mirror
and go, "Oh, my God," you know, "Am I not pretty enough?"
I still have those days, trust me,
but for the most part I always feel like this, um...
..this deeper strength that I know is there now.
I know is there and even when some days I don't feel it,
I know it's there and... and I know how to find it a lot quicker now
you know?
If little Kasey at 12 years of age were to wander through the bush,
and came up to you, what would you say to her?
I would say make the most of the quiet
because that's never gonna happen again for the rest of your life.
That's the correct answer. OK, good.
(KASEY CHECKS GUITAR TUNING)
♪ When I was a little girl
♪ I had the biggest backyard in the world
♪ It went on for miles and miles as wide as it was high
♪ Down to the horizon All the way up to the sky
♪ And every now and then I heard a myall tree cry my name
♪ When I was a little girl
♪ I had the biggest backyard in the world
♪ Covered up with red dirt as far as I could see
♪ Shared it with the railway and the Aborigine
♪ South-west of Ooldea
♪ All the way down to the sea and back
♪ When I was a little girl
♪ I had the biggest backyard in the world. ♪
Captions by Ericsson Access Services
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation