Metro Pulse/Music/Kasey Chambers

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Who:
Kasey Chamber, opening for Robert Earl Keen

When:
Saturday, Feb. 24 at 8 p.m.

Where:
Tennessee Theatre

How Much:$20.50 at Tickets Unlimited or 656-4444.

Aussie alt-country comer Kasey Chambers knows her roots

by Jesse Fox Mayshark

Kasey Chambers has one of those voices. The kind where everyone says that she sings like an angel because they can't think of anything else to say, even though no angel could handle that much dust and defenseless desire.

It kicks off her debut album, The Captain, with an out-of-nowhere a capella burst: "Well, I never lived through the Great Depression" (enter the guitars and kick drum) "But sometimes I feel as though I did/ And I don't have answers for every single question/ But that's OK, 'cause I'm just a kid."

So she is. Kasey Chambers is 24 years old, and if her burgeoning hype makes her seem a little too perfectly formed, not entirely lived in yet, you can't blame her for it. She'll get there. In the meantime, you can either ignore the smoky eyes, sideways smile and brunettish bangs or not—it won't change how she sounds. If there were a school where Lucinda Williams was principal, Dolly Parton was the bio teacher and Alison Krauss was senior class president, Kasey Chambers would be the freshman who just made the varsity squad. (Williams calls Chambers her favorite new artist and is doing a guest stint on the newcomer's next album.)

The Captain is a collection of songs she wrote over the past decade, and what it lacks in experience it mostly makes up in conviction. From the neo-folk of "This Flower" to the chugging rockish kiss-off of "You Got the Car," this is prime Americana. And that's where things get funny.

Chambers, despite her drawl and her lilt and the fact that she wrote an entirely convincing song called "Southern Kind of Life," is not from around here. She is what used to be called antipodean. Australian. When she says "Southern," she means hemisphere. She grew up with toilets that flushed the other direction.

When she had toilets at all, that is. A flip through the Chambers press kit finds plenty of references to her unusual upbringing. Her parents were nomadic musicians, and the clan (which also includes her brother, Nash) spent most of Kasey's childhood wandering the Outback. Chambers, reached via phone in a hotel room outside of Melbourne, sounds amused that she's become known as the wild desert girl.

"In the last few years, I've obviously realized that people are interested in that," she says. "That was the first 10 years of my life. I thought everybody lived like that. I thought everybody lived in their car, didn't have a television, if you got hungry you went out and hunted something."

School was an informal affair, and music was a big part of the curriculum. Her father, Bill, was an avid fan of American country music, and Kasey grew up on Hank Williams, Gram Parsons, and Emmylou Harris. She says Australia has a small but committed roots music community.

"I guess because of the population, it's never going to be like it is in America, but there's quite an underground following," she says. "Steve Earle can come out here and play to a house of 1,000 people, that would probably be the maximum."

It hasn't stopped Chambers from becoming a native sensation. She first recorded with her entire family as the Dead Ringer Band. With Kasey and Nash still just teenagers, they won Best Country Group honors in the ARIA Australian music awards three times during the 1990s. But eventually, the unit began to fray. The family's car exploded and burned up in 1996. Nash decided he was more interested in producing than performing. And most significantly, Bill and Diane Chambers separated. That left Kasey.

"It just kind of happened," she says. "We were playing in the Dead Ringer Band as just the four of us...from when I was nine until about three years ago. And then my mom and dad separated, and we all kind of went to do our own things. It wasn't like I came up to them and said, 'I want to go solo, you have to go off and find a job.'"

In fact, The Captain is still a family effort. It was produced by Nash Chambers and recorded at his South Seas island studio. Bill Chambers plays on almost every track and is lead guitarist in Kasey's band. The dedication reads, "This album is for my dad who taught me everything I know about music, and my mum who taught me everything else."

They both have plenty to be proud of. Chambers' taste for twang and melody feels instinctive, and the vulnerability in her songwriting hints at greater revelations to come. She's best when she's pissed off ("You Got the Car"), sassy ("We're All Gonna Die Someday"), or just plain honest ("Don't Go"). She's pretty good the rest of the time too.

She's been surprised, flattered, and overwhelmed by the kudos she's received from some of her heroes, including Williams and Earle. She even sounds a little intimidated about her opening dates for Robert Earl Keen.

"I love Robert Earl Keen, I've got a lot of his albums," she says. "We've heard lately that he's kind of wild. If [the audience] isn't fighting, he's not going over. So I'm kinda glad I'm going on first."

She probably doesn't have to worry. Keen's country outlaw crowd won't have much trouble spotting a kindred spirit in Chambers. Especially once she starts singing. She has one of those voices.