Kasey Chambers returned to the music scene in 2017 with an almighty bang, hitting number one on the ARIA album chart with her 11th studio album, Dragonfly, three years after her last big release.
The Weekly recently joined the Aussie music legend at the Bamboo Buddha on the New South Wales’ Central Coast, where she was raising money for Coast Shelter, which supports local women, children and men who are struggling with homelessness. Here, she road-tested some new tracks before talking to us about where she’s at in her life right now.
Kasey was joined onstage by her dad Bill, her son Arlo and the rest of her band.
Breaking down life’s many barricades and brick walls, Kasey is one mum who’s proud of the lessons she is teaching her children, Talon, 14, Arlo, 9, and five-year-old Poet – something her family instilled in her when she was a child herself.
“A while ago, I picked up the kids from school early. I didn’t tell them I was going to – I didn’t know I was going to,” she tells us exclusively.
“I took them to a lolly shop and said, ‘Pick what you want, we’re going to sit on the beach and eat lollies.’”
“Even my teenager thought this was cool. Then we went to Flip Out [Trampoline Arena] and jumped on trampolines for the rest of the day.”
While some parents may find this slightly impetuous, brazen, even, the 40-year-old musician explains that it is these precious, and unquestionably unique, moments that she believes will help shape her children into the adults they’re meant to become.
“I’m sure there’s people out there going, ‘But what about their education?’ There are a lot of days to get an education,” she explains.
“I grew up in a family where life education was important and my kids are getting that, alongside school.”
This is one of the reasons why Kasey sometimes takes her kids on tour with her.
“They’ve seen Uluru and Darwin and they’ve been to Broome and toured around WA,” she continues. “They’ve learnt a whole lot from those experiences.”
“I don’t take them out of school all the time. I’m also the pain-in-the-arse mum who makes them do their homework. But I think they need a bit of both.”
The devoted mother-of-three, who split from her partner of eight years, Shane Nicholson, back in 2013, is in a phase of her life where she is enjoying taking in everything life throws at her – and that includes being a single mum.
“I’m single,” she insists. “I’ve been single for a while, I love it. I’ve always been open to life and sometimes it’s gotten me into trouble – three kids to two fathers and many failed relationships indicate just how open to life I am. I love life experience for the same reasons I love music – it makes me feel things – and I’m open now to feeling everything.”
Find out more about Kasey and the new sense of freedom she has as a single mum in our February issue.
