Couple Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson.
VIDEO
KASEY CHAMBERS & SHANE NICHOLSON
November 1
Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre
Tickets: 1300788503
Kasey Chambers' favourite song on her new album with husband Shane Nicholson is called The Quiet Life.
However, the couple's life is anything but. In between raising three children and creating three solo albums between them in the past four years, as well as producing several albums for other artists, the pair have managed to find time to squeeze in recording Wreck & Ruin, their second album together.
While Chambers says there is always the temptation to throw it all in and embrace a life relaxing with her family in the country, she could never turn her back on her busy existence.
"I think Shane could do it in a second, but I'd get bored in one second and want to turn around and go back to my chaotic, noisy life because I thrive on it.
"But I think Shane could sit on that back porch with a banjo and a bottle of Scotch and peace and quiet forever," she laughs.
Working together was something Chambers and Nicholson never planned to do, but on reflection Chambers says it was an inevitable outcome from two songwriters getting hitched.
"This is really a side project for us and we always want to treat it like that. It's not something we have to do, it's really just about if we feel like making music together, then let's do that," she says.
"Bottom line is we love the sounds we create together, otherwise we wouldn't do it."
Wreck & Ruin is more personal than the first album the duo released in 2008, Rattlin Bones, and many songs were inspired by their marriage, the good days and the bad.
This is obviously a formula that works, with the album making its debut at No 1 on the ARIA country chart and No 6 on the album chart.
But to compose the songs, the couple took time away from their everyday lives and retreated to a cottage near the Hunter Valley.
"It's hard to find creative inspiration in your day-to-day life and that's probably a good thing too, because one can get your head out of the other. When you're in creative mode you need to be brought back down to earth by kids, and then you need to go out of your way to create something," Chambers says.
She believes she is a better songwriter because of Nicholson's influence.
Having written most of her tunes on her own before meeting him, she says learning to work with someone else has opened her to new ways of doing things in her other musical projects as well.
"I was fairly happy being safe in my own little bubble and being in charge of everything, the control freak that I am, and it was really good just to open up your world and think differently," she explains.