Kasey Chambers wants fried devon on hamburgers as she starts a tour of Ayustralia

KASEY Chambers has returned from a triumphant sold-out tour of the US on a mission to transform the immortal hamburger. Will you be impressed?

Kasey Chambers

KASEY Chambers is determined to make fried devon the next cool culinary sensation.

This tricked-up treatment of the manufactured meat product, which remains a staple of school lunches, will be the special ingredient of a hamburger named in her honour at the Murwillumbah Country Roots Festival during the October long weekend.

Chambers credits ex-husband Shane Nicholson with introducing fried devon to the family’s diet and it was the first ingredient that came to mind when organisers asked her to reveal what she likes on a hamburger.

“This is the most unhipster thing ever but I want you to put a piece of fried devon on it. It’s awesome. That’s my burger. Fried devon, boom. Devon is the most uncool thing to eat ever. Me being the uncoolest person, I just don’t care,” she says, erupting into a shoulder-shaking laugh.

Her self-deprecation is a trademark, both on and off stage. But the truth is, Chambers may be one of the coolest people in the country right now.

She has always enjoyed a love affair with music enthusiasts and critics because of her musical gifts, down-to-earth charm and easy humour.

Her extended family, with sons Talon and Arlo and daughter Poet at its core, star in her hilarious or endearing social media posts, further underlining the real, unfiltered world of Kasey Chambers.

BRAVE or CRAZY?? I'm taking 5 kids to #SLIMEFEST on my own!!!Eeeeeeeeeeeek! pic.twitter.com/pJgjc1HGnV

— Kasey Chambers (@kaseychambers) September 25, 2015

The headlining turn at the NSW north coast event kicks off a raft of big gigs for the singular artist, including the inaugural Out On The Weekend festival at the Bella Vista Farm in Sydney’s west on October 18 and the Day on The Green national winery tour with Paul Kelly and Lucinda Williams in November and December.

Chambers is in demand not only because she is always has been but because Americana is the genre du jour.

She recently returned from an American tour, in support of the release of her latest album Bittersweet, and scored rave reviews, standing ovations and mostly “Sold Out” signs.

Chambers is celebrated there in the same company as her hero Williams and critics’ darling Jason Isbell.

“The second gig we did was in Portland and it was one of the best shows I’ve done in my entire life. We got three standing ovations in the one night and I’m thinking ‘What the f … is going on? Has someone famous walked in?’” she says.

“And I was trying all these new songs I haven’t even played in Australia yet, one I had only just written the week before. And the new songs were getting standing ovations!

“It was weird, in a really great way. Americana is the talk of the town over there now and they call me an Americana artist from Australia. Planets aligned.”

Americana is big here too. You can thank the hipsters; all that dude food and craft beer goes down very well with a soundtrack of countrified folk. And banjoes. There must be banjoes.

Her good friend Brian “BT” Taranto is one of the architects of the Americana wave in Australia having toured many of its “stars” including Jason Isbell, Steve Earle and Justin Townes Earle here.

Chambers traces the rise of the fringe roots genre to the mainstream explosion of folk music in recent years from Mumford and Sons to the proliferation of banjo or similar acoustic instruments in EDM music including Avicii’s smash hit Wake Me Up.

“The folk world came into vogue with Mumford and Sons and then dance music started picking up on it; you had to have a banjo in everything,” she says.

“It goes in cycles, that’s just music in general. It’s fun being a part of it, just doing your thing that you’ve been doing forever and suddenly it’s considered the coolest music on the face of the earth.”

The raft of gigs comes just a few months after Chambers had surgery to remove nodules on her vocal cords.

She had managed to sing with them for two decades before surgery became imperative. After the operation, she couldn’t talk for two weeks or sing for two months.

It was a tough time. She jokes her family enjoyed the silence but as a mother, it was vexing trying to communicate with her young children, particularly three-year-old Poet who can’t read written instructions or declarations of love.

Chambers also didn’t know how her singing would be affected by the delicate surgery performed by a world-renowned doctor who had also treated her good mate Troy Cassar-Daley.

“The non-singing bit, I found that hard. And when it starts to come back, it sounds weird. It sounds like you have had a helium balloon when I first started speaking again,´she says.

“And when my singing came back I had no control over it at all. Now I’ve got more control than I’ve ever had, I have better range and more strength in my voice.”

She also sounds more excited about getting back on the road than she has in years. Joining the Day On The Green tour with good mate Paul Kelly and Lucinda Williams is one of those dream gigs.

“You can imagine how unexcited I am to do that one,” she jokes.

“They got in touch with (brother and manager) Nash and he sent me an email saying ‘I guess I don’t need to ask you twice about this one?’ Yes! Yes! Yes!”

For all tour dates: kaseychambers.com

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Originally published as Kasey Chambers wants fried devon on hamburgers as she starts a tour of Ayustralia