Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson on how their divorce really works with new song

Country music stars Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson are back together, 11 years after their divorce, for a new project.

It doesn’t get more country than two exes reuniting to write The Divorce Song.

As the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival ramps up, Kasey Chambers has released a new duet with her producer and songwriter ex-husband Shane Nicholson.

The pair reigned as the King and Queen of Australian country music during their eight-year marriage, which ended in 2013.

They produced two award-winning records, the No. 1 debut Rattlin’ Bones in 2008 and Wreck and Ruin in 2012, which exposed some of the cracks in their union ahead of their split.

Chambers and Nicholson share two children, 17-year-old son Arlo and 13-year-old daughter Poet.

The pair worked hard on their post-marriage relationship to maintain an extended family unit to raise their children. As Chambers revealed in her book Just Don’t Be A D***head last year, she even babysits Nicholson’s babywith his new partner Emma, a son named Jude who was born in 2022.

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson when they won all the Golden Guitars together in 2009. Picture: NCA.

Chambers, who also has a 22-year-old son named Talon, has been in a relationship with Brandon Dodd, the guitarist in her band, for the past seven years.

In her book, she wrote that despite their 19-year age gap, “Brandon was generally way more mature than me most of the time.”

Despite seeing each other regularly as co-parents, neither Chambers nor Nicholson thought they would ever write together again until the country music queen approached Nicholson about collaborating on The Divorce Song. It featured on her latest album Backbone, released with her book last October.

Chambers with her children and partner Brandon on holidays. Picture: Kasey Chambers / Supplied.

“Writing The Divorce Song with my ex-husband Shane Nicholson and then recording it together as a duet is one of my favourite musical moments of my career and even more, one of my proudest family moments,” she said.

“Honestly, when our marriage ended, I never thought Shane and I would ever write another song together again but I guess if you work hard enough on making a divorce really work, then anything can happen.”

The pair produced two children and two hit albums during their eight-year marriage. Picture: Supplied.

Nicholson, who is a sought-after producer as well as continuing his solo career, said it took a decade for the pair to be in the space where they could get back to working together.

“For a long while, writing and recording together again wasn’t looking likely for Kasey and I, and The Divorce Song seems like the perfect way to revisit what we always did best together,” he said.

“Only an hour to put down on paper, but in reality it took us 10 years to write this song. Because it’s a song that couldn’t be written until it was fully lived. And I’m proud of that, and us.”

The Divorce Song has a similar flavour to the much-loved separation anthem So What which Pink wrote when she briefly split from husband Carey Hart, who agreed to feature in its hilarious video.

It opens with the lighthearted lyric: “We said ‘til death do us part’, But death didn’t come quick enough.”

Chambers has four nominations for this year’s Golden Guitar Awards, including Song of the Year and Video of the Year for her song Backbone (Desert Child), which will be revealed in Tamworth on January 25.

Originally published as Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson on how their divorce really works with new song