Interview with Bill Chambers

Bill Chambers the family man

Bill Chambers decided early that he would be a musician one day – in the course of making his dreams come true, Tyler Chambers has grown up in a musical family. He has sat side-stage, either at his sister Kasey’s or his father Bill Chambers’ shows, since he was born.

Between them Bill and Tyler bring A LOT of different guitars to a gig. Tyler is currently touring in Bill’s band while writing songs and preparing for his first solo recording. They are currently working on Bill’s seventh album.

Seven spoke to Bill Chambers at home on the Central Coast in the lead up to his show next week.

Bill tell me – you’re bringing your son Tyler?

Yeah! He’s 18 now and right into similar music to what I am, which is great. He started off wanting to be a punk rocker! That’s fine by me, but just lately he’s been more into country and roots music, and he’s working on his first album.

He’s obsessed with Gram Parsons at the moment – he even wants to dress like him with flared jeans and the boots.

Is he a typical teenager? Do you get one grunt answers for every question?

Sometimes. Yeah – but he’s a good teenager. He’s pretty much happy being home and doing things with my wife and I, but he’s a typical teenager in some ways.

What stage are YOU up to in your musical career?

I’m just taking it easy. I’m a grandfather, of course. I’m enjoying life. I do a lot of recording at home. It’s nice recording other people – producing and playing on records and stuff. These days a lot of people record remotely, so that they’ll do it at home, but they’ll send the files through to us to maybe do a harmony or do a guitar part.

But I’ve just finished a new album – I’m just gonna just put it out on Bandcamp and distribute it at gigs, yeah. So we’re not making a big fuss, we’re concentrating on Tyler’s record.

I’m at a time of life where I’m just enjoying what I do, and I don’t expect to be the next big thing, so we’re definitely concentrating on my boys.

Has the reality of your life in music matched your vision?

It’s way surpassed the vision. When I was seven years old, my dad took me to a Chad Morgan concert. Yep, and of all people, Chad Morgan! And I said to myself, then at seven years old, I’m going to be a musician.

Maybe I thought there was big money in it or something. I said to myself, ‘I want to travel the world and play music’. I didn’t know anything about how that could happen, but many, many years later, when Kasey got famous and she put a band together, well, I’ve been traveling the world for the last 25 years. My dreams have come true. We’ve played on the Letterman show, been to the UK, Europe, and the US many, many times. Yeah, I feel like my dreams have gone through the roof. It’s a beautiful thing – and we’re still doing it. We did a tour last year in America, and that was pretty successful. We’ve toured a lot in the States – a big tour bus. It was so much fun. You can just do the gig, crawl into bed, and that gets you to the next town overnight.

What is your current earworm?

Mostly songs that I’m co-writing with Tyler – he’s on this mission. He’s very obsessed with all that West Coast sort of country-rock movement, so at the moment we’re writing songs, sort of road songs, songs about travelling, songs about things you see when you’re out in the desert.

That’s what is going through my head at the moment, thinking about what we’re going to write about today.

What’s inspiring you at the moment? What’s getting you out of bed every day?

My little studio, I’m setting it up so it’s a little more user-friendly, doing some woodwork. I love doing woodwork. Yep, and that gets me motivated. In fact, I think I enjoy the woodwork better than the actual audio recording. But now I love the whole studio thing. I’m still obsessed with guitars. I’ve got about 60 guitars.

60 guitars! I’m going to ask you the hardest question of all – what’s your favourite?

My favourite is my old Telecaster that I bought new in 1970 – I bought an old Fender Telecaster, new then, but that’s the oldest one I’ve got. I still use it. I’ll be flying with it to Darwin.

What are you looking forward to at the Mullum Festival?

Well, meeting the other artists, there’s quite a few other artists that I’m looking forward to catching up with. Lou Bradley, of course, I’m going to do a duet with her – I always look at the artists, and I think this looks like a really cool festival – and it’s the first time I’m doing a major festival with my boy, too.

Bill, are you having enough fun?

Do I sound like I am?

You do. You sound like you’re having lots.

I’m having a lot of fun just playing music!

Bill and Tyler at the Mullum Roots Festival are playing at the Top Pub on Saturday, 11 July, from 6.30pm and Sunday, 12 July from 3.30pm at the Mullum Civic Hall.