The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Web Search by YAHOO!

Daniel Smith

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson

Austin Music Source

LATEST A-LIST PHOTOS

  • Big 12 championship at Cowboys Stadium: Photos
  • The Big Throwback at Club DeVille: Photos
  • Brownout! at Lamberts: Photos
  • Home Slice Carnival-O-Pizza: Photos
  • Del the Funky Homosapien at Ace's Lounge: Photos
  • Austin Monthly 'Cool Issue' release party: Photos
  • Midtown Commons grand opening party: Photos
  • Databeez at the Highball: Photos
  • Austin Toros season kick-off party at Speakeasy: Photos
  • Woxy kickoff at Stubb's: Photos
  • 101X Homegrown Live at the Mohawk: Photos
  • Blue October at Stubb's: Photos

The story behind Kasey Chambers' 'Sweetest Waste of Time'

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Married Australian songwriters Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson released 'Rattlin' Bones,' a seamless country-roots collaboration, last year, and the album has earned an easy pair of nominations at this fall's Americana Music Association awards. We talked with Chambers, who plays two shows with Nicholson on Monday at the Cactus Cafe, about one of the songs on the record.

'Shane came up with the idea – either a riff or a lyric – for most of the songs on "Rattlin' Bones," and then we'd base a song around that and write together. The "Sweetest Waste of Time" is the only one where I came up with the idea. To be honest, it was just one of those weeks where you get onto an album and listen to it all the time. I was listening to a lot of Gram (Parsons) and Emmylou (Harris).

'I wrote the song while I was sitting on the bus. I was just sitting there humming that on the way to go buy my groceries for the day, and I wrote half the chorus by the time I got home. I took it to Shane and said, "Here, I've got one! It's finally my turn to bring something to the table." Shane isn't into that traditional country as I am, but he's starting to get more into the old-timey stuff. He was already big into Lucinda (Williams) and Patty Griffin and Steve Earle, but now he's more into the traditional stuff like Hank Williams.'

— Brian T. Atkinson

Vote for this story!



Copyright © Tue Feb 09 18:47:22 EST 2010 All rights reserved. By using Austin360.com, you accept the terms of our visitor agreement. Please read it.
Contact Austin360.com | Privacy Policy | About our ads