Two friends who just happen to be highly celebrated Australian singer-songwriters catch up to show love for each other’s work, and discuss how vulnerability is their superpower
As a young girl growing up in Brisbane, Thelma Plum would often listen to the music of Kasey Chambers, one of Australia’s most successful country music artists with five Number One albums and 14 ARIA Awards to her name. She eventually learned to play songs like Chambers’ signature hit “The Captain” on guitar with some help from her country music-loving granddad, Chambers’ music becoming a huge part of Plum’s artistic DNA.
Fast forward to 2024, and life has come full circle for pop and folk singer-songwriter Plum, who’s now good friends with the woman who has inspired so much of her own songwriting, including 2019’s moving self-love anthem, “Homecoming Queen”, a track in the same lineage as Chambers’ 1999 hit “Not Pretty Enough”.
Image: Kasey Chambers Credit: Chloe Isaac
Although the connection between their music may not be glaringly apparent on the surface, both Chambers and Plum have won hearts by unashamedly wearing theirs on their sleeves, as expertly showcased on the albums the pair have recently released (Chambers’ Backbone, and Plum’s I’m Sorry, Now Say It Back).
Chambers, it turns out, is also a big fan of Plum’s music, and to hear the two women discuss their genuine love and admiration for each other during their Musicians on Musicians chat is to witness whatever the opposite of a “showbiz friendship” is. In between making plans to catch each other’s upcoming shows, Chambers and Plum celebrate the vulnerability that has shaped them into the beloved artists they have become.
Plum: I feel like I haven’t seen you for so long, you look so gorgeous.
Chambers: Oh, thank you, honey. I’m about to head off to a gig, actually.
Plum: So, where are you playing?
Chambers: I’m on this little book tour at the moment [Just Don’t Be a Dickhead: And Other Profound Things I’ve Learnt], so I’m doing these little book events all around Australia, but I’m playing songs at them as well.
Plum: I’m so grateful that you suggested talking to me for this.
Chambers: Of course! You were my first choice, but I thought you might’ve been overseas.
Plum: Even if I was, babe, I would’ve come back for ya.
Image: Thelma Plum Credit: Kira Puru
Chambers: What were you doing overseas?
Plum: I went to New York and I was playing at an Aussie showcase. That was really fun, I love New York City. I’d never played there before. I took my band over and we played in Central Park, it was so beautiful.
Chambers: Oh my god, really? That’s so cool! I’ve listened to your new album and I love it so much! It’s so good, it’s really quirky.
Plum: Thank you very much. I do have you to thank for the songwriting. You have been such an inspiration for me as a writer my whole life.
Chambers: That’s so nice!
Plum: I’ve been saying it for years. You can fact check that. You can Google it and it will come up.
Chambers: You know, I’ve had so many people send me your beautiful version of “The Captain”. It makes me cry. So many people from your gigs will film it and then tag me in it on Instagram. And every time it makes me cry because that’s my most favourite song I’ve ever written in my whole life. Whenever I perform it, it makes me feel really grounded. It’s like my coming home song to myself, and it makes me feel really centred.
Plum: Do you still feel that way every time you perform it?
Chambers: A hundred per cent. If I’ve got a challenging song like “Ain’t No Little Girl” or when I do a version of [Eminem’s] “Lose Yourself” and it’s really full on and it takes me to this other place that I don’t know where I go, I will almost always put “The Captain” after it because it centres me. So when people were sending me your version of that song, I’m just like tears streaming down my face, and it just epitomises the power of music that someone can interpret it in their own way. I’m sure you get your own thing out of it that’s probably completely different than what they get.
Image: Thelma Plum Credit: Kira Puru
Plum: It’s so special, singing that song. That song is objectively the best song ever written.
Chambers: No!
Plum: It’s true though! I feel like it’s surely in one of those ‘Top Songs of All Time’ books.
Chambers: Just in my book, that’s all. [laughs]
Plum: I rewatched the episode of The Sopranos “The Captain” was in the other day. I remember seeing it as a teenager and being like, “Oh my god, that’s Kasey Chambers!”
Chambers: If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?
Plum: Thirty in December.
Chambers: OK, cool. “The Captain” came out in ’99, so it’s really beautiful to me that the song is resonating with a younger generation.
Plum: It’s a timeless song. How old were you when you wrote that? Were you a teenager?
Chambers: Yeah, I think I was. I reckon I was maybe 19 or 20 when I recorded the album, but I wrote the song years before that. So it’s really old for me, but in such a beautiful way. I talk about this in my book, but when I wrote it, it felt straight away like I had created this old friend to live with me forever in song form. It’s the one song that I still play if I’m sitting around a campfire with my family. I still really love playing it. I’ve never been sick of that song, it’s really special.
My daughter Poet, she’s just turned 13, but quite a few years ago we used to listen to your song “Dollar” over and over again. I love it. But when I heard “Freckles” the other day, I was like, “Nah, this is my new favourite Thelma song!”
Plum: Thank you.
Chambers: So I’ve been enjoying this book promo tour, but I know not all artists like doing promo. Do you?
Plum: No, babe. I always say something naughty and get myself in trouble all the time.
Chambers: That doesn’t matter! I’ve built a whole career on saying stupid things! Just be you. That’s why we love you so much! You say what you think, and I love that. I only hate promo when I’m being creative and writing or recording songs.
Plum: Tell me more about your book. What’s it about?
Chambers: It’s just about a bunch of experiences that have led me to lessons that I’ve learned. Hence the name of it being Just Don’t Be a Dickhead. It’s the number one overall lesson that I’m trying to live by. My dad gave me that advice. I didn’t really know it was a book to start with, it was just a bunch of notes I made. But as it started evolving into one, it started inspiring all these new songs. And then, as I was writing some songs, it was inspiring new stories in the book. So the new album [Backbone] and the book kind of go together. I did not set out to do that, and it just kind of happened. And then it sort of freaked me out, because I was like, “Fuck. Now I’ve got to share it with people,” and I actually went through a stage where I decided I wasn’t going to because I felt really exposed.
Plum: I can understand, I’ve felt like that before with my music.
Chambers: When I talked myself back into publishing the book and putting it out, it was because I went back to that same kind of place where I wrote “Not Pretty Enough”. And I went, “You know what? You were really vulnerable when you did that, and then when you shared it with people, it brought a lot of people together.” There’s something really beautiful and powerful about that.
Image: Kasey Chambers Credit: Chloe Isaac
Plum: There’s something very brave about sharing things. I think people really struggle to be able to share with other people. My song “Homecoming Queen” was extremely inspired by “Not Pretty Enough”. When I was a kid, that song resonated with me so much. As a little black kid with my mum, I just didn’t feel very pretty, and I used to sing that all the time. Your music truly did shape me. My granddad and I were always listening to you. He loved country music, so that’s when I first heard Slim Dusty and you. We’d listen together and he would play guitar. He loved playing “Saddle Boy”.
Chambers: That’s my favourite Slim Dusty song! I love that so much.
Plum: That was one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar, because of my granddad. He has Parkinson’s now so he’s unable to play, but we have those special memories. Every Christmas he gets me to play “The Captain” and he’ll sing along. He won’t be able to deal with the fact we’re chatting today, I’ll have to call and tell him!
Chambers: I love that! He’s warming my heart. How do you feel about “Homecoming Queen” and writing from a really vulnerable place?
Plum: That’s also my comfort song, but I’m not sure why. Often when I play it I cry, especially when I see young girls in the audience. It’s better now than it used to be, but people were so awful, weren’t they? It was so hard being a girl.
Chambers: I can really resonate with that. With “Not Pretty Enough” and “The Captain”, I had these two real vulnerable songs where I wasn’t thinking at all about a listener or that anyone would ever hear it when I wrote it. But now I find so much comfort in those songs, which is kind of ironic because they come from these places where you feel like you’re so different from everyone else. You feel like you’re so alone, and then the beauty and the power of music is that it brings so many people together. Isn’t it great that we get to do that as a job?
Plum: It’s amazing to me.
Chambers: When I first started in music, I thought that my vulnerability in songs would be my weakness, and I realise years later that it’s my biggest strength, without a doubt. The fact that I’m willing to put my heart on my sleeve and you are willing to put your heart on your sleeve, that’s what people are drawn to.
Plum: I completely agree.
Chambers: It’s a really beautiful thing to be a part of. I reckon we’re so lucky, aren’t we?
Plum: We are so lucky! It’s special. Sometimes it can be really hard, but it’s like no, this is so fucking special.
Chambers: The strength is in that thing that we might have once called a weakness. Now it becomes like your superpower, to be able to go to that vulnerable place. There’s something really beautiful about being able to go there, but then there’s a step further about being able to share it with people. And I love that we’ve been able to push ourselves out of that comfort zone and go, “Yeah, we’re gonna share some of our deepest things with other people,” and it brings people together. I just love it.
Plum: Have you made 13 albums?
Chambers: Yeah, Backbone is my 13th. I’m trying to catch up to Slim — he had over a hundred!
Plum: [laughs] Get to work, girl!
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