OSU alumna releases CD, pursues career in music
Published: Friday, August 28, 2009
Updated: Friday, August 28, 2009
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Sherree Chamberlain recently released her first album called “A Wasp in the Room.” Chamberlain graduated from OSU in 2008 and has been writing music since she was about 14. She will play an outdoor show at Eskimo Joe’s on Saturday at 8 p.m.
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Sherree Chamberlain planned to become a high school English teacher when she graduated but after teaching for a year she decided writing music was what she needed to do.
Sherree Chamberlain’s mother remembers buying her daughter a guitar for her birthday — a gift she didn’t initially want.
Until that moment, Sherree’s father had always played guitar for her.
“She didn’t want a guitar at all,” Angela Chamberlain said, adding she thought her daughter was a bit mad at her parents for the gift. ‘But we knew better. We thought, ‘It’s time for you to start doing it.’”
It wasn’t until the 2008 OSU graduate experienced her first teenage heartache that she began really expressing herself through music.
“I started writing music because my first boyfriend broke up with me when I was 14,” said Chamberlain, who grew up in Edmond.
It’s been nine years since she wrote her first song, and Stillwater musician Sherree Chamberlain hasn’t stopped.
She has performed at the Norman Music Festival and DFest in Tulsa.
CHAPTER ONE
Chamberlain recently came out with her first and long-awaited album, “A Wasp in the Room.”
The album’s name came after Chamberlain wrote a blog post titled “A Wasp in the Room” because there was actually a wasp in her room.
One of the band members of Other Lives, formerly known as Kunek, then mistook it for Chamberlain’s upcoming album’s name and started telling others about it.
Then another Other Lives band member told Chamberlain he loved what she named her album, and she was a bit confused.
Even though it started as a joke, “A Wasp in the Room” seemed fitting for the album that, at times, seemed like it was never going to be made.
“It was really appropriate because this took so long,” Chamberlain said. “In some ways, it was a nuisance, just like if a wasp is in your room, it bothers you.”
Chamberlain started working on the album about three years ago, recording it with Jonathon Mooney of Other Lives.
But after a year of work, a hard drive crashed, meaning Chamberlain had lost everything.
She decided to move her operation to Blackwatch Studio in Norman.
Chamberlain never expected that musicians who worked with Sufjan Stevens, Bright Eyes, Nine Inch Nails, Beck and Jimmy Eat World would first, be in Norman and second, help with her album.
After two years of working on the album in Norman, Chamberlain has about 1,000 CDs in boxes in her room, just waiting for an eager fan to take a listen.
Even though she just released “A Wasp in the Room,” Chamberlain isn’t slowing down.
Chamberlain graduated from OSU in May 2008 with plans of becoming a high school English teacher.
But after teaching for about a year, she found herself longing to write music.
“I don’t feel whole unless I’m creating,” she said.
CHAPTER TWO
Now, living on her waitressing paycheck at the Wedge pizzeria with no health insurance, Chamberlain has the whole starving-musician-trying-to-make-it thing down.
Even though her parents have a healthy level of concern about their daughter, they agree — it’s now or maybe never for their daughter to pursue her passion for music.
A teenager of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sherree’s father Rick Chamberlain was a member of “several bands that you’ve never heard of.”
At one point, he thought about pursuing a career in music.
“And then I got into it enough to realize, ‘This is kind of a crappy business. I don’t really want to do this,’” Rick Chamberlain said. “But it’s fun and something I enjoy.”
Sherree’s father shared that passion for music with his family.
Sherree and her sister, Jenna, had informal piano lessons with their dad — he played as they placed their hands on top of his.
The family also had frequent jam sessions with musician friends. Everyone came to the Chamberlain household just to play music for a few hours.
A young Sherree was at these jam sessions, picking up an instrument here or there.
CHAPTER THREE
Sherree’s mother Angela Chamberlain said her daughter always had an interest in music, but the songwriting didn’t come until later.
But when Sherree was about 5, Angela noticed just how talented her daughter was.
Angela and Rick were practicing for an upcoming performance at church, and Sherree and Jenna were singing along with their parents.
“I started listening and realized Sherree was singing harmony – pitch perfect,” Angela said. “Then, I knew — because little kids don’t just pick up harmony.”
Throughout the next few years, the Chamberlains performed as a family in church events among other places — even as a bluegrass group at the Oklahoma State Fair.
Angela said she and her husband wanted to keep Sherree grounded, even though they knew their daughter was talented.
“She can be in a pretty crowded bar where she starts singing, and everyone gets quiet,” Angela said. “She can captivate an audience — she did that at 8.”
Meanwhile, Sherree said she feels like she’s in some sort of inside joke.
“It’s like – when is everyone going to figure out these songs aren’t that great?” she said.
The fans who have played her songs on Myspace about 235,000 times might disagree.
Eric Kiner, who plays electric guitar in her band, first met Sherree while doing sound for one of her shows.
Chamberlain paid him in chocolate chip cookies, and the two have been working together ever since.
Kiner said he feels a dedication to Chamberlain’s music and tries to help in any way he can.
He said Chamberlain’s music is easy to identify with, one of the reasons so many people enjoy listening to her songs.
On “A Wasp in the Room,” Chamberlain sings about, among other things, having her heart broken, feeling lost and also losing a friend to suicide.
Chamberlain said at first, these moments were hard to share with thousands of strangers.
But she has learned that even though her music is a way for her to express her own emotions, it’s something even bigger than that.
“If I can comfort someone or put words and music to something that they didn’t know how to express — but maybe I do — well, that’s what music is all about.”
