By Lookout Staff

August 2, 2012 -- It's music from Down Under when Aussie singer-songwriters Kasey Chambers and Matt Ellis take the stage Thursday night at the Santa Monica Pier for a free Twilight Dance Series concert.

Ellis fronted a heavy rock band in Sidney before embarking on a solo career in 2000 with his debut album "Peel," which was accompanied by a video that spread across Australia to South East Asia, where it was banned for promoting reckless driving. (Ellis is shown driving blindfolded.)

The "Peel" tour took Ellis to Hong Kong and the U.S., where he played the defunct CBGBs in New York and the Knitting Factory LA.

"Peel" was followed by an eponymous second album in 2004 that received wide airplay. The following year he embarked on a tour of the U.S. and Canada and began writing his current release, "Tell the People," which he produced in LA in 2006 with LA musicians.

Ellis moved to Venice in 2006 and four years later released his current album, "Births, Deaths & Marriages." The lead single, "Heart Of Mine," was featured on Andrew Zimmerns' "Appetite For Life."

The daughter of steel guitar player Bill Chambers and the sister of musician and producer Nash Chambers, Kasey Chambers burst on the Ausie music with she cut her first solo album "The Captain on Norfolk Island" in a few weeks in 1998.

The country singer-songwriter's debut album reached the top 50 Billboard country albums in 2001 and was played on an episode of HBO's "The Sopranos." The album also led to Chambers touring as a supporting act to Lucinda Williams's U.S. tour and Emmylou Harris on her tour of Australia.

Chambers has reaped major awards in her homeland and played major venues after her 2001 second album, "Barricades & Brickwalls," took off the following year. She became the first artist to have a number one single and album simultaneously on her country's charts.

After her cover of the Cyndi Lauper song "True Colours" became the theme song of the 2003 Rugby World Cup, Chambers released her third solo album "Wayward Angel" in 2004 and "Carnival in 2006."

Her new single "Adam & Eve" was just released.