This time around is vastly different
for Pete Murray. The dance may be the seem, but
everything around
him as changed; it’s all gone ritzy. That’ll
happen when your debut Feeler is
one of the most successful debut releases in Australian
history, selling over 600,000 copies off the back
of a strong touring presence, and a mega-single like “So
Beautiful”, that was simply inescapable on
radio.
“Everyone has their ideas of what might be
coming because they know who I am, for starters,” he
says of new album See the Sun.
The album’s surprised a few people in a way;
where some thought it was going to be Feeler No.
2, which is what Murray most certainly didn’t
want, it’s not that far away, but it is far
enough away. It’s got the dynamics that Feeler didn’t
have, brought about through broader instrumentation,
and a tighter band.
Of course, the weight of expectation
is unavoidable in the wake of an album like Feeler,
but Murray is adamant that, no, he doesn’t
feel it…or perhaps he just chooses to ignore
it. “I’m sure there’s a lot of
people that are expecting a lot,” he offers. “I
started demo-ing this about eighteen months ago,
and I knew where I wanted this album to go – I
wanted it to not sound as ‘safe’ as Feeler did.”
Was it that safe?
“I thought it was pretty safe, yeah,” he
says of his debut. “It’s funny – I’m
going to be critical because I’m the artist
and so I’m always going to pick at pieces of
whatever song you have, and the album’s done
so well and I had a great time recording with Paul
McKercher, and what happened on the first recording
was that I wasn’t as confident to give as much
direction as I needed to do, and Paul helped put
it together and did a fantastic job so I learnt from
that experience. This time, I went into the studio
knowing exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it,
and how I wanted the songs to sound and not to come
away disappointed.”
With American producer Eric Sarafin
steeping into the production chair at Sing Sing
once more (which
is also where Feeler was recorded),
some thought was initially given to making See
the Sun a self-produced affair, before
wiser heads suggested Sarafin, whose previous credits
include a wide array of sound from the likes of hip-hoppers
the Pharcyde to Christian rockers Days of the New
to pop fluff like Hilary Duff, to the more comparative
Ben Harper.
“I thought about giving Paul another go, because
he was so good to work with, but there was something
about Eric. He’s better known as being an engineer
and a mixer, and his sounds are just fantastic which
is exactly what I needed on this album. To work with
Eric was great because the experience of what he’s
done was a real benefit. It’s always a learning
experience working with a new producer, and the good
thing about both of them is that they’re old
school – they work on tape, and Paul still
slices up on tape and to watch him put it together
is just genius.
In some respects, “So Beautiful” naturally
found Pete Murray pigeonholed as a mainstream balladeer,
which was odd as Feeler is not
a particularly commercial album at all, but automatically
when an album becomes a success then people are going
to say ‘you’re a commercial’ artist,
and that’s it: forever typecast one way or
another, the trick is to get out from under that
thumb to forge a broader identity.
“Feeler is not a true representation
of what I am as an artist,” he bristles, “and
I found it hard to give that CD out to people because
the band plays with much more dynamics. “So
Beautiful” was such a big hit, and it came
out of nowhere, and I was totally freaked out about
that song. I told the record company they were wasting
their time releasing it as a single because it’s
a four-and-a-half minute song and there’s no
way that’s going to work as a single. But it
did. Hopefully See the Sun will
add another dimension on there.”
It certainly expands the musical
palette, with the brass section from Australian
legends Hunters & Collectors
coming in for “George’s Helper”,
one of the pick tracks on the album. “I wanted
to add brass in there because I’ve always been
a big fan of horns,” Murray explains. “I
didn’t want to be branded, and a lot of people
who hadn’t seen us live [have tended to do
that]. What I wanted to get across was how were are
live across onto tape, because Feeler missed
that. Everyone knew what we wanted when we went in
the studio, and we got it. Feeler is
a particularly mellow album, and it turned out that
way, so I wanted to try to get rid of that tag of
being a balladeer or something like that.”
Songs like “Trust” help with that, with
a vicious nature that is a long way removed from
the comforts of “So Beautiful”. “Lyrically,” he
explains, “it’s obviously about being
in a relationship that’s an insecure one, which
can be frustrating. That song couldn’t have
been done any other way, and it just needed to have
that aggression to it.”
Perhaps the oddest aspect of Murray’s success
is that alternative radio abandoned him awfully quickly
in the wake of the success of “So Beautiful”.
It’s not like they missed on him entirely,
with debut single “Lines” being a popular
Triple J number for a while there. So is he beyond
that now? “We didn’t expect them to go
with that song,” he says in reference to first
single “Better Days”, “but I’d
like to think that there’s some songs on the
album that they would like. It’s hard in this
country when you do have commercial success, and
we’ve had quite a bit of it.”
Well, for some but not others. The
likes of the John Butler Trio and current ARIA
darling Missy Higgins
still got plenty of community and alternative support
coupled with their mainstream acceptance. “Missy
won Unearthed, and that’s always going to be
in her favour there. I got runner-up in Brisbane,” he
muses, “and for those radio stations I can
totally understand why they wouldn’t play it,
and I think even John Butler is having trouble getting
it as well, because John’s starting to have
that commercial radio success as well. This country’s
very small, and what I’m trying to do with
this album is swing a little bit back to this side.
I’m not as commercial an act as everybody thinks.”
Pete Murray’s new album See
the Sun is
out now, with the man on tour EVERYWHERE.