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.