Speaking to Pete about the ten year re-release of his iconic 2003 album ‘Feeler’ last year, which went six times platinum by the way, he tells me: “When it was done I just couldn't hear anything good about it. From when it was finished for a whole eight years I didn't listen to the album; I couldn’t stand it. I would try and play it from start to finish and would get to track three or four and have to turn it off because I hated it.”
“It took 42 weeks for ‘Feeler’ to go to number one, so it wasn’t an overnight success by any means.”
Despite releasing three albums since then – all of which achieved mainstream success – and having never listened to the whole album, re-releasing ‘Feeler’ was something that never crossed Pete’s mind until two years ago. “Everyone had been raving about this album and I had never listened to it start to finish,” Pete says.
“Eight years after it came out I got a random text from Darren Middleton from Powderfinger saying, 'I’ve just been listening to ‘Feeler’, what a great album’. “After I got that text I thought I better give it another go,” Pete confesses. “I was really surprised and relieved in a way because I listened to it for the first time and just went ‘wow’.”
When ‘Feeler’ was originally released Pete was quoted saying: "The records I love are by people like Nick Drake, Neil Young, Bob Dylan; they are built to last. I wanted this to be an album like that, something you can pull out in 30 years and still hear the feeling in it, rather than something that’s dated by the musical fashions of the day.”
If time is anything to go by then Pete can stand behind his words and be proud. “After listening to the record from start to finish I'm actually really proud of it and it’s a really great album and I feel kind of ashamed that I had had those problems with it for the last eight years; now I can appreciate why people like it and how they see the Drake or Dylan or Young in it; the record is just so full of feeling.”
Nowadays, Pete Murray is an Australian household name. But before the success of ‘Feeler’ catapulted him into the mainstream, Pete’s music career was still very much on the rocks. “It took 42 weeks for ‘Feeler’ to go to number one, so it wasn’t an overnight success by any means,” Pete says. “I had put an independent album out before that called ‘The Game’ and moved down to Melbourne trying to do the independent thing playing to a handful of people every now and again.
“I was in a new city trying to make things happen for myself and I’d borrowed a lot of money off my sister to record ‘The Game’, and I got to a point where I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pay it off. I was around 30 at that stage, struggling, in a bunch of debt; I thought, 'what am I doing? I'm 30 years old and I'm chasing this music dream.' I knew that there would have to be a point where I would have to let that go and get a real job or a real career going… I was getting depressed and defeated about the whole thing so I enrolled into my final two years of sports medicine.”
Sometimes, for some people, the stars and the planets align beautifully and things just fall in place. For Pete, as good a rugby player as he was or as keen an interest he had in sports medicine, he was meant to be a bloody good Australian musician, and the universe wouldn’t have it any other way. “It was around then that Sony came to me with a deal – it wasn't overnight, things went cold and then got hot again for some reason – and I had to make a decision to sign with a major or remain independent. It was hard because I was really into the independent thing but I felt that Sony were the people that are going to take me as far as I can go.
“Signing for me though still felt really independent; everything I was doing independently I took to the label and ‘Feeler’ was done the way I wanted to do it, nothing was pushed down my throat and I stood my ground on everything, so I still kept what was real to me and that's probably why ‘Feeler’ came out the way it did and they never told me to do anything after that.”
Ten years down the track and Pete Murray is perhaps one the most successful Australian singer/ songwriters of this generation; and the same way he started in Melbourne he’s now emulating in Canada as he starts to engage an overseas touring circuit. “It’s exactly like starting again,” Pete says about doing the overseas touring thing without the support of a major label behind him.
“There's a few people that know who you are and that helps the situation, but a lot of times you are in front of people who have never heard you before. I like that because the reaction that I'm getting over there is really positive and a lot of people are interested in who I am, what I've done and where I'm going which is good coming from a bunch of people who have never heard you before.”
Fresh from his overseas experience in Canada, Pete is returning back to his true home of Queensland to play alongside his good mate John Butler at the Caloundra Music Festival and a handful of dates on the east coast. “I've played the Caloundra Festival years ago, when it was still free,” Pete remembers.
“I was actually double booked; one of my mates had booked me in for a charity show in Brisbane and I didn't want to get out of it, but I explained to him the situation and he organised a helicopter that was involved in the charity gig to fly me up to Caloundra. We did a couple of circles around the event and it looked awesome, maybe 40 or 50,000 people. It was a free concert so everyone was there; awesome vibe and a great vibe playing that night too, absolutely loved it and can’t wait to get back.”
Written by Benjamin Pratt
Pete Murray Tour Dates
Thu Aug 21 - The Depot (Newcastle)Fri Aug 22 - The Depot (Newcastle)
Mon Aug 25 - The Man Hotel (Falls Creek)
Thu Aug 28 - Swindlers Hotel (Hotham)
Fri Aug 29 - Kooroora Hotel (Mt Buller)
Fri Oct 3 - Caloundra Music Festival
