August 2008

A Eureka Moment

With three hit albums, a home studio, a family and a dog, Pete Murray talks about the long road to finding happiness

WORDS CARRIE HUTCHINSON

Photo: Chris Searl

In the summer of 2004, it was almost impossible to turn on the radio without hearing Pete Murray’s break-through single ‘Feeler’ coming through your speakers. He’d released an album of the same name and, at the age of 34, had become Australian rock’s newest star – a sensitive, good-looking bloke who sang beautiful, melodic songs.

Photo: Scott
Needham @ FLIPPLooking back on that time now, as his fourth album Summer at Eureka is released, Murray concedes he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the attention. “Feeler was a bit of overkill for me,” he says. “I was worried that people were going to get sick of me, because as soon as you’re getting flogged on radio and there’s an ad here and something else there, it’s like you can’t get away from this guy.” But Feeler sold almost 500,000 copies and Murray went on to be nominated for a swag of ARIA Awards and, in 2005, released See the Sun, another massive success.

Today, he’s decamped to a Sydney pub to talk about Eureka. He looks relaxed and has let his hair grow out. The slightly scruffier look suits his lifestyle – young dad, making records and living in Eureka near Byron Bay – as well as the music he plays. “We’re in a good place,” he says of himself and wife Amanda. “We’ve got two beautiful kids [Charlie, four, and Pedro, one] and we’re really happy with where we’re at. That’s reflected in the album. The songs used to be a bit deep and dark and meaningful. They’re still meaningful, but they’re also a bit more positive. It’s a romantic album.”

The album, which debuted at number one on the charts, was a departure for both Murray and his record company, Sony BMG. After See the Sun, he decided he wanted to produce his next effort. He and Amanda looked for a place in Melbourne, but everything was too small. Browsing the internet, Murray started to check out properties in northern New South Wales, which is how the family found themselves living near Eureka and building a studio in the backyard, with Sony’s blessing.

Pete at Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studio
Richmond, in May 2005
Photo: Martin Philbey/Alamy Images “One of the biggest fears a record label can have is an artist coming in and saying ‘I’m going to record this album in my home studio and I’m going to produce it’,” he explains. “The alarm bells must have been going off for those guys, but they trusted me enough to go, ‘Okay, we’ll back you.’”

The result is an album that Murray is 100% happy with. “See the Sun was really challenging: I had no time, Charlie had just been born, and Feeler was so huge. I was being pulled in every direction and I was trying to write a new album.”

Four of the songs on Summer at Eureka – the title track, ‘Saving Grace’, ‘Silver Cloud’ and ‘King Tide’ – just flowed. Like many of his songs that have gone on to be hits, these also feel as though they’ve been bathed in sunshine. What he really puts it down to, though, is the luxury of being able to create under his own steam. Again, he worked with long-term collaborators the Stonemasons, as well as Powderfinger guitarist Darren Middleton. “For two songs, ‘You Pick Me Up’ and ‘Sugar’, I said ‘I need you to come up with something because I’ve exhausted all the options and I can’t think of anything.’ That’s where giving someone with Darren’s talent that creative space to go ‘what have you got?’ helps pull it all together.”

Pete Murray and band launch Summer
at Eureka at The Factory on May 19,
2008, in Sydney
Photo: Gaye Gerard/Getty ImagesHe does concede that having put to bed four albums (his first, The Game, was released independently) he’s getting better at it. It’s a world away from when he tried his hand at music at the age of 23.

“When I first picked up the guitar I was totally retarded,” he says. “It was a bit weird, but I really enjoyed it. It was great fun singing old Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel.” Soon, some of his friends were telling him he should think about making money from music. Working on his writing, he carved a niche for himself on Brisbane’s indie scene before deciding to move to Melbourne to give the industry a proper crack. “I was 31 and it was the toughest year of my life. It was ridiculously hard, I had no money and no one was giving me a gig anywhere.” But if elite-level sport – Murray played representative rugby union as a teenager while living in the Queensland country town of Chinchilla – had taught him anything, it was that you need determination. After a year of gigging as often as possible, his style attracted the eye of Sony and, on his 32nd birthday, the company signed him. “Yeah, it was an okay birthday present,” he says modestly.

Pete with Charlie at age
eight months
Photo: Jamie Hanson/Newspix Things started to “go nuts” about five months after Feeler was released, but the success didn’t go to Murray’s head. “I was brought up in the country, so I was taught that if you’re good at something, you don’t go around bragging about it. I’ve never been in the whole thing for fame, and being in my thirties you look at it a little differently. I’ve got a good perspective on life and I had to work really hard to get where I am.”

The other aspect of his life that he works hard at is keeping his private life away from the media. “I always joke that my life is not that interesting, so the media wouldn’t want to follow me, but I stay away from it too. I don’t go to the opening of an envelope, and where we live is so far out.”

Pete Murray could be called
the reluctant rock star
Photo: Scott Needham
@ FLIPPConstant touring has, however, given him plenty of exposure to fans, both here and overseas. He’s just toured Europe and played the Pinkpop Festival in the Netherlands, where Summer at Eureka went top 10 on the charts. Next on his itinerary is a national tour throughout August and September.

You’d think that being in the public eye so much would mean attention from hysterical fans, but Murray just laughs: “You know, I quite often get people saying to me, ‘You know who you look like? That guy, you know… Pete Murray.’ That happens to me all the time. Much more often than people saying to me, ‘Hey, you’re Pete Murray.’”

Pete Murray’s Five Favourite Things to Do in Byron Bay

1. Go to the beach.
2. Go to the waterholes up in the hills where I live.
3. Head to any of the numerous cafés in Bangalow for breakfast or coffee. There are a heap of great cafés there.
4. Sometimes on a Friday night we have a meal at the pub.
5. Amanda and I like to take the kids to one of the parks near the beach.