From these shaky beginnings emerged a singer-songwriter with three number one albums, several top ten singles, a handful of ARIA nominations and now, a new album that demonstrates his versatility. Most famous for his mellow acoustic singles like Better Days, Feeler and So Beautiful, he was ready to shake this perception with Blue Sky Blue. “That kind of annoyed me, in the way that you get judged from what they hear on the radio,” he explains. “But that’s not the whole thing.”
Blue Sky Blue comes after a three-year break for Murray. During this time, his first priority was spending time with his two young sons, second was surfing and third was writing music. He completely cut himself off from the music world, not even listening to the radio, and is only now beginning to interact with fans again. But, says Murray, this break and isolation was integral to his music.
“I wasn’t in any rush to write a new album,” says Pete. “Once I got into the swing of it I’d try to get into a routine of going for a surf and then coming back and writing, then go for another surf and then do some more writing in the night, which I found was quite good for keeping fresh.”
This approach definitely affected Blue Sky Blue. Pete took the electric guitar track rather than his usual acoustic one, as well as specifically writing for live performance, rather than radio. Plus, he aimed to write an album that was dynamic in its entirety so that no songs could be promoted as a ‘Pete Murray’-style acoustic single.
So far it’s received a warm response from fans and critics alike. However, his young sons don’t always share that enthusiasm for their dad’s music. Four-year-old Pedro attended his first gig recently – a 10,000 people affair on the Gold Coast. Pete tells how his family was in the first row and Pedro was sitting on a friend’s shoulders. “He basically just plonked his head down on this guy’s head went to sleep after about three songs,” Pete chuckles.
Due to his break, young Pedro isn’t really aware of what his father actually does. But as Pete suggests, Blue Sky Blue is a ‘comeback’ album of sorts. “I hadn’t really thought about this album at all so the more I started thinking about it, once I got into the headspace of wanting to do it, I really wanted this album to be different and maybe my definitive album,” he explains. “Feeler is the album that everyone continues to talk about so my challenge was to make this one as good as that.”
