PETE MURRAY
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Saturday, April 13
Waves
tickets: 1300 762 545 or www. towradgibeachhotel.com.au
On his latest tour, chart-topper Pete Murray is taking a different tack.
Instead of the full band, big production act playing at massive arenas in the capital cities, the singer-songwriter is visiting more intimate venues and getting out to lots of small towns and regional centres. And for the first half of the show, it's just Murray and his guitar up on stage.
"It's been great," he says. "People are really liking the whole up-close-and-personal vibe of the tour.
"This is the first time I have done this. In Australia, anyway, I've always toured with the band so it's been nice to have a break and give the Aussie fan base a change from what I have been doing."
For the second half of the show he's joined by a couple of musicians, but even then it's a stripped back, acoustic act.
"For part of the show I get my support act Nathan Kaye, he's a local guy from Byron, and I've got my bass player from the band," Murray says.
"These guys get up and it's a little three-piece with beatbox and slide guitar and I'm playing stomp box and acoustic [guitar] and harmonica as well, so it's kind of a rootsy little vibe going on."
The impetus for the tour - and the album, Blue Sky Blue: The Byron Sessions, an acoustic reworking of 2011's Blue Sky Blue - came out of a desire to change things up.
"I was having a chat with my management - I remember we talked about what we could do that was different," Murray says.
"We talked about doing a national solo tour and we talked about working with some different artists. But what I didn't want to do [was] a Best Of album where you get your mates in, some big names in, to sing on it and try to cash in.
"I thought it would be cool to do an acoustic remake of the last album because that was an electric album so the versions of those songs are very different.
"The song Blue Sky Blue was sent to Natalie Pa'apa'a from Blue King Brown and Natalie wrote this rap on the song, which is very different to what I have done before.
"It came back and it was like, 'Wow, that is great,' so we decided to get some more artists involved. I made a few calls and got a few other guys involved."
Those "other guys" included some of the biggest names in Australian rock, including Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning and Darren Middleton, singer Katie Noonan, Living End bass player Scott Owen, blues guitarist Ash Grunwald and singer-songwriter duo Busby Marou.
Murray says it was interesting to see how other musicians approached his songs, but can't pick a favourite.
"I kind of like it all, to be honest," he says."It's very hard to pick one thing. All the songs are shining through in their own flavour."
