PETE MURRAY INTERVIEW| WARP| 02.05.17

After a six year hiatus, Pete Murray has returned with the single Take me Down from his forthcoming album ‘Camancho’. Pete spoke with us about the brewing of his creative change in direction and how collaboration, soul and hip hop influenced the production of the new album he considers to be his masterpiece.  

Your approach to recording ‘Camancho' has been entirely different to the last five albums you’ve produced - choosing to record in your Byron Studio, then recruiting various production maestro’s and hip hop artists as you needed them over a number of years. The album is quite a collage of styles for you, one where you were in control of directing the exact pace and timing. Was this one of the more satisfying writing processes you’ve experienced?

Absolutely by far. I think the typical trouble with an album is you go to the studio to record with the band for four to six weeks or so. This time I wanted to take my time, I wanted to produce it myself and I wanted some other guys to help me achieve what I wanted to do. So I guess when you’re working with other producers you start to get different influences on their songs and it was up to me to kind of tie everything in together the way I wanted after we’d finished doing their stuff. So five of the tracks I produced myself the other five are done with other producers so yeah I had to really kind of tie the other tracks in so they matched what I had done. 

It was a long gestation process as well…

Yeah, the reason it took so long is that we were kind of waiting on people’s availability as well. I did have to spend a lot of time to develop for the first few years to establish what I wanted, in order to make the change. So I listened to a lot of electronica and a lot of hip hop to try and get different flavours and sonics and tie that in to my music. 

Can you tell us about who some of those hip hop and electronic influences for you? 

One band that I listened to a little bit in the earlier stages was The Roots. I’d listen to their stuff just for the sound of their drums, they had cool drum sounds. I don’t really know many other bands, I’d just kind of stream stuff and listen.

You were given advice from Tom Rothrock years ago to go ahead with a more groove driven sound, advice you didn’t go with initially. What changed in you over the years that made you want to start writing with beat loops six years later?

It’s funny you know, I went to LA when I first met Tom and I played a couple of acoustic songs and he put a few little loops on the tracks just so we could hear them. I guess he kind of put that idea into my mind about having a beat that doesn’t change throughout the song and I wasn't really that into it back then, I didn’t think that was where I wanted to be. I was really into the live recordings with the band and it’s only later I started to listen to some of those old demos we did and I really liked them. I was listening to Beck’s Loser and that song was set to a loop too and I was thinking ‘Ok this is actually really cool.’ I was listening to a lot of hip hop and the beats were just simple beats that didn’t change, it was just one groove all the way through the song and I’d play solo and what I’d do is I’d open Garageband and I’d open a groove that I liked, and a lot of the grooves I got into were soul, you know, I keep talking about hip hop inspiring me, but I think it’s actually also a lot of soul that’s inspired me. So I’d open a soul groove with a guy called Trials (Daniel Rankine) and he beefed up those soul grooves to become what they are on the album. So it’s kind of actually more soul, with parts of hip hop sounds. 

Is there a particular element, lyric, hook or even an entire track that you’re really proud of on this album?

I like it all.  I feel like I've taken six years because I’ve been trying to make my masterpiece, if that makes sense to you. To me I feel like I’ve achieved that, I don’t feel like I could improve it in any way and I think that from start to finish it’s great. Theres no song I prefer over any other, it’s just a great body of work from start to finish. Sometimes I’ll listen to one track a couple of times in a row, go through the album pick it apart and make sure it’s all working, but as a body of work I can listen to it from start to finish and I’m 100% proud of it. 

Once you’d completed recording the album and were listening back before sending it to be mixed, how long did it take you to feel satisfied with what you’d created?

I was going crazy. You go through waves where you think it’s great and then you think it sounds like rubbish. I just went backwards and forwards going “Oh this is fantastic, oh no, this is rubbish”. So I was sitting with them and I started to pull the songs apart so much that it became hard to tell what was working anymore. I got to the point where I was talking to my manager and I said “Oh this is very close to the end y’know but I can’t tell whether it’s still working or not” and he just said “Oh it’s great, great y’know keep going!” Then a couple of months later I was talking with him and said “I’m really struggling listening to it” and he said “I don’t know, I think I’m struggling with it too now ‘cause I’ve been listening to it too much as well!” But I think once we mixed it, the mixes just came back sounding so great, and there was just no questioning that it was good. I was happy with it, it was great y’know, I really loved it. It was just a matter of fixing these little one percenters that might just make the songs a little bit better.  

The title of your album ‘Camancho’ translates as ‘cool’ in Spanish and you’ve built an entire career on being the relaxed, guitar twanging, chilled out guy. But I’d really love to know, what’s one thing in life that actually makes Pete Murray go a little crazy?  Can you tell us about something that just makes you struggle not to lose your own camancho? 

I think there are plenty of things. In particular, greedy people and arrogant, obnoxious people do drive me a little crazy.  [chuckles breezily] 

‘Camancho' is out June 2. Pete Murray will be embarking on a 33 date national tour kicking off on the 12th of July and wrapping up on the 9th of September. He plays Wrest Point Showroom, Hobart Friday 11th August.

-Amanda Laver