Pete Murray remembers sitting around as a teenager on a Sunday listening to Barry Bissell's Top 40, his finger poised over the record button on the cassette player, hoping to hear a little Tears for Fears, some Stevie Wonder or, if he was lucky, the latest track from Huey Lewis and the News.
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Hoping to get the timing right, like every teenager growing up in the 1980s, so he'd avoid getting too much of Bissell's commentary at the end of the track.
“I didn't get into music, into bands, until I was older,” the veteran singer-songwriter says.
“The music of my early years was whatever was playing on the radio.”
Now he is watching his own sons, Charlie and Pedro, 13 and 10, begin their musical journey and he admits that it's influenced his latest album Camacho.
“The best thing you do in your life is become a parent,” he said.
“It's influenced me in such a positive way and that has made we want to write a lot more positive songs.
“Feeler was quite melancholy and I think that's why it connected to a lot of people but I found writing sad songs easy.
“I remember being in the car once and Always a Winner came on, and the boys were in the backseat, they were pretty young but they were singing it word for word and it hit me then that I have to write songs for them.”
Border Pete Murray fans will soon enjoy a Sunday afternoon with his music when the Byron Bay singer-songwriter returns to Paddy’s Beer Deluxe, showcasing his latest album Comacho, on August 20.
Camacho – a 10-song concept created to listen to from start to finish – is Murray's first album for six years, he says the delay was because he wanted to challenge himself musically.
The concept of a complete album is one Murray believes in. Getting the order of the songs on the album right is an important aspect of this.
“I created Camacho to take people on a journey,” he says.
“It took about 12 months to get the order of this album right, it's not an easy thing to do, to get the flow right.
“But when you listen to it now, it's almost an album of two halves.
“Only One and Sold come out really punchy and confident and positive and then Heartbeats slips back into half beats, it's super moody, with Give Me Your Love and Take Me Down a little more laid back too … and Home was a really nice way to go out. Don't play it out of order and it will take you on this journey.”