Musician Mike Murray has been busy as of late. On Jan. 23, he faced a talented list of competitors during the Northwest Artist Syndicate’s Singer Songwriter Showdown and won. He’s playing gigs with his band, The Left Ready, all over the valley, and just signed a licensing agreement with major cable channels for the band’s music. And there’s also a new solo album in the works.
Murray took a break while recording with his band last week for a quick Q and A session with the Beacon.
Flathead Beacon: You recently won the NAS showdown against a stacked list of competitors. What does an experience like that mean for you?
Mike Murray: Some of the other performers I had heard before and knew and I went in with built-in intimidation. Some of the others that were new, I was equally blown away. For me, the biggest thing was trying to make a career for myself in this industry has been one of the most difficult and at times discouraging endeavors, and so to have an experience like that where you’re almost validated, and it’s coming from industry professionals and your peers, it just gave me a morale boost.
FB: What’s been the toughest part of your journey so far?
MM: It’s probably two things. Firstly, it’s just the personal sense of rejection (laughs). Not every venue is going to want you, not every contest is going to like you, not every fan is going to like you. I’m sure this is common for most artists, but it feels so much easier to remember the negative things. Secondly, my wife and I just had our first child, so the feeling of financial stress that comes with this endeavor.
FB: Those are huge stresses in your life. When faced with that, not a lot of people would continue. What makes you keep going?
MM: I just have this drive to do it. There have been a few times, really low points, when I’m down and I’ve thought, “Maybe it’s time to consider another path.” It’s been in those moments where I’ve realized that for me, there is no other path, I have to make music. It is a sense of personal drive to do this. And the support that I have from my family, from my wife, but also from my parents, my sister, my close friends…there’s a small number of people around me when I’m down will tell me, “You’ve got to keep going.”
FB: It seems to be working, because you’ve been busy with gigs all over the valley, and now you’ve got a new album in the works.
MM: I’ve got two streams of my music right now; I’ve got my rock band the Left Ready. We released our first EP in August, and have been getting radio play all over the country in the college radio market and just signed about 15 major licenses for major cable channels… Fox Sports, the Discovery Channel, and MTV… for our music to be released for their use. We’re in the studio right now as I speak making our second EP, and we’re playing about once a month. We’re playing up here, and we’re playing Colorado. We have a couple shows booked at South by Southwest in March. In my singer-songwriter stuff, which is what I spend most of my time on, I’ve had the chance to play two to four times a week and I’ve been writing lots of new songs. As soon as we finish this Left Ready album, I’m going to make a new full-length solo album.
FB: What’s next for you? You’ve got a pretty full plate right now. Is this where you want to be?
MM: It’s been sort of a funny couple years, because about three or four years ago my wife and I were all but moving to Nashville…kind of feeling like, well, if you want a music career that’s the place to be. The more we thought about it and we went down and visited, I just really felt like it was not going to help me, I felt like I would be sort of devoured in the process. We came back to Montana, and that was like four years ago. You don’t ever have to convince me on a lifestyle basis that Montana rules…I love this place, I loved growing up here…but there are a lot of people in my life and my friends in other cities have said, “You’ve got to move, you’ve got to go to LA, to Nashville if you want to make this work.” And there’s just something inside me that keeps feeling like I want to be here, and something that believes it’s possible from here, both locally and here as a launching pad. I hope it can work from here, and I think so far it is.
For more information on Mike Murray, visit his Facebook page or check out www.mikemurraytunes.com.