KALISPELL – Thousands of tickets have been sold for Under the Big Sky, a concert taking place this weekend in Whitefish where nationally known musicians will be performing.
MTN News sat down with a Kalispell artist who will also be taking the stage and he shared his musical journey.
“I was born and raised here in Kalispell and started playing music as a little kid. My parents got me into piano when I was, I don’t know, six or seven,” singer and songwriter Mike Murray said.
A Flathead Valley local, Murray will represent Montana at Under the Sky Concert this weekend. He says it was in high school when he decided that music is what he wanted to do when he grew up.
“I was at The Gorge in Washington at a concert and I was sitting with a friend, and it was the last night of the festival and the headliner had just finished their show,” Murray recalled.
“And most people were milling back to their camps or leaving, so we were just sitting on a big grass hill looking down at the stage and roadies were starting to clear the stage and we were having this conversation about our futures and our lives and she asked ‘what do you think you want to do’?” he continued.
“I think I was a senior in high school. I looked around and thought about the experience and I just knew — [that] I want to do this,” concluded Murray.
However, he quickly discovered the music industry isn’t forgiving.
“We visited Nashville, met with some friends that were in the music industry down there and I quickly realized that I was a very small fish in a very big pond with little support network,” Murray said.
So, he moved back to where he felt most connected — the Flathead Valley — and the music gigs poured in. And there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
Murray’s last album Difficult Days was created in his backyard studio he built himself and when he’s not recording or performing he loves spending time with his wife and four-year-old daughter.
Murray plans to release his fifth album sometime this fall.
