Latest news with #PeteMurray
BusinessToday
25-06-2025
- Business
- BusinessToday
Exabytes Backs Cloud Talent Boom with New Regional Centre
A major push for digital growth is underway in Southeast Asia. Exabytes, in collaboration with AWS and Forward College, has launched a Cloud Centre of Excellence in Penang. The goal is to help businesses adopt cloud technology faster—while preparing the next generation of digital professionals. Situated in Penang—often dubbed the 'Silicon Valley' of Malaysia—the CCoE is set to become a regional innovation hub. It will focus on helping companies scale with AWS technologies while developing a strong pipeline of cloud professionals in partnership with educational institutions. With 64% of Malaysian organisations reporting moderate to severe talent shortages, particularly in mid-level roles, the centre arrives at a critical time. Chan Kee Siak, Founder and CEO of Exabytes, highlighted the dual focus of the new centre: 'By working closely with AWS and Forward College, we are addressing two pressing needs: accelerating cloud adoption and enabling more young people—particularly those from underserved communities—to access high-value digital careers.' As part of this commitment, Exabytes is sponsoring tertiary education for 20 B40 students in partnership with Forward College. The sponsorship will offer three years of employment within the Exabytes Group upon graduation, creating a direct pathway from education to economic opportunity. The launch has also drawn praise from AWS. Pete Murray, Country General Manager for AWS Malaysia, described the CCoE as a 'huge step forward', applauding Exabytes' leadership and vision. He emphasised the centre's role in supporting Malaysia's ambition to become a regional hub for digital excellence, while also contributing to job creation and innovation in the digital economy. Beyond education and training, the CCoE is designed as a collaborative space where AWS experts, startups, educators, and businesses can exchange ideas and co-create solutions. Through hands-on training, community events, and cloud showcases, the centre aims to foster a culture of shared innovation and experimentation. Looking ahead, Exabytes plans to host industry events under the CCoE banner in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Indonesia. These gatherings will connect solution providers and experts to showcase cloud innovation and strengthen the ASEAN cloud community. The CCoE will also deliver Agentic AI solutions, designed to boost productivity in key industries throughout the region. For businesses already leveraging Exabytes' AWS services, the launch signals a promising development. Jimmy Boey, Head of Information Systems and DPO at Senheng noted: 'As we continue to scale digitally, the support and guidance from Exabytes—powered by AWS—has been instrumental. We're excited to see how the CCoE will accelerate innovation and knowledge-sharing across the region.' Similarly, Hasnol Hashim, CTO of Bizapp Ventures Sdn Bhd, praised the centre for making cloud adoption more efficient and affordable and looked forward to increased innovation and knowledge-sharing. The collaboration also marks a formal partnership with Forward College, reinforcing a joint commitment to accessible, skills-based education. Howie Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Forward College, said: 'Through the Cloud Centre of Excellence, we are creating meaningful access to cloud education and hands-on learning experiences that will equip our students—and the broader B40 community—with real-world capabilities to succeed in the digital economy.' The AWS x Exabytes CCoE is one of several forward-thinking initiatives planned for 2025 and beyond, as Exabytes continues to champion SME digitalisation, AI adoption, and regional cloud readiness. By integrating innovation and talent development, the CCoE aims to close skill gaps, build pipelines, and future-proof the workforce, reaffirming Exabytes' commitment to creating an inclusive digital future for Southeast Asia. Related
ABC News
30-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Taylor Swift reclaims music, buying back first six albums
Taylor Swift has bought back the master recordings of her first six albums, regaining control of all her music after a dispute with her former record label. In a post on her website on Friday, Swift announced: "All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me." The pop star said she purchased her catalogue of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount. The singer's master recordings had been sold in 2019 by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun, and the pop star said she was not given the opportunity to buy them at the time. She rerecorded four of the albums with the subtitle "Taylor's Version". Swift's rerecordings represent her effort to control her own songs and how they are used, a trend many musicians have been emboldened to follow. In April, Australian musician Pete Murray announced on social media that he was releasing a new version of Better Days (Pete's Version), and that he was now an independent artist, rather than signed to a label. "Taylor did it and I was thinking, 'Wow, that's how you do it,'" Murray said. Swift's purchase includes videos, concert films, art, photography and unreleased materials, which are now under her control. "I can't thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now," Swift addressed fans in the post. Fans have theorised that Reputation (Taylor's Version) would be the next album the singer will rerecord. But according to the note shared on Friday, Swift said she had not "even rerecorded a quarter of it". The singer announced that she had completely rerecorded her self-titled debut album, "and I really love how it sounds now". Swift wrote that both her self-titled debut and Reputation (Taylor's Version), "can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right". Representatives for Swift and HYBE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AP/Reuters
ABC News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Megan Macdonald
When pop star Taylor Swift announced in 2019 that she was re-recording her previous works, musician Pete Murray was shown a way forward to reclaim his legacy. 2h ago 2 hours ago Sat 24 May 2025 at 9:00pm Curry is a dish that has become symbolic of Indian cuisine, but the word itself doesn't originate from India, and many Indian people bristle at its association with their culture. Tue 20 May Tue 20 May Tue 20 May 2025 at 5:57am Over time, women have shared stories of feeling dismissed and ignored by healthcare professionals. Now the results of a national survey hint at just how serious the problem is. Fri 26 Jul Fri 26 Jul Fri 26 Jul 2024 at 7:00pm When a popular Australian podcast recently got into hot water over an episode about toxic shock syndrome (TSS), the incident reflected the consequences of medical misinformation and TSS confusion. So what exactly is TSS, and how worried should women be? 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ABC News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Following Taylor Swift's re-recording project, musicians are reclaiming their work
Pete Murray would prefer it if you didn't stream one of his biggest hits. The Australian musician has been in the industry for more than 20 years, and his hit single Better Days is one of his most recognisable songs. But recently, he announced that he'd prefer fans not to play the original song, because he has a new version available. In April, Murray announced on social media that he was releasing a new version of Better Days (Pete's Version), and that he was now an independent artist, rather than signed to a label. "You might not be aware that I don't actually own a lot of my older, classic songs," he wrote. "I believe it's important for all artists to own their own recordings, and so this is the first of a series of 'Pete's Versions' of some of my biggest songs that I'll be releasing in the coming years." Sound familiar? Musicians re-recording and releasing new versions of their work isn't new. Taylor Swift's re-recording project is one of the most well-known examples of this. And many musicians have been emboldened to follow her lead. "Taylor did it and I was thinking, 'Wow, that's how you do it,'" Murray says. In 2019, Swift's former label, Big Machine Records, announced that the company had been acquired by businessman Scooter Braun's Ithica Holdings. This deal sparked years of discourse about the rights of musicians when it comes to owning their work. Swift, one of the world's biggest pop stars, was quick to express her anger over the move as it meant her original masters were sold to Braun. "Scooter has stripped me of my life's work, that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it," she wrote in a lengthy statement on Tumblr. Swift left Big Machine Records in 2018 and signed to Republic Records, owned by Universal Music, in a joint deal with Taylor Swift Productions. Following the public battle with Braun, Swift began releasing re-recorded versions of her six previous albums. These new albums were identified as 'Taylor's Version', so fans could support Swift and the purpose of her re-recording project. It's a move that music journalist Nic Kelly says empowered Swift's fans to protest on her behalf. Musicians re-recording their work in a bid to claim ownership back feels modern, but Swift wasn't the first. The Everly Brothers were superstars in the 1950s, and the duo had two studio albums with Cadence Records. But when their contract expired in 1960, they left and were signed to Warner Brothers Records. The deal, worth US$1 million, was the biggest record deal in music history at the time. Under Warner, the Everly Brothers released a studio album in 1964, The Very Best of The Everly Brothers, which included not only their hits recorded under Warner, but re-recorded versions of their earlier hits originally released with Cadence. Legally, there was no restriction on them re-recording. And it meant the re-recorded versions of their hit songs were competing with their first two records owned by Cadence. The label struggled to compete and eventually closed in 1964. Thanks to this, the risk of artists re-recording their old songs was identified, and soon clauses were added to contracts to avoid this happening in the future. So how can musicians today, like Swift and Murray, re-record their previous work if they don't own the masters? Joshua Yuvaraj, a senior law lecturer at the University of Auckland, says it's complicated. For artists like Swift and Murray, who write their own music, it can come down to who owns the master recording of the original work, and who owns the copyright to the song. "There are two different copyrights … One is when the artist writes the song, there is a copyright applied to that. "But there's also a copyright in the recording when the song is made in the studio with the artist, the producers and so on," Yuvaraj says. The master is often owned by the recording label, while the composition (melody and lyrics) is copyrighted separately. Murray knows this law all too well, and he was forced to wait five years after his contract ended before he could start re-recording and re-releasing his earlier songs. The deal Murray signed nearly 20 years ago meant his record label owns his masters. It meant the masters recording was paid for by the label, and it put Murray into debt with the record company that took his entire contract to pay back. He realised that in order to earn enough money to cover those costs, he would need to keep touring. "I was at a point where I'd have to call my agent and say 'I need more money, book me more shows'. "I thought, 'If I don't change this soon, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life'," he says. He does receive small royalties from those masters today, but he still doesn't own them. "That was the hard thing to accept … I just thought 'It's not really a fair deal'." Journalist Nick Kelly says the publicity around artists taking a stand has prompted change. "We are seeing a massive shift towards artists retaining their independence, retaining ownership of an autonomy over the way they're perceived, and the way that they are marketed. He says that historically many recording contracts included large profit cuts for the label and not the musician. "A lot of it [the cut] can be 85 per cent … and it doesn't feel like the record label does 85 per cent of the work. "The cut these record labels take from some of these deals is enormous and doesn't feel justifiable," he says. In recent years, more well-known musicians have come forward with their record label horror stories. When Chappell Roan won her first-ever Grammy award for best new artist earlier this year, she took the opportunity to campaign for better working conditions for emerging musicians. "I would demand that labels in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a liveable wage and health care, especially to developing artists," she said. Joshua Yuvaraj says while there are clearly systemic issues within the industry, he believes healthy dialogue is crucial. "Without demonising these record companies and streaming companies that do play vital roles in the creative ecosystem, we also need to acknowledge that artists need to be taken care of," he says. With more high-profile cases of re-recording occurring in recent years, some record companies have responded. It was reported in 2023 that major labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group were overhauling their contracts for new artists. These updates to contracts allegedly included longer periods before re-recording would be allowed, with some timeframes reportedly up to 30 years. Kelly isn't surprised. "It shows that they're definitely feeling the impacts of these re-recordings and loss of income." He says it reflects the deeper wounds between some artists and record labels. "It raises the bigger question for me of, 'Why do artists want to re-record in the first place?' and that onus comes down to the communication between artist teams and record labels. "The label does need to make money, so they can re-invest into developing new talent. "I think that's a good ecosystem, but it should be fair for everyone." Murray believes there's room for improvement across the music industry. "How many artists have tried to sue the record label over years of trying to get out of deals because the deals have been terrible?" he says. He wishes he could have given his younger self some advice. "I believe that you should own your master … because you control it and you own it. "No one can take it from you." He says if labels prioritise fairer deals, the long-term results will be beneficial.
The Australian
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Australian
Pete Murray on health, fitness and life lessons from dad's early death
Pete Murray, 55, is an APRA Award-winning singer-songwriter based in Byron Bay. Ahead of an extensive solo acoustic tour, he talks to The Australian about pacing himself while on the road, admiring Paul McCartney's onstage longevity, overcoming career roadblocks and learning hard lessons from the early death of his father. Pete, you're soon to undertake a 56-date national tour. What have you learned about how to take care of yourself while touring? I think eating well and sleeping well are the two big things – and not drinking so much. I've done a tour before where I haven't had any alcohol at all – not that I'm big drinker anyway – but it's quite nice to have no alcohol at all when you're performing. It's the travel that takes it out of you: the long drives, the flights and the early mornings of getting up and going to the next place. Then you check into your hotel, do your sound check, come back and have dinner, play your gig at the venue and come back. You really don't get any time to relax: maybe an hour before the show, but then you've got guests and friends that want to catch up with you, so it's a very tricky time to do that. Murray, 55, will undertake a 56-date solo acoustic tour from May to September 2025. Picture: Ian Laidlaw Do you enjoy being in that rhythm of constant motion? Yeah, it's something that I've been doing for a long time now. I quite like being on the road; I like touring. Some musicians can't stand it. I love performing. I think it's great fun with the travel, getting out and about, seeing different places. But it's taxing, and the negative things are that you're away from family. That's the tricky thing, I guess: you're not there to help out at home. But it's my job; that's what I do. Years ago, I was looking for a job that would allow me to travel the world and earn money from it. That's what this is, and I'm very fortunate to be doing music. It's a very small percentage of artists – especially in Australia – that actually can make a living out of it. I feel like I'm very blessed that I can do that, and I don't take that lightly any day. Whenever you're touring, you want to be grateful that everything's working well. How will you pace yourself across those 56 shows? This tour starts in early May and finishes in mid-September. It's pretty much every weekend you're performing: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, come home for three days, and then go again. You definitely have to pace yourself. Maybe the last weekend, I might allow myself to loosen up a little bit, have a couple of drinks and relax a bit. But before that, my biggest concern is losing my voice. I eat good food, and I try to go to the gym whenever I can as well. But I've always been that way: as soon as I get overseas, the first morning I arrive, I'll go to the gym straight away at the hotel and do something. You just feel better when you're doing it – keeping healthy and keeping fit – rather than not doing it. In terms of exercise, what are you fond of? I do weights training, but not heavy stuff; I kind of do it in a cardiovascular way, where I'm having short breaks in between reps. I might have a minute between each set, but I'll keep going along. Your heart rate's up while you're working out, so you're still getting some fitness out of it, and you're also getting some strength as well. For me, that's the best way: in 20 or 30 minutes, I can get in a really good workout, and then I'm done. You want to be basically in and out quickly, because time's not on your side. Do you play sport? When I was younger, I did swimming, athletics, and then football: I played rugby league, then I played rugby union when I got a bit older. Athletics is probably my favourite sport. I used to run fours and eights [400m and 800m]. That's super hard work; the 800m is the greatest race, I think, because it's tactical, but it's almost a sprint as well. It's such a challenge. I used to love training for it, and that helped my rugby as well. When I came across to rugby, I was a chance of making the Australian Sevens team because I was so fit. I still had skills with the footy, but I was so much fitter than the other guys. I could go the whole game, whereas the others would start to blow up, so that was my advantage. But individual sports, I find, are great, because you can't rely on anyone else. You're the one that's got to compete and win the race. It's probably a bit more fun in a team sport, but I felt like doing the individual sport was more challenging and more rewarding for me, if you did have success. Pete Murray in 2003. Picture: Tracee Lea Pete Murray in 2023. Cover picture: Jeremy Simons In the 20-plus years you've been working as a well-known musician, you've always appeared to be fit and healthy. Has that been important for you to maintain? Oh, definitely. I love sport, I still keep fit, and I think probably the reason why I've had some success in music is I've had the same mentality of what I did in sport: if you want to be successful, you've got to keep training. But there's a love for that, too: I love feeling fit. I don't like feeling unfit, and drinking heaps, I don't feel good after that. My body can't take it too much, which I'm sort of happy about. It's the same philosophy going into music: you've got to work hard at it. That's getting better at songwriting, but also just keeping fit and healthy. I always want to be that; I want to be playing on stage when I'm 80. It takes it out of you, doing that: Paul McCartney, at the moment, looks incredible. He's 82, and he just did this massive tour. To see him still going at that age is pretty amazing. But I wouldn't want to do it any other way. If I miss three days in a row from going to the gym, I feel like I'm losing out. I've gotta get there! [laughs] What about the mental health side of things? How do you stay mentally fit while on tour? I've always been fairly good at that. My dad died when I was 18; he was only 47. There were a few tough years for me there; I had to learn how to deal with that, move on and get things going. I find that you've got to talk to people if there's any dramas with how you're feeling. I think that's probably the biggest problem that guys have: they just close up and don't talk if they've got any issues. I like to talk if there's something that's bothering me; I don't hold it in too much. But look, I'm doing what I love, so in most cases, it's all pretty good; pretty positive. I've had to work hard to get to that point. Even when starting music, that was a very hard, very challenging period of my life, trying to make music happen. I started quite late: I didn't pick up a guitar until I was 22, and I didn't record my first independent album until I was 30. I started to doubt everything that I was doing, and that was a very hard few years of trying to believe in yourself when you were thinking, 'This isn't going to work. What am I going to do now?' During that time, when you were continually running into roadblocks with your music, what kept you going? I'm glad you said 'roadblocks', because I use 'roadblocks' all the time. Musicians have that, you know? I remember when I was mid-20s, I had some mates who were starting up a band, and they asked me to manage them, which I did for a while before I was doing my own [solo] stuff. I remember going to this managers' forum with [industry association] QMusic in Brisbane, and the lady there – Rose, I remember her name quite clearly – she said, 'Right there's three things you need to be successful in the music business!' I had my pen and paper out, ready to write, and she said, 'Persistence. Persistence. Persistence.' It made sense, because no-one's ever going to get people going, 'You're awesome! This is great! Come on through! This is going to happen!' That never happens. Every time, no matter who you are, lots of people are going to say 'no' to you. 'You're too old. It's not good enough. You don't look pretty enough,' or whatever it might be. It's that self-belief and it's that persistence that you have to keep going with, to make this successful. It's the guys who hit the wall and go, 'I can't do this anymore,' and they give up; there's a lot of talented people that don't make it in music. For me, I think it's probably the hardest business in the world to try and crack. To have success in it is very difficult; to even have a career in it is even harder, so hats off to anyone that has a career in music. Pete Murray in 2014. Picture: Peter Cronin Pete Murray in 2025. Picture: Ian Laidlaw I ended up getting signed to a label [Sony Music] at 32, so there was a few years there where I was going, 'What am I doing? All my other mates are getting good jobs and good money, and I've got nothing.' I couldn't even buy myself lunch. I'd be looking in the cupboard for a can of baked beans and a bit of pasta to try and put something together. But when you get through that, I guess it makes the success more rewarding, because you've done it the hard way. There's all these sacrifices you've made that people aren't aware of; they just suddenly see that you've had success, and you've 'instantly' done well. That's the mental strain and the stress that everyone goes through, trying to make that happen. And it can be very depressing, because you're on these highs and lows: you'll play a show where there's a great crowd there, and the next show you play, there's no-one there, and you start to doubt: 'What's happening?' Your chart-topping 2003 album Feeler, and its single So Beautiful, is what helped you break through to a national audience. Was that experience gratifying? I struggled after Feeler. I just didn't think it was good enough. It was just me that thought that; it was having all this success, and I still didn't get it. I just didn't know why people liked it. I liked playing the songs live, but couldn't listen to the album from start to finish; I couldn't do it. I remember getting a text from Darren Middleton from Powderfinger one day in about 2011 going, 'Mate, I just listened to Feeler – what a great album!' And I was sitting there thinking, 'Is it? Is this a good album? I haven't even heard it.' I recorded it, but didn't listen to it. And at that time, eight years later, I put it on from start to finish – and at the end, for the first time, I was like, 'Wow, it's actually a really great album'. I was struggling for a long time with that. You mentioned that your father died at 47, when you were 18. What effect did that have on your health from that point on? Oh, it was massive for me. Like I said, I've always been very healthy, but when that happened and he died, it was a real serious look at, 'OK, I've got to be careful'. Because his father, too, had a stroke, so there's something in the family here that we've got to be careful with. I've had my check-up, and I'm good; I've been told I should not die of a heart attack. Dad smoked for a long time; he gave that away, but his diet wasn't the greatest. Having that hereditary heart disease in the family, he wouldn't have been aware of the damage that's happening to his heart – but I have been. In a way, it was a real wake-up call for me, in a number of areas. He was working most of the time, so we didn't get a lot of time to hang out together. Learning from that, I wanted to make sure that with my family, I have that time with them, and I could actually spend time with them; be a dad, but be a good friend as well, so that we'd have a great, close relationship – and I've got that. So I learned that from, dad, unfortunately, when he passed away. He died two months after my 18th birthday; it was a real shame, because I just started to feel like I got to know him then. Pete Murray with son Charlie in 2004. Picture: Jamie Hanson In terms of your own heart health, is there a benefit to being aware of the genetic risks at play? Yeah, even my kids too, they're well aware of what happened there, so they've got to be careful what they eat and how they look after themselves, as well. It's just good to be that way. Dad was in a small country town [Chinchilla, Queensland], and back then they probably weren't onto it as much. The guys back then might have a pain in the chest, go see the doc, do an ECG and they mightn't pick it up, so the advice was, 'Take it easy'. I think they've learned from back in the 80s, when there was a lot of guys in the country that would drop dead of a heart attack after they'd seen the doctor. It's happened to a few guys that I know. Things have changed now: any pains in the chest, off you go to the specialist and get a good check-up. I'm sure that, if dad had been checked out properly, he'd probably still be here today. A few of his mates had the same thing; after dad died, they had chest pains, got checked out, had some bypasses, and they're still here. Pete Murray (right) with musician friend Benny Owen at Byron Bay in 2018. Picture: Mira Eady Murray Great to hear. Lastly, in 2018 you ran a four-day 'Music & Movement Escape' at Byron Bay with your friend and fellow muso Benny Owen; my colleague Trent Dalton attended the event and wrote about it for our magazine. Was that a one-off? We did one, and people absolutely loved it. It's very inspirational for anyone that loves music: you get to train with the artists, and at the end, you get an acoustic concert as well. Obviously, Trent's quite famous now; he wrote the book [Boy Swallows Universe, which became a Netflix TV series], so people know who he is. But at the time, he wasn't that well-known, and we got him along because we wanted to get a journalist there to write about it. We're looking at doing another one again, but we're just waiting for the right time. It's a tough time at the moment, financially, for a lot of people. We'll wait for things to recover and put another one on again. Everyone that I talk to about it thinks it's an amazing concept and idea. We've just got to get it together – but in the next four months, it's not going to happen for me, because I'm going to be very busy. Pete Murray's 56-date solo acoustic tour begins in Darwin (May 9) and ends at Blue Mountains (September 7). Tickets: Read related topics: Health
