Pete Murray

Peter Francis Murray is an American rock singer. Starting his music career in the mid-1990s, he has been the lead vocalist for a number of bands, including nu metal band Ultraspank, hard rock band Lo-Pro, acoustic/electronic rock band Life On Planet 9, industrial rock band Chokt, and most recently, rock band White Noise Owl.

Career

Early years and Ultraspank

Murray's first band was a speed metal band called Indica. While they did manage to earn the "MTV's Best College Rock Band of 1992" award, the band began to fall apart shortly after, leading some of the members, Murray included, to form a new band called "Spank".

Lo-Pro

Murray took a brief break from music after the end of Ultraspank, where he took up a job at a traveling magazine. However, before long, he reconnected with Ultraspank guitarist Neil Godfrey and began working on new music together. However, in the studio, the tracks started to move in a more electronic rock and ambient direction. As such, Murray decided it was too different to be released under the "Lo-Pro" name, and the material would end up being released under a pseudonym called "Life On Planet 9". The first album, released in August 2011, was entitled Bittersweet. A second album, The Theory of Everything, was released in August 2014. Murray provides all vocals and electronic programming on these recordings.

Chokt

Another project taken on in between the six-year gap between Lo-Pro's first and second albums was working with Ivan Moody, who afterward formed Five Finger Death Punch, and Jon Stevens, past guitarist of The Clay People, in their band Ghost Machine. Murray produced their albums Ghost Machine and Hypersensitive. Afterwards, Murray and Stevens continued to work together, forming a new band, called "Chokt", with Walter Flakus of Stabbing Westward. They released nine songs between 2005 and 2009, but have not released a formal album or EP. Murray stated that the group "wouldn't be secret for long" in a 2008 interview, but has not revisited the project since he began releasing material in Lo-Pro again in 2009.

White Noise Owl

White Noise Owl was a band formed in 2013 by Murray, John Fahnestock, the original bassist for Lo-Pro, Will Hunt of Evanescence and Dark New Day, and Chris Shy of Aurora Sky, after the release of Lo-Pro's third album, Disintegration Effect. Murray provided vocals for their first release, an EP titled Until We Meet Again.

Musical style and influences Murray specifically says several bands have influenced his vocals, including Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and Bono of U2,

Discography Ultraspank Ultraspank (1998) Progress (2000)

Lo-Pro Lo-Pro (2003) The Beautiful Sounds of Revenge (2009) Disintegration Effect (2013)

Life On Planet 9 Bittersweet (2011) The Theory of Everything (2014) Higher (2017) Steady EP (2020)

White Noise Owl Until We Meet Again (2014) Condition Critical (2019)

Side-projects 2005: Ghost Machine – Ghost Machine – producer 2006: Ghost Machine – Hypersensitive – producer 2009: MRI – Letters Never Sent – vocals 2012/2013: N Pa – Release Me: The Remixes EP / The Ghost Within: The Tale of Turmoil – vocals on "Release Me"