Mike Murray had simple goals for an excursion to Australia after his 2003 graduation from Flathead High School.

He was going to have an adventure and gain some perspective on what he wanted to study in college.

But his first experience with Youth With A Mission, working with the impoverished in East Timor, set him on a new course.

“I probably got more than I bargained for,” he said. “I’d never seen anything like that level of poverty. I felt compelled to remain in that type of work.”

Now that he’s back in the United States, Murray, 26, still is determined to help people in dire circumstances, using another of his passions — music.

His first solo CD, “International,” features songs about sad circumstances he has seen worldwide — populations ravaged by AIDS, children sold into slavery, wrenching poverty — but also love songs for his wife and observations on life in general.

He’s giving his first hometown concert to celebrate the new release at the Boiler Room in Kalispell at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

He says his music, a folk, pop and acoustic blend, isn’t designed to depress, but to give hope and to generate awareness and compassion for suffering people.

“The songs touch on hard issues but have a hopeful, uplifting message,” he said. “There are things being done to help the most poor and each of us can do something.”

Though his CD features drums, piano and bass instrumentation, in concert it’s just Murray and his guitar.

“This kind of show is intimate,” he said. “There are lots of stories. It’s an intimate, conversational setting.”

One of the stories he might tell is from 2009, about a young boy he met in an HIV ward in Papua, New Guinea.

“I was packing up my guitar to leave and a boy I had visited with — his name was Gary — said, ‘I’m coming with you. I don’t want you to leave and I don’t want to stay here.’

“I couldn’t take him with me, but the desperation I saw in his eyes to live a full life has always stuck with me.”

He said audiences are universally responsive to stories like this.

“Young people are so sensitive to the needs of the most vulnerable and the most oppressed,” he said. “Lack of action comes not from not caring, but from not knowing.”

Murray has educated people through music throughout the world, with tours in Europe, Africa and Australia. He was part of a band for a few years, Five Star Streets, that released an album in 2009, “Let Justice Sing.”

The title song was used on the soundtrack for a media campaign for a YWAM medical ship that brings health care to remote, medically underserved areas. Murray had worked with the ship, recruiting medical professionals and securing supplies.

From a home base in Australia, Murray also traveled to South Africa, small Pacific islands and Thailand. In Thailand he gave music lessons to young children as part of the Not For Sale campaign, a project that provides rehabilitation for people coming out of slavery. 

He said he never would have imagined himself living a traveling philanthropist’s life during his time at Flathead High School, though that was where his musical abilities began to blossom.

His training began at a young age with piano, about which he was indifferent. He found his real instrumental passion in drums and then on the guitar, under the direction of Flathead guitar instructor Steve Eckels.

He and his Canadian wife, Jessica, plan to stay in the United States indefinitely, spending the summer in the Flathead Valley and then moving on to a larger city.

Murray wants to pursue music as both a career and an avocation. 

“My wife and I both share a passion for helping the poor and advocating for the oppressed,” he said. “I really see music as a platform by which I can do that, making the most of the skills I have.”

The Boiler Room is at 528 Eighth Street E. A $5 cover will be charged at the door. Information at  261-4122, www.boilerroombrew.com or www.mikemurraytunes.com

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.