Bahamas goes country before country-wide tour

Afie Jurvanen, also known as Bahamas, is leaning into country music with his recently released album Bootcut — a fresh collection of songs on an upcoming tour through Canada, starting in the West.

Rolling Stone magazine recently hailed Nova Scotia-based Jurvanen for creating one of Nashville’s most authentic country records this year. Recorded at Nashville Sound Emporium, he was joined on Bootcut by producer Dan Knobler, Vince Gill of the Eagles, Sam Bush on the mandolin, Mickey Raphael who plays harmonica for Willie Nelson’s band and bassist Dave Roe.

With his archive surpassing a billion streams, he’s collected a series of Junos and recently appeared on an episode of ABC’s The Bachelor.

Glynn Brothen from Pattison Media recently caught up with Bahamas to discuss his foray into classic country music and give concertgoers a glimpse of what to expect.

Glynn: Let’s talk about your Canadian tour coming up. You’re going to perform songs from your latest album Bootcut, which is a change in sound for you. What led you to creating a country album?

Bahamas: During the lockdowns I had done some recordings remotely with these wonderful musicians. Some in LA, some in Australia and we did a session ultimately with these musicians in Nashville. Even though we only did one day I just so enjoyed it and it was so easy and I feel like they’ve probably been working that way for a long time just in many cases they don’t even meet the artists.

I thought to myself boy I’d like to work with them again. Ultimately I had a bunch of songs that I thought were strong enough and so we booked a few days in the studio down there and rounded everybody up and it came together quite well.

Tell me about that production space, the Nashville Sound Emporium. Did the space influence Bootcut? Did the city of Nashville have an influence?

Certainly the studio itself has a great reputation, a lot of great albums that I love have been made there. It’s been around for a long time and sort of has a vintage esthetic and sort of a warmth to it. There’s nothing clinical about it, it really feels like a homey space, a very comfortable space and I do think that ultimately has an effect on me and other musicians. You bring some of that relaxed energy to the recordings. Really I just wanted to work with those musicians. Heck, if they wanted to work in a storage unit I would go record with them there. It’s really just their playing and their sensibilities and their musical instincts.

Is there new life for country music in the industry? Did you always feel that you had a country album in you?

I’ve always liked country music. I think on all of my records there’s always sort of an acoustic tune or sometimes solo tunes that lean in that direction. I guess this was the first time I sort of made a decision to lean more. A lot of that really, if I’m being honest, is just the steel guitar. For some reason, it’s such a powerful instrument that once it’s in it sort of guides everything else in that direction.

Has that always been in your catalogue of instruments?

Not really. The pedal steel sort of has that aching moaning quality to it where the notes are begging you like ‘please listen to this terrible story of heartbreak and redemption.’ I think country music, personally if I’m being quite honest, I think we’re kind of on the downslope on it. It’s as big as it’s ever gonna be right now. Beyonce is trying to get it, everyone is trying to get in on it. The fact that it’s cool. I do think country music is such a timeless genre, mostly because of the stories. There’s something about that genre that welcomes humour and irony and sort of literary tools that you can use. They’re much more difficult in pop music. If you try and be funny in a pop song it’s generally hard to do that. Not impossible but it’s hard.

There’s a level of humility.

Yeah you kind of use these tools in order to say like ‘look how sad my life is’ and in many cases it comes out as like ‘hey here we are, on another Friday night drinking beers in the pickup truck’ but it obviously can be so much more than that. Just a very fun place to operate in as a songwriter.

What inspired the songwriting on this album?

A lot of the same stuff I’ve been writing about for years. My family, my wife, my children. Music, a lot of songs about music. There’s a song on there called Just a Song about trying to write songs and how challenging that can be. For me, I don’t generally wait for inspiration to strike. I try and just work at something in hopes of — more like mining. There’s a song in there called Working on my Guitar. Just playing for the sake of playing and just being grateful that a lot of ways my life is the same as it was when I was 18. I feel very fortunate. I get to play music and travel around and hang out with great musicians. I don’t know if that means you’re successful if you’re still kind of doing it in the same place, but to me it’s a life and I’m very happy to have it.

Let’s talk about your Grand Ole Opry debut. How did it come about and what was it like stepping on that stage?

Obviously a lot of musical history there. I was flattered to be included as a small part of it. I didn’t realize that they would be filming from the moment we got to the parking lot. It was a little bit of a reality show vibe there but that being said the music portion was super fun. It really is a well functioning machine and they do, I think, six shows a week. For that 10 minutes, they just plugged me into their machine like a USB drive and we did my songs. It’s incredible that they’re able to pull that off, just the logistics alone, nevermind the music which is of very high caliber. It’s this thing that’s living and breathing and you just go there and hopefully elevate things for a few minutes and then say thank you and leave. But it’s cool.

You mentioned reality shows. Tell me about your performance on The Bachelor.

I saw the helicopter land, I thought that was pretty impressive. They did ask me for some marital advice although I’m not sure I was able to impart any wisdom. Joking aside, I’m always looking for different ways to introduce the music to people. I didn’t realize how big The Bachelor was. But I did get a lot of text messages from the other moms in our neighbourhood; they were pretty impressed. The challenge is really just to try and perform well and play the music well and do it with a smile on your face. Just be a little tiny spoke in the bigger wheel that is The Bachelor.

Fifteen years ago you came on the scene with your first album. You’ve been streamed over a billion times. I read through the commentary on your songs on YouTube and so many people would say he came up randomly in my algorithm or my Spotify feed. What are your thoughts on that?

Well I’ve certainly benefitted a lot from the streaming age. I know there’s a lot of valid arguments about the fairness of the royalty rate. Of course like most musicians I’d be very happy if it went up a little bit. But there’s no question that for a music like mine which isn’t the most let’s call it pop music. I don’t make radio singles, things like that. To have a vehicle where the song can in a way have a life of its own, more people listen to it, it starts to aggregate across the website and ends up onto a playlist and people like it or frankly I’m not even sure how that website works. But from what I understand there’s all these different playlists and the songs can just go to all these different places. For me, that’s only been a very very positive thing.

What is next for you, where do you go from here now?

This is the eternal question that all artists are always asking themselves and I’m no exception. Because of course the music business can have this sort of hamster wheel effect where it’s a little bit of rinse and repeat in terms of the way it feels. If you’re in the middle of a tour you kind of should be thinking about your next album and how you’re going to record it and if you’re in the middle of the recording you need to think about how are we going to tour this album. So you’re always trying to look towards the next thing. As cliché as it sounds I’m trying to do a lot more living in the moment and these shows coming up next week, I’m frothing at the mouth looking forward to them. I may or may not have another album in the can. I don’t know if I’m at liberty to discuss that at this point. Like I said I’ve been doing the same thing since I was a teenager whether people were interested in it or not. I imagine I will continue doing that long after it’s my profession or whether anybody cares about it.

What are you listening to lately? Any recommendations?

Listening to a lot of reggae. My youngest daughter is so into reggae. Buena Vista Social Club. Listening to a lot of that. This woman Sonya Spence, I think she’s amazing. She’s got three or four albums that I’ve been listening to a lot. Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson, this reggae artist. A lot of African music and reggae music and things that feel good. Things that make you wanna move your body and you’re not even quite sure why. David Myles, he’s got a bunch of new recordings that I’m really enjoying. Logan Richard from PEI that’s an incredible songwriter, incredible musician.

Catch Bahamas on tour starting April 19 in Vancouver. His Victoria and Kelowna shows on April 20 and 22 are sold out but waitlist tickets are available. He will play Edmonton April 23, Calgary April 24 and Winnipeg April 27. For tickets and more information, visit his website here.

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*The interview was condensed for length and clarity.