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.

He plays Kelowna's Community Theatre April 22.

Rolling Stone magazine recently hailed Nova Scotia-based Jurvanen for creating one of Nashville's most authentic country records this year. It was recorded at the legendary Nashville Sound Emporium.

He also made his debut at the famous Grand Ole Opry in the Music City.

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.

The questions and answers have been edited for clarity.

Glynn Brothen: On tour 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.

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.

G.B: Tell me about the Nashville Sound Emporium. Did the space influence Bootcut? Did the city have an influence?

B: 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. 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.

G.B: Did you always feel that you had a country album in you?

B: 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. 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.

G.B: Has that always been in your catalogue of instruments?

B: 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.

G.B: What inspired the songwriting on this album?

B: 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.

G.B: How did your Grand Ole Opry debut come about and what was it like stepping on that stage?

B: 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.

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

B: 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.

Bahamas tour starts April 19 in Vancouver. His Victoria and Kelowna shows on April 20 and 22 are sold out but waitlist tickets are available. For tickets and more information, visit his website here.