Sounding Out: Bahamas

“I try not to get my ideas too set in stone because I really believe that leaving room for mistakes and leaving room for spontaneity is the most important part about life. And I definitely don’t want to limit my mind in any way.”

Afie Jurvanen is a well-seasoned musician who has spent many years playing guitar and piano in support of other musicians such as Feist. In 2009, he released his first solo album in his home country of Canada under the moniker Bahamas. The album was very well received and was ultimately nominated for a 2010 Juno award for Best Roots & Traditional Album of the Year. In May of this year, the album, Pink Strat, was finally released here in the US.

Pink Strat is a wonderful album, showcasing Jurvanen's fine songwriting and exceptionally warm and breezy songs. Out touring the US now in support of the album, I had an opportunity to talk with him about his songs, his songwriting, and stepping out on his own.

Having recorded Pink Strat in 2008, releasing it in 2009, and touring in support of it in 2010, I was curious if Afie is experiencing a bit of déjà vu with the recent US release. He said that it’s inevitable, but that he has a different kind of band on this tour and is just thrilled to be able to play in America.

“It’s a big deal if you’re a musician living in Canada. There are just so few gigs when you live in Canada. In California alone there are twice as many people. It opens up a whole other world of opportunities to get up there and play and do what I like to do. I’m just really very grateful.”

In a few interviews, Afie has mentioned using the ‘60’s as one of his musical reference points. I wondered what it was about that decade that was significant to him in terms of musical influences. Afie said that he has many reference points and the ‘60’s reference has been interpreted in various interview to be a bit more significant than it has been at times. Having said this, Afie added that it was the simplicity of the production aesthetics and approach that is so appealing to him. A lot of that simplicity came from the limitations of the technology.

“The way that people were creative was much more different. There was no such thing as a remix or computers or any of this kind of stuff that takes advantage and assumes that this is just the way things are done. There is just some romantic notion that I carry about the idea of the album as a complete unit and the idea of the live performance being actually live and not edited together from a million different takes. I subscribe to a lot of those ideals when I am recording. If things are a little bit fucked up, I would like to celebrate those things rather than try to hide them or fix them or use computes to make them better.”

Pink Strat

Afie had talked about not ‘tinkering with things’ in another interview and said that redoing a solo or vocals rarely ends up solving anything. I told him that I thought that there is perfection in imperfection in certain respects.

“Yeah, well, it is never ending. It is never ending. It’s like, it can be anything that you want it to be, and I guess for me I’m not very good at multitasking. Some people are and some really have a lot of patience for going in there and really, really, cleaning things up. Then you end up sounding like Steely Dan. That is just not my intention.”

For Afie the quality of the song is the most important thing. “The lyrics and the melody.....I just sit down and play them on the guitar or the piano or just sing it…will they translate? It’s just falling in line with how I think about songs and artists that appeal to me. Of course there are other bands that are able to assemble things in the studio from little bits and pieces and make just amazing things on a completely different musical level.  For me it begins and ends with the song…always.”

I asked Afie if he considers himself a writer away from music. He said that he really has not done any writing outside of songwriting, but his focus on the lyrics has changed over time.

“When I was younger I did not pay too much attention to the lyrics. Slowly it became the most important thing and that is probably because when you go on tour and you have to sing these songs night after night after night…..for me it makes a big difference if they actually mean something. If you can even reinvent the words on a nightly basis too, the meanings change. I think about some of my favorite songs, they take on their own meanings. I can’t get into Willie Nelson’s head and figure out where he was at when he had written a certain song, but I create my own imagery and create my own history. It is really important to me as a listener and a writer to be able to do that.”

I agree with Afie. I told him about my interview with Rami Vierula of Delay Trees and the discussion we had regarding why people go back to movies or albums or books or paintings over and over again. They go back because there is space in that art for the audience to experience and interpret it differently each time they visit it.

“And you contribute to it too as the reader or the watcher of that film or the listener of that record. At a live show too…..that is the most important thing for me…interacting with the crowd. And that doesn’t always mean talking with them. Musically, they are listening and you’re performing and that’s a relationship that is very complex and can change. It is very malleable. The audience is contributing to the experience too. It’s not just all on me. I think that records are the same way, and books, and movies, and life in general.”

In thinking about this complex relationship, and knowing that others are paying close attention to his lyrics, I wanted to know how much of what Afie writes is autobiographical, and much are just observations and things that he sees in his everyday life.

“For me there is no hard and fast rule. I let the idea dictate how I am going to writing the song. In some cases, it is extremely autobiographical and I try to not get in the way of that. If there is an idea coming and words fit together in a nice way, I am not going to spend much energy trying to mask or hide them. It is just not really in my demeanor to do that. On the other hand there are times when you come up with the lyrics or an idea like ‘hockey teeth’ where there is just something about those two words next to each other that almost inspire a song. On a song like that, there is definitely stuff from my own life in my mind, but the words, which are so playful, just allow the imagination to run wild a little bit.”

There are lots of phenomenal musicians that spend their entire lives playing in support of other musicians. I asked him if he always had a sense in the back of his head that he wanted to pursue his own solo work. Afie said absolutely. “Songwriting has always been present. The number one thing has been time. I am not very good at organizing my time properly and multitasking.”

In making his decision to focus on his own music, Afie leaves behind playing in support of others. He is grateful for all of the touring and playing experiences that he has had and admits that it is a bit scary to say ‘no’ to gigs and just focus on his own music. But he is happy to be out on the road and playing his own music. It is a comfortable spot for him to be in right now.

“For my own musical mind it is really exciting. I can do whatever the heck I want to do. Musically, there are a lot of things that I would like to do. There is a lot of different songwriting that I am interested in, and it is constantly changing and evolving."

"As I think with anyone, and not just in music, the mind is always wondering about other ways to do things. Even if you are just cooking a meal, what is it going to be like if I use fresh cilantro instead of basil? I try not to get my ideas too set in stone because I really believe that leaving room for mistake and leaving room for spontaneity is the most important part about life. And I definitely don’t want to limit my mind in any way. And as a writer, you definitely don’t want to repeat yourself. So finding other ways to sing about those themes that remain close to you are really important. It is nice to be at the helm of that."

Working with Afie on Pink Strat was Robbie Lackritz, a long time friend, engineer and producer. Given their long term friendship as well as the professional relationship that they have forged, I was curious how Lackritz has influenced the direction of Afie's solo project. Is it as simple as recording and mixing his songs, or has he played a more collaborative role in developing what he is doing musically in general?

“When it comes to recording, he spends a lot of time worrying about what the snare drum will sound like or the guitar sound or what microphone should be used on the piano and all this kind of stuff. This stuff sucks all the fun out of it for me. At some point I realized that I don’t care about that stuff. I don’t care about the details. Some guys really get off on all that. I like gear as much as the next guy, but when it comes to making music, I don’t need to get into it at nausum. I sort of subscribe to more of the Bob Dylan or Neil Young approach where you walk in and you start playing and you don’t talk about it a whole lot."

Lackritz, Afie said is the opposite of him. "I was really, really grateful when I started working with Robby because he gets that. He is obsessed with the microphones and he loves choosing the right place to put the guitar and all this kind of stuff. So our working relationship has meant a lot for me because in a way it frees me up to be more creative. I spend more energy thinking about the songs and how am I going to sing them and how am I really going to hear my own voice with different songs. I will let him worry about the microphones! I hope that our relationship grows like any other and we get to do a lot of cool things together, and I am sure that we will.”

After years of watching the careers unfold of the musicians that Afie supported, I was wondering if he has a conscious approach for his own path. Filled with humility, I really liked Afie's answer and thought that it would be a fitting way to end this Sounding Out session as he continues down the road touring.

“I try not to spend a whole lot of time thinking about it because it is so not in my control at all. Honestly, some days I wake up and I am just so grateful to be busy and be doing something that is very close to me and meaningful. I guess if I can just continue doing it, I really can’t picture what I would want outside of it. It is very satisfying to get the chance. A lot of people want to do that and can’t. I am very grateful.”