What started out as an art-project, turned into a critically acclaimed record and now, after spending much of the past year writing and recording, Toronto native Afie Jurvanen, (better known as his moniker Bahamas), has a new record out called, Bahamas is Afie (August 19th). He’s also headed out on a headlining tour along with some support dates for Wilco and we caught up with the him and talked about the changing music biz, how Brushfire Records found him, and how he manages to stay so positive.
Allston Pudding: Congrats on the new record, it sounds great.
AFIE: Thanks man.
AP: Was there a conscious effort to get back to the same sound (as Barchords) or did you have any idea on what you wanted to do with the new record?
AFIE: (bluetooth cuts out for like 10 sec) … we wanted to make a more fuller record with more focus on the melodies and all that jazz, but yeah, when I went to make this album it was a different approach. Normally I would just set up with a band in a studio and see what comes out, and trust my musical instincts, and that’s worked out well for me, but for this one I wanted to do something different. I just set up shop with one other guy and played most of the instruments, I think the songwriting is more straightforward and to the point than anything I’ve ever done. At the same time, I dunno, we wanted to make something bigger. I put a lot of effort into and I hope people will like listening to it.
AP: Are you excited to get back out on the road too? I know it’s been a big break for you.
AFIE: Yeah, I really love playing so we’ll get a chance to do a whole lot of that this fall. We’ve got a great band and its just fun. I always say its 90 percent laughs and 10 percent music, so it’s just really fun for me.
AP: Being that your still an up and coming artist playing rock clubs and having some of your material being straight folk and other songs being straight rock. How do you cultivate a set list that is going to capture a crowd that’s always standing up?
AFIE: I find that most people buying a ticket to our show already know us so they know what they’re getting into. I feel like audiences are really willing to go wherever you take them, so I can’t say I stress out about it too much. We have lots of different types of music, slow songs and fast songs, rock songs and folk songs. In a way I hope the diversity is what keeps it interesting. We don’t feel a need to beat people over the head with a bunch of uptempo songs or anything like that. It’s just the kind of music I like so I just hope there’s an audience that feels the same way.
AP: Yeah, so you’re able to take them on a little musical journey – peaks and valleys of a set. I dig that too.
AFIE: I think the albums sort of do that too and yeah, our live show isn’t the exactly the same thing every night so its good that have the agility to just go with it.
AP: So I have to be honest, the first time I heard you was the song “I Got You Babe” which came up on like three very different stations on my Pandora. I guess this is a bit of a music biz slash exposure question, but how does that work for you? Does it even cross your mind at all that you’re getting all sorts of play on this new format?
AFIE: Well I mean I probably don’t know any more about Pandora than you, other than what I read in the newspaper. Personally I don’t get a whole lot of checks from Pandora. You know, I don’t think it’s necessarily about remunerating the artist. That’s not what their business model is. That being said, the fact that you heard my song and now we’re on the phone and perhaps you’ll come to the show, that obviously has a lot of value. I suppose if your like Lars Ulrich and you’re used to getting million dollar checks every month than you would take a bigger stance because it’d be a big change, but for me I grew up playing music and I just feel lucky to be a professional musician. I haven’t really made my living from album sales or anything like that.
AP: Yeah, like royalties aren’t a thing for you yet.
AFIE: Yeah, it’s not really something that I miss because I never really got them. I have sort of really come up in a really changing music industry model, and there’s still a long way to go. We haven’t arrived at whatever the new model is going to be and I think that everyone, the labels and the radio stations, everyone’s trying to figure out how this thing is going to work out. In a lot of ways it’s good for the artist to just keep their heads down and keep writing songs and putting out good music that’s all we’ve ever really been able to claim as our own and that wont change.
AP: On the same page, I just got to hear the whole record streaming. Is that just something you have to accept these days and hope it comes back in some other way with ticket sales and vinyl sales? Is that the attitude you have to have these days?
AFIE: Yeah it’s pretty standard now, most labels are kind of in favor of that. Yeah, in the past there would be all this money for music videos and all that kind of stuff, but again it’s not something that I’m super-duper familiar with so are there times where I think I could be doing better? Of course. Generally making a lot of money makes things easier for most people but I dunno, I’m fairly lucky I get to have a band and make a living wage and get to go on tour. It’s not luxurious by any means, but when I was 16 I wanted to play guitar and wanted to do music and now I’m in my mid thirties and I get to do what I wanted to do when I was 16, so sometimes I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
AP: Does being on Brushfire help you not to even have to think about those things? Like just make the music and we’ll take care of that?
AFIE: Its definitely not about money, they’re actually a really small label. They just have a really healthy, positive, realistic attitude about music about business, they’re involved with a lot green initiatives and creating global food awareness. Those are all things I care about and I like that they think about those things. Things that are beyond just getting mentioned on some blog or something. There’s a whole world of things that go on that they’re aware of and I just feel really lucky to be a part of that.
AP: How did the relationship with Brushfire come about? Did they just dig the vibe of your early stuff and say “Hey this sounds like a perfect artist for us to have on the label.”
AFIE: I’m not exactly sure how they heard about me in the first place. All the people that worked there would come to our shows whenever we were in L.A. We played there and hung out and by the 3rd of 4th time we went surfing together. In a way it was just pretty casual. It was like “Hey maybe we should put out your record.”
AP: Is that how it came about? Jack was just hanging out and asked you to go surfing?
AFIE: I actually hadn’t met Jack at that point. He lives in Hawaii, and actually doesn’t have that much involvement with the label. So I think that there’s a bunch of other people that work there that make sure the records get out and people hear the album. Y’know, we kind of have the whole California culture in making movies and putting out soundtracks to surf films and whatnot. So yeah, we kind of just became friends and they said “We’ll put out your album.” So in a lot of ways it was that kind of casual, cavalier approach; it suits me really well because I kind of feel like I’ve taken that whole chill approach to my career. I can’t say I’ve gone out there and done a ton of hustling and really networking on purpose. Any of that sort of stuff has always just been because my friends were doing something cool and I just happened to be around making music that suits your buddies. I guess I’m just trying to say I’m really lucky. It’s not like we targeted them and said “Hey that’s the label we want to be on.” We just happened to meet them and they were rad.
AP: Yeah, it seems to be working out. One of my favorite things about Bahamas is the Gospel-esque, soul harmonies. Is that something that came from your influences, or something you made a conscious choice, like “I want to have these singers do this on these tracks,” or is it something that influenced you from your childhood?
AFIE: I’ve always loved harmony singing, and more specifically just people singing together not necessary always in harmony. In unison is really powerful too y’know? It’s got a universal quality to it that’s immediately recognizable to people. It’s like banging a drum. It has a tribal quality to it that goes through languages or whatever other barriers there might be, but when I made Barchords I was the only one singing on it and only afterwards where I thought I think I can expand the band and it just seemed to me like adding some singers was the next logical step, so Ive only ever toured with a drummer before that. It was always just guitar and drums and then I had all these new songs that had tons of singing on it, so again it was just like the obvious thing to do.
AP: Will you have them out on tour with you?
AFIE: Yeah, I’ll have one of them out on tour with me along with another guitar player. There’s still a lot of harmonies and singing, I feel like these songs have a lot more melodic ideas and rhythmic ideas. The band can kind of grow or contract depending on what kind of music I want y’know.
AP: The new singles “All the Time” and “Stronger than that” are both absolutely stellar. When you made them did you know they were going to be the songs you highlighted or did it take some time to sit on all the tracks and say “Okay, this is the first one, this is the second one?”
AFIE: Yeah I had no idea. If I was to choose I probably wouldn’t have chosen either of those two. That’s a part of working with people though, y’know. Ultimately I get to write the songs and make the album, but after that I work with people to get it out and we want people to hear them and that’s why its great to work with people that I trust. They have instincts and feelings that those were the songs we should put out and so those are the ones that are out there before the whole record, but the rest comes out in a few days. I think at the end of the day unless you have a big song on a radio or something I think the word “single” can sometimes be misleading because it’s sort of like its supposed to suggest it’s the best song on the album, but it’s really just the first to be released.
AP: Well I think you and your team made a great choice.
AFIE: Right on.
AP: You definitely seem like you have an overall good attitude and approach to not over-think things,. Does that mean you able to just churn out songs daily and is there a plethora of material that didn’t make the cut for this record. Is that something that is fairly normal for you, writing a song a day? Or was there the feeling that okay we’re going to make a new record, let’s start fresh?
AFIE: Yeah I was in a lucky position where I did have more songs than I needed. I think we recorded 18 songs and 12 made the cut. So that’s a rare position to be in. I realize now I can’t take it for granted. If it was easy I think everyone would be doing it. I can tell you though I worked pretty hard on it. I spent a lot of time playing guitar, writing songs and it really is just the time that you put in for me. It’s not like I can say I’m gonna write a new song today from noon to two o’clock. I don’t really know if I could do that. It’s really addictive and fun, but I don’t know if it’d be as fun that way.
AP: Just because they’re stripped down and simple doesn’t mean they’re not well thought out.
AFIE: Yeah sure, the vision might be simple and direct, but at the same time often times the ones that are most simple can take the longest to write. It can take a lot of time just to get things down because it’s yours. I mean that’s the process that I’m always interested in. A lot of writers are really verbose and have incredible command of the language but I generally lean the other way. I always try to get to the point faster.
AP: Yeah, and I notice they’re always retrospective of something in the past that you have a great way of summarizing, even if that past thing is something painful like a past relationship. Is that how you approach it by looking at something that happened and summarize it and get right to the point, and how do you keep things so positive and sunny when the lyrics can still be kind of sad? Is that a conscious effort?
AFIE: That’s a part of my nature, a part of who I am as a human being. I guess you could say I’m an optimist. I haven’t thought about it before but I guess there is a lot of pain and difficulty in life and we all kind of bobble through in various states. In the end though, I feel like writing songs is about finding some way to celebrate that stuff. With music there’s a whole lot of celebration, even among the dark stuff. I think that’s an idea that we need more of in the world. People spend a lot of time focusing on the negative and ya I think it’s an opportunity to transcend that stuff. The music that I listen to does that for me, and I hope mine does the same.
AP: So the title of the record is Bahamas is Afie Juveron so it exposes the moniker, but who is Afie Juveron?
AFIE: The title of record is me acknowledging my name and my music. This whole thing started as an art project. I didn’t really know what it was going to be when I just started writing songs and Bahamas just conjured up a lot of imagery right away when people heard the music, so it just fit well with me. Seven years later, it became my career, my livelihood and I think its just a way of me acknowledging my name and my music.
Bahamas is Afie Juveron is out today, (August 19th) on Brushfire Records and you can catch him September 13th here in Allston at Great Scott.