Photo by Takuya Inoue
Afie Jurvanen understands time is fleeting. While his creative spark remains bright, he knows some fans are still anchored to earlier albums. He admits he’s no different, often a devoted admirer of a few key records rather than entire discographies. These are the thoughts occupying the father of three as his seventh full-length, My Second Last Album, arrives on shelves and streaming services. The title, Jurvanen says, is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, yet on a recent Zoom call the longtime Bahamas frontman concedes that family and other passions are increasingly taking priority.
The album reflects where Jurvanen stands in 2025. A classic singer-songwriter at heart, he avoids trendy references in favor of timeless themes: the joy of family, the pull of simplicity, and the satisfaction of carving one’s own path. Following the country-leaning Bootcuts (2023), the new record drifts back to the breezy, sunlit guitar pop that’s defined his career. With songs that sound more suited to the tropical ease of his namesake than the rural Canadian province he calls home, Jurvanen’s latest is a bright, graceful glide toward whatever comes next.
Alright, so I’m super interested in the album title because Best is crossed out. How did you arrive on the album title? Was it going to be called the My Second Best Album?
AFIE: Sort of a joke, maybe for a moment. I was thinking about this whole idea of “best.” What’s the best, you know? I was thinking about my own taste in music, and the way that I follow bands, or don’t follow bands, or artists that I love. I’ve said so many times, “Oh, I love Neil Young, I love Willie Nelson.” The reality is, I’m familiar with about 10% of their catalog, you know what I mean? There are like three or four albums that matter to me. And even in a more contemporary sense, I remember around the Y2K period, I really loved Wilco. I was so into Wilco, and I loved Being There and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the movie. That was such a right time for me as a musician because I was just starting to play gigs away from my hometown. It was really inspiring, the music and everything about the band. And I’ve probably listened to the next album or two, and then, I can’t tell you why, but I just stopped completely. They’ve probably put out six albums, or maybe more since then, and I haven’t listened to a single one.
I started thinking about this, and I started recognizing this at my own shows. I would play a show in Denver, Colorado, and you run into someone after the show, and they’re like, “Oh, that was great, what are you doing in town? Why are you here?” And I’m like, “Well, I have a new album, and we’re on tour,” and they’re like, “Oh, that’s great.” And you realize that they’re at the show because of an album that I put out 10 years ago, and that’s the one that means something to them. Anyway, that’s a long-winded way of saying it got me thinking about this whole idea of what’s the best.
I think as a creative person, you’re always striving to make the best work that you can, and trying to make something new, and push some boundaries, either lyrically, or sonically, or just as a writer. There’s something fun there that I like, and then I kind of crossed that out and wrote “last.” I started to do a little bit of reflecting, I’m not a terribly nostalgic person, and I just started thinking, we’re on album number seven now. Every time we pull one out, and people dig it, I’m just like, “What?” I just assumed that this was going to be the one that nobody cared about, and the whole thing was going to be over. I know that sounds like false modesty, because I really am proud of the work, and feel like we’ve definitely tried to make the best possible recordings we can every time.
But, yeah, it does feel like I’m sort of getting towards the end of something. When I started, I was a single guy, and I was just on the road all the time, and I was all the clichés, just crashing on couches and playing to anybody that would have me. My life is very different now. Now I have music, which I love so much, but I also have a family and other interests, other hobbies and things that I would love to develop some proficiency at, try and be a little more well-rounded of a person. It’s not like I’m announcing my retirement or anything, but I think it’s just a fun way of acknowledging, “Okay, we’re kind of in the back half of whatever this is.”
I’m not the type of artist who needs to release all the B-sides and unrecorded demos. Trust me, there’s a ton of bad songs that no one’s ever going to hear that are just on a hard drive somewhere. It’s very difficult to make one good record, and now I feel like we’ve kind of beaten the odds in some ways, and we’ve managed to make a number of them that have gone out into the world and found an audience and really given me a whole career. So, I just look on that whole thing with a lot of gratitude, try not to take it too seriously, and just focus on the work and try to enjoy it. I was writing songs long before anybody cared or that it was my profession, and I’m sure I’ll continue to write songs long afterwards. It’s not just my hobby, but it’s also a passion and a career, and it becomes such a dominant part of your life, so I’m grateful for that.
I love the duality of the album title. Just about every artist will say, when promoting their most recent release, that the current one is the “best album” they’ve ever done. Not many will say, “This album is good, but the last one was better.”
AFIE: It is an interesting process. I think most artists, any artist who’s had especially like a one-hit wonder, it’s like, “Is that your best song?” Most one-hit wonders would just say, “No. That’s the song that is the most commercially successful, or that’s the thing I’m known for the most.” But as a creator and as a listener, it’s two different things completely, right?
There always has to be something that you’re pushing against. The things that I’m interested in working on are the things that are slightly out of reach, either musically or lyrically, or there’s an idea that I’m trying to explore: How do I actually sing about this particular topic in a way that sounds interesting and musical and poetic and has all the qualities that I want in a song? If I’m not wrestling with it, then to me, it’s not interesting. Once you perform that exercise, and you actually manage to turn it over, it’s the most satisfying thing. Does it actually end up making the best song? I don’t know, but for me, it’s so much about the process.
The process is part of the end result. The listener doesn’t care. Ultimately, it’s, “Do I like the thing, do I not?” It doesn’t matter if it took six months, or if you recorded on Pro Tools, or if you recorded on a tape machine, or vintage guitars. That stuff is all secondary. For the consumer, it’s just, “What’s the product? Do I like it? Do I not like it?” Once you like it, then you might want to go deep, and you might want to learn what kind of drumsticks they used or something.
I’m geographically ignorant about Canada. I’ve interviewed a few other Canadian artists, like Hayden and Donovan Woods. Do you live anywhere near either of them?
AFIE: Well, they’re nowhere near me, only because I live on the far eastern part of Canada. I live in Nova Scotia. if you went to Maine and just kept going and kept going, you would eventually get to the end of the earth, which is basically as far as you can go in mainland Canada.
But of course, I know those guys because the music scene and the music industry in Canada is so small. We are one-tenth the size of the U.S., obviously. That being said, I do think we consistently kind of punch way above our weight in almost every genre, and we have forever. I mean, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Drake, The Weeknd, Feist. There are a million artists. And then some that I don’t even know about, but yeah, we’re constantly exporting our talent to the rest of the world. That’s a nice position to be in.
I think it’s the relationship between Canada and the U.S. You’re next to the big dog. It feels sometimes like you have to work a little bit harder. If there is any sort of competitive thing, I think it’s healthy. And like I said, I think it ultimately ends up producing things that aren’t just Canadian, they don’t feel provincial, they feel relatable to a much, much wider audience, and you certainly learn that pretty quick when you start touring.
The reason I bring up Hayden and Donovan is that all of you write in a very storytelling style. I’m paying attention to the lyrics more than a lot of other things I listen to. I don’t know if that has anything to do with you all being Canadian, but I think of all three of you in the same way.
AFIE: That’s interesting. I certainly couldn’t speak for their process, but for me, I like the lyrics a lot, too, and more and more, the thing that I find very rewarding and challenging is trying to get ideas into a song. I find, especially as a singer-songwriter, it’s very difficult to sing about modernity. There are just certain words, like “email.” You know how hard it is to say that in a song without it sounding cheesy or kind of taking you out of the song? In hip-hop and other genres, they’re much, much more accepting of that type of language. Whereas, in a singer-songwriter world, it’s almost more common to have a guy talking about traveling on a freight train or something, whereas you know he’s not on a freight train, he’s on his iPhone, right?
I have a song, the first song on this new record, has the word “sauna” in it right off the top. Getting that word into the song was so satisfying. I’m not even exactly sure what’s an eloquent way to describe it, but the fun that you can have with words, I’m sure you do the same as a writer, that is the challenge. And the frustrating and rewarding part of it is actually unlocking that combination. And once you do, it almost is like it always existed, and there could be no other way to do it. Of course, there’s a million ways to do it, but once it comes together, it’s very, very satisfying.
”Sauna,” as the first song on the album, jumped out to me. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that word in a song. Did you start with the title or did you have a line in the song that you needed out how to figure out a rhyme or something?
AFIE: That idea of the line “hiding in the sauna” and “you laughed at me when I called it marijuana,” you can kind of bend those things a little bit so they rhyme a little more nicely in the song. So, I kind of had that, and that was a launching pad. That’s often the case for many, many songs, you’ll have a line, or you’ll have something that conjures up an image, and you say, “Okay, well, right now, that just right away puts you into a place,” and then from there, you can figure out how the story kind of unravels.
Do you know Mike Viola? I’m a big fan of his. Some of the stuff that he sings about is just so funny. And maybe it’s just because I’m a parent or something, but he sings a lot about his kids in a cool way, and in a very literal way, too, and I just find that really pleasing, but again, it’s not easy. It’s a skill. The same way Van Morrison can seemingly sing about mopping floors, and I don’t even notice for the first 100 times I listen to it or something, and then I realize, “I think this song’s about cleaning a light or something,” you know? Unbelievable.
Most musicians who are hip to Mike get it right away. It’s really clever, it’s really thoughtful, and it has all the scrappy parts of indie rock, and it also has big moments. I think most people gravitate towards those types of records that have a real wide breadth of material on them.
If your album was a book, would it be fiction or nonfiction?
AFIE: I think it’s nonfiction.
Okay. So, there’s that lyric in “Feel So Good,” “if my music sounds confessional, you’ve read every song.” Is that sort of like you’re hoping that people do read all the words and kind of get to know who you are and understand?
AFIE: No, no, no. To me, it’s not important at all that people understand what the song’s about for me. In fact, it’s always very interesting to hear what other people think of it. For instance, I have this one song, “Lost in Light,” that I put out years ago. I’ve had multiple people tell me that they’ve gotten married to that song, and then I’ve had an equal amount of people tell me that they used that song at a funeral, or some sort of really solemn moment in their life. That song really provided them with some comfort. It’s so interesting because they have their own relationship with the song. For me, it’s about something completely different, you know?
This song’s about a mop, right?
AFIE: (laughs) Yeah, exactly, as long as you’re not just mopping the floor. I think in the case of that lyric that you’re talking about, I’m just saying that if you think my songs are confessional, that means you’ve kind of read into all these things. And it’s so true. There are plenty of moments from my life where I’m grabbing those moments, whether it’s with my children, or struggles with my partner, or whatever you might wrestle with.
But there are plenty of other things I write about, other things I observe, or read about, or friends that are struggling with, or even just scenarios that you make up in your mind, and you think, “Man, there’s something there.”
More and more, it matters less to me that I’m understood. It’s more just like, if you like it, you like it. I think about Beck. I used to love one Beck album. All his albums kind of have that quality, but I have no idea what the hell he’s singing about. But it doesn’t matter, because sometimes the music is so devastating or inspiring. All the information is there, and it’s reaching me as a listener, so if my music can have an ounce of that, then we’re good.
That’s why I ask about fiction or nonfiction, because I read the lyrics and you sing “I,” “me,” and “my” in every song. I was wondering, is that you or is that a character that you’re singing about from their perspective?
AFIE: Well, that’s interesting. That’s sort of a literary trick that I found works for me. I’ve tried singing from the other side. I found that often that ended up sounding mean, because the stuff that I was singing about was so personal. If I had said, like, “you did that,” it took away something from the song. So even if I am singing about someone else, I might just put it in the first person because I don’t know, it feels more confessional, and it feels like a better vehicle for the story. I think that’s the joy of the whole thing. All the different ways that one can weave together these things, or process events, or information. Dealing with shit, sometimes you just need to get it out.
There’s something about your songs that sound sort of like they are from the ‘70s but also sound timeless. I don’t think you sound like Dan Fogelberg or Jackson Browne, but I think some of the songs on this album could fit alongside artists like that on a playlist. Did you grow up listening to guys like that?
AFIE: No. My mother was an immigrant from Finland, and she had maybe half a dozen Finnish folk records. She did have a copy of Abbey Road, but we rarely had a record player that would function anyway, so she listened to classical music. At dinner time, she’d be listening to Beethoven’s Fifth or something.
I really discovered music through osmosis, through my friends. When I got into school, I met people that I thought were way cooler than me, and I was like, “I can’t believe I get to hang with these guys,” and they kind of tipped me off. First, it was rock music, and hip-hop. I was really into Run DMC and early rap. And then in high school, I had the coolest girlfriend, and she tipped me off to some Canadian indie rock, bands that I wouldn’t assume you would know in the U.S. But even that, it was short-lived and just very regional kind of thing.
The big one was Sloan and they’re still going. I saw them this summer, I played a show with them. But in the ’90s, they had their own label, and they would release other bands, like a band called The Super Friendz, and there was a band called Thrush Hermit. I was so inspired by the fact that they did it themselves, and they recorded their own albums, and they helped their friends out, and they went on tour together. Those early, formative years, realizing that you don’t have to wait for someone to knock on the door and anoint you as worthy. You can just start doing this stuff. That was really tied to getting into music myself.
In terms of the songs having a timeless quality, that’s definitely always what we want to have. At the risk of sounding arrogant or something, I think I don’t really mess around with the writing or the musicianship. I just find if those things are solid, then you’re working with very, very good ingredients. It’s kind of a crude analogy, but it’s like making food. You can try and dazzle someone by all these fancy ingredients and complicated methods for preparations, but if you just have a great steak, and fresh greens from the garden, and a sliced tomato, and you put some salt and pepper on it, you probably never have a better meal, you know? Or a fresh loaf of bread with butter on it and a glass of red wine. Is there anything better? I haven’t found it.
I try and take some sort of approach like that with music: you try and make the song as strong as it can be, and then each element that goes into it, from a sonic perspective, is just the best quality that can be, and that usually ends up with something pretty good. I’m not trying to ever purposely make something that sounds lo-fi or scrappy. The fidelity portion of it, I think, is pretty important, as important to me as the songs.
The album sounds great through headphones. When you’re recording, do you take the mixes and listen to them through headphones, through laptop speakers, in a car, just to listen to all the different ways the listeners might listen to the album?
AFIE: It’s all in the moment. I know right when we’re recording it if something’s not right, then I’ll fix it right there. I never assume we’ll fix it later. If it bugs me in that moment, it’ll just continue to bug me the entire time. There’s been scenarios where I left something and they’re like, “Oh, we’ll just fix that later,” and then every time that particular part of the song comes around, you’re almost wincing because you just know it’s unfinished business. I try and just get ahead of it.
I’m very fortunate to work with really talented musicians and engineers. It’s hardly a solo pursuit. I try to work with really great people, and then I kind of don’t have to worry about it, because I can just try and focus on giving a great performance and playing the best I can, and just trusting that things are going to be captured well, and that gives us the best possible stuff to work with.
How do songs come to you? Do you write in batches, or is it one song a month? Is it whenever the inspiration hits, or do you try to do a couple songs here, a couple songs there? Is there a standard way for you to write?
AFIE: There’s no standard way, but they tend to come in bunches. An idea will come, and then you’ll be all fired up, and you’ll want to do something again. And then there are other things that linger around for years, and you can’t figure out how to finish them, and then, for whatever reason, some days it just comes.
I think for me, all the clichés that people have said before are true. There are many, many times when you just feel like a vessel, and this idea kind of comes, and you’re like, “Whoa, this came out of nowhere.” And often those are the best ones because there’s no pressure behind it. You’re in that flow state, and it’s so satisfying. And then other things actually require working it, and those often can be just as satisfying, too, because it’s like solving a crossword puzzle when it really happens.
I really try not to stress about it. I know I’ve read articles with Jerry Seinfeld where he writes every single day, no matter what. He really believes you have to have a routine. And Paul Simon goes to his office in the Brill Building, and he sits at the piano. I play a lot of guitar, and I’ll play cover songs, or I’ll just play different things, noodling around the guitar, and sometimes you just play one little lick wrong, and that ends up being the thing that kind of, “Whoa, there’s something there, what’s that?” and that ends up being the thing that unlocks an entire song.
I certainly understand that approach, but I have three daughters, and I have not too much time, so if an idea feels good, I’m like, “Okay, that’s a cool idea, I’ll explore that idea.” I try not to sweat it too much because I try and just work with what I have.
Would you say that there are any songs on the record that are siblings? Any songs that sort of relate to each other, maybe thematically?
AFIE: Oh, that’s an interesting idea. I’m not sure. That song, “The Bridge,” I co-wrote that with this guy, Hiss Golden Messenger. Mike Taylor. I’m just a big fan of his. We just went back and forth on a text message during the pandemic, where he sent me this idea, and then I kind of thought, “That’s cool.” I didn’t know if we were writing for him, or what we were doing, but we ended up with this song, and I thought, “I like this.”
I ended up just writing about my kids. I hope it’s not the overarching theme to the record, but I’m in midlife. And it sort of has that quality to it that is a low-level intensity to every single day because everything is so important. I’m not going to try and say it should be important to anyone else, but every day matters. From the minute you get up to the minute you go to bed, you’re like, “Whew, that was a big one.” It’s all just sort of mundane, everyday stuff, and it somehow all matters, and when it goes sideways, it’s the most devastating thing. When it goes well, you feel like you’re a NASA engineer who just launched a rocket. I think there’s quite a bit of that type of stuff on the record, even if it’s not in a direct way. I think there’s a lot of that phase of life coming through in the songs.
Donovan Woods has a song “Portland, Maine,” and he’s got a song called “116 West Main, Durham, NC,” so he does location-specific writing. Is “Dearborn” a word that you wrote down thinking, “How do I get that into a song at some point?” or do you have a connection to Dearborn, Michigan?
AFIE: I watched a documentary on Henry Ford, and it just kind of blew my mind, and I learned all this stuff. I didn’t know he was an anti-Semite, and he had all this crazy stuff in his life. Dearborn, Michigan, something about that sounded great, and I went from there.
What’s a song that, that when you hear it, transports you back to a specific place and time in your life?
AFIE: A song that takes me back to something specific is “Bring da Ruckus” by Wu-Tang Clan. When I was 16, I worked at a ski resort. A lot of my friends would work there just because you got a free Season Pass if you worked there two or three shifts a week. Some of us would work the chairlift, and I would be the guy who collected the trays and put away the leftover french fries in the garbage. It was a great job for a teenager to have.
I would always get a ride there with my friend Doug’s older sister, and she was dating this guy named Scully, who was the coolest guy. He had a Volkswagen Golf, and he would smoke huge joints, and he would listen to Wu-Tang Clan so loud. I don’t know, not sheltered or whatever, but it just felt like another world to me.
I was listening to that record the other day on the drive. I just did a big drive back from Ontario, about 20 hours of driving, and I listened to that 36 Chambers record. The whole thing was just so nostalgic for me. I was like, “Oh my god.” And it’s also just so timeless, it’s so good. So, that is my pick. “Bring da Ruckus” brings me back to being 16 years old, sitting in the back of his Volkswagen Golf on the way to Snow Valley.
