Felice Brothers: Life In The Turning Light
By Team JamBase Aug 13, 2008 • 12:10 pm PDT
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Dance the cold night away to a Johnny Cash tape/ Dance your way into heaven’s gate/ Tip your own true love in the rain/ Leave her there where the saxophones play/ Boy you’re young as can be, you got country to see/ You’re a long ways from heaven’s gate.
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“We’re definitely interested in that whole world. We weren’t carneys growing up but we grew up outside of society, in a way, poor and screwing around in the woods and committing small acts of vandalism and misdemeanors – a few felonies but nothing serious,” says James Felice. “So, to an extent, we idolize characters like that because that’s what all the greatest books we’ve read – Faulkner and Hemingway and [Cormac] McCarthy – write about – the real, true Americans and the real, true people of the world. No one wants to hear a fucking song about the king and the queen anymore.”
Trouble is foreshadowed throughout this Stateside debut, which follows 2007’s import only Tonight at the Arizona and tour-only cash generator Adventures of The Felice Brothers Vol. 1 (which was reportedly recorded on two-track tape in a chicken coop). It’s not hard to imagine all hell breaking loose in their tales, if only for all the guns their characters are packing.
“We do have a thing for guns [laughs]. We own guns and we shoot guns ’cause a gun is America, you know? Nothing really represents America like a gun. It’s a dangerous, seductive instrument,” observes James. “When you go overseas, particularly in England where no one has any guns, they’re always shocked at the gun references. I say, ‘Well, I’m shocked your police don’t have guns!’ We hear guns going off all the time; we live a quarter mile from a gun range, and we have the pleasant pitter-patter of rifle fire.”
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“That’s sort of what America’s like. It’s vaguely fucked up wherever you live. You can get a gun SO easily, and there’s psychopaths out there that can get ’em and got ’em. And that’s what it’s all about in some ways,” says James. “It’s hard to catch that in Steely Dan, that they’re singing about guns and not yachts [laughs]. There’s definitely a sinister undertone to some of their songs.”
We live in a pretty pejorative age, and fans of getting pleasantly loaded don’t have many new anthems. The Felice Brothers help out with ditties about Oxycontin, whiskey and reefer. They tap into the Dionysian splendor of being out of one’s right mind, the kind of bent where you tear at your clothes and get loud and free. That is until the next morning, when ball-peen hammers start working the back of your eyes and your mouth tastes like wilted bok choy and ass. As Jerri Blank would say, “Good times, good times.”
A bottle of scotch/ A dime sack and a diamond watch/ Wouldn’t you like that?/ A bottle of gin/ A typewriter and a violin/ Wouldn’t you like that?
“That makes so many people happy. I don’t do drugs but I drink and I know how happy a bottle of scotch can make me. Self-medication, my friend, is a necessity,” James says. “Some people do take it too seriously. They’re just too serious about their drugs. It’s recreational, and there’s nothing really more to it than that. It’s just something people like to do. And be joyful when you do it, because if you aren’t then it probably means you don’t got it and you’ll hurt somebody to get it. You gotta explore a little bit; you only live so long.”
Continue reading for more on The Felice Brothers…
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There’s a cinematic bent to The Felice Brothers’ work. They really paint a scene, where you smell the hops and fresh blood, feel the shaky floor under you as you twirl with a gal three times too lovely for the likes of you, just thrilled to graze her pearlescent skin and carry the scent of her expensive perfume home on your sleeve. Their people, like our people, are hungry for experience and pleasure, and the movie inside the fifteen tracks on their latest release is moving and gallows funny, black mooded and happier than the morning sun – in short, shoehorned with wonderful contradictions. They take us to speakeasies and shady rendezvous, which distract from the daily grind as well as comment on it.
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One song that exemplifies their serious-as-a-heart-attack craftsmanship is “Helen Fry,” where nothing in the opening moments hints at where the track goes. There’s an internal logic that makes the seemingly disparate elements blend – a delightfully oddball swing that infuses much of their catalog.
“That’s a testament to our producer/engineer Jeremy Backofen, who helps facilitate that sort of thing. When we first started to record we didn’t know anything! I’d never been in a studio before,” says James. “He’s helped us with arrangements, and he’s really good at finding the sonic character of a song. ‘Helen Fry’ is a good example, where it’s dirty and grungy, and that’s all him.”
Another new track, “Goddamn You, Jim,” makes you lean in to pick up James’ just-above-a-whisper singing and then drops what sounds like the most mic’d marching band drum ever into the quietude. “That drum sound is cool. It’s only two mics and a room mic but the gain is turned up all the way,” James says. “Simone just tapped very gently on the bass drum and snare, then we ran it through a reverb bank. That booming sound is just the mics being set so high.”
“When we’re in the studio, we’re up for 19-20 hours a day for a month. Our whole world is that. We don’t go home or hang out with girls or anything. We’ll take a day off if we’re about to stab each other with pens or crack accordions over each other’s head,” laughs James. “I’d rather do no work than bad work. If I’m gonna do it then it has to be good. We’re just a bunch of guys in a room trying to figure out the songs we’ve written. All we’ve got is our music. It’s all we do. We worked long and hard on the self-titled record – the sequencing and everything. This is what we’re about. This is the music we love to play.”
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“Simone, Ian and I all sing; Ian sings the most. It helps the music, especially on record, to change up the voices. I liken it to not using the same guitar sound on each song. And live it helps give each other a break. We get at it pretty hard and I don’t think one man could sing the whole show,” says James. “None of us are great singers and none of us are trained. You listen to records and sing along, and eventually you sing your own stuff.”
The right folks are listening, too. Besides a steady, almost universally enthusiastic buzz in the music press on both sides of the Atlantic, the Brothers have caught the attention of The Band’s Levon Helm, who invited them to play one of his increasingly legendary Midnight Rambles.
“That was one of the only times I’ve ever been nervous onstage,” recalls James. “First off, Levon is there and other great musicians like Jimmy Vivino, plus all the people who’ve driven two hours to get there. It was just awesome. It’s got pews almost and looks like it could be the church in an old western town, and Levon is the preacher. He’s 70-years-old and he has eternal joy. You can just see it in his eyes. It’s indestructible.”
The conversation turns to the financial screwing everyone except Robbie Robertson got after The Band broke up.
“Garth Hudson still struggles to this day. Those guys shouldn’t have to work. It’s kinda crazy but that’s what happens when money gets involved with music,” observes James. “I have no big ideas. For us, it’s about having enough to eat and not having a real job [laughs]. Do what you love. You only have a little time to do it.”
Ooh, happy days are here
It’s a perfect summer night and moonlight’s shining clear
Put your pistol in your purse ’cause we are going to Gettysburg
To the stands of the greatest show on earth
The Felice Brothers are on tour now, dates available here.
Here’s an intimate, impromptu performance of “Her Eyes Dart Round” from the 2007 Cornbury Festival.
And here’s the boys in all their ramshackle glory on “Frankie’s Gun” at this year’s Clearwater Music Festival.
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