Making 'Quick And Dirty' Music

It's been nearly nine years since ragtag troupe The Felice Brothers staggered out of New York’s Catskill Mountains, and they’re still clutching tightly to their old-time worldview and ramshackle aesthetic. Indeed, last year’s fifth official album Favorite Waitress (on top of five ‘bootleg’ collections) marked a return to their core Americana ideals, following the relative experimentation of its 2011 predecessor Celebration, Florida.

“It wasn’t so much a ‘sound’ agenda as it was an ‘efficiency’ agenda – we just wanted to make an album kinda quick and dirty,” recalls multi-instrumentalist James Felice. “We wrote the songs pretty quickly, and we just wanted to make it quick – the one before had been a little bit more time intensive, so for this one we just said, ‘Let’s have some fun!’”

Interestingly they recorded Favorite Waitress in Mike Mogis’ Nebraska studio, having previously favoured makeshift set-ups in chicken coops and abandoned schools.

“[Being in a studio] it didn’t take so long to set everything up, and we had electricity and running water and stuff like that, which makes everything better,” Felice laughs. “It was quick and efficient and just a great experience.

“Every time we make a record it becomes funner and easier for us, and more creative because we’re just better – better at working together, better at playing music and better at getting out of the music what we want.”

Mogis is also a long-term member of Conor Oberst’s band Bright Eyes, with The Felice Brothers embarking on an Australian tour during which – as well as their own shows – they open for Oberst and then act as his backing band.

“We [go back a long way], we’ve been friends since we first toured together back in 2007,” Felice enthuses. “It’s always a pleasure to see him and work with him – he’s just such an amazing guy. We met when we went on tour with him – he brings new bands out on the road to let them open for him and we just happened to be one of those bands, and we hit it off pretty well and have just been friends ever since.”

The Felice Brothers have backed Oberst before, and James explains that they relish the opportunity.

“It’s challenging and can be a little intimidating at first, but it’s so refreshing – it’s so nice to have that different perspective,” he tells. “It challenges you as a musician – [The Felice Brothers] is the only band I’ve been in for my entire professional life, so playing somebody else’s songs is sorta like being splashed in the face with water, in the best way possible. It makes you look at everything differently, and realise... I’m actually a musician,’ which is a lovely point of view.”