Features

Spotlight: The Felice Brothers

Photo by Nolan Conway

When your band forms in the shadow of Woodstock, N.Y, people tend to have certain preconceived notions about your childhood. One is that you idolized Bob Dylan and The Band. Another is that you view Woodstock as something of a cultural Mecca. Though The Felice Brothers live in Upstate New York and have played Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles, the members came are not your typical new-school hippies embracing the region’s past ethos.

“Somewhere along the line, people built a story about us,” says Ian Felice, the band’s lead singer and primary songwriter, shortly after the release of this spring’s Celebration, Florida. “We grew up near Woodstock, but we came from a fairly different social-economic environment. I listened to Nirvana and hip-hop music as much as I listened to roots music, [delta bluesman] Skip James, older blues and Appalachian music.”

In 2005, when he was still in his early 20s, Ian recorded a solo album under the name The Felice Brothers. Around the same time, he also put together a band with his brothers Simone and James. “A lot of what we talked about as kids was lyrical and poetic music—very literary stuff,” says Ian, who typically plays guitar and sings but also plays keys on occasion. “We each grew up with our mom, and music was how we bonded.”

Along with friends Greg Farley and Christmas Clapton, The Felice Brothers started busking in New York’s subway stations. None of them were particularly accomplished musicians but the group settled on a loose configuration of fiddle (Greg), bass (Christmas), guitar (Ian), accordion (James) and drums (Simone). They used traditional instruments but played them as if they were a garage band.

The group emerged at a time of economic and political turmoil, when fragmented pockets of the indie community simultaneously moved toward disco-influenced electronica and roots music. “People are disillusioned with modern society,” Ian reasons. “This [roots] type of music is therapeutic and healing. It is country music—it’s simple.”

“Ian knows the most about that type of music but it wasn’t all he listened to,” Clapton adds. “We never really tried to make music like that—it just kind of came out the way it did.”

The Felice Brothers recorded their early albums in such unconventional spaces as a Shakespeare camp and a converted chicken coop. Despite their Americana-influenced sound, the group attracted the most attention across the pond. “The first label that we were on was this English label,” Clapton says. “So many bands have found success in England first.”