The Felice Brothers Interview: Crumbled to Nothing
The Felice Brothers have always built worlds with their songs. Like some of their best records, their latest, From Dreams to Dust (Yep Roc), culls from a small space and internalized thoughts and then expands outward. Recorded last winter in an 1873 one-room church that Ian Felice acquired and renovated, From Dreams to Dust uses existential, COVID-era anxieties as a launching point for personal growth. Per usual, the songwriting was divided between Ian and James Felice, but the songs share common views on the things that dominate our thoughts, good and bad. Capitalism gets the best of the characters on Ian’s “Jazz on the Autobahn” and “Money Talks”, whether they’re corporate criminals, sheriffs, or outlaws, while scavenger hunts for happiness supply the backbone of his “To-Do List” and “Valium”. James’ head enters the clouds on “All The Way Down”, a somber tune about the creator of a new AI, and the painkiller haze of “Blow Him Apart”, while his persona comes crashing down to humility on “Silverfish”; multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis (who mixed the album) provides heady Marxophone and pedal steel. And the album’s two palate cleansers are eulogy “Be At Rest” and 8-minute, Dylan-esque closer “We Shall Live Again”, triumphant radical optimism dedicated to everyone “From Francis of Assisi / To the fans of AC/DC.”
From Dreams to Dust is The Felice Brothers’ second full-length with the lineup of Ian, James, bassist Jesske Hume, and drummer Will Lawrence, and you can hear the chemistry they’ve developed. “To-Do List” is a first-take gem rife with Ian’s guitar solos and barroom piano, “Celebrity X” a Bob Seger-like choogler. Of course, many songs offer fantastic individual moments, like the gorgeous acoustic guitar picking of “Inferno”, but for the most part, the songs on From Dreams to Dust are the type you’re going to want to hear live because of their instrumental prowess. Appropriately, I spoke with James over the phone while the band was driving through Pennsylvania, on the way from New York to Boise, Idaho on tour. Tonight, they play Lincoln Hall. James emphasized that while the band understands that not everybody will be comfortable coming to shows right now, they can’t wait to play for a room of masked, vaccinated fans.
Read my conversation below, edited for length and clarity.
SILY: How would you say From Dreams to Dust is unique as compared to any other Felice Brothers album?
James Felice: That’s a good question. It was approached a little differently. It was recorded during the pandemic. We made it in a church. A lot of the process was just me and Ian sitting around. The church had a piano we just bought, and I was trying to make things that made sense to us in that space.
SILY: I’m intrigued by the opening track, “Jazz on the Autobahn”. I don’t know if anybody else has asked you this, but the melody and Ian’s talk-singing reminds me a lot of The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane”.
JF: When he first played the song for me, I thought, “It does sound a lot like The Velvet Underground,” which is a cool reference, and I think it works really well in the song. I was sort of surprised that not too many people had mentioned that in the reviews.
SILY: I like the line, “‘What is freedom?’ he thought, ‘Is it to be empty of desire?’” Do you know what inspired that line?
JF: When I hear it, I think [of it] in the Buddhist sense, almost, escaping from the feeling of desire. In reference to that worldview, I think that is true. Being empty of desire, chasing the next high, chasing the next experience, is freeing.
SILY: “To-Do List” is full of things that are very specific and attainable [“Wash all the pots and linens”] but also things that are broad and only attainable depending on how you define them [“test the limits of love”].
JF: Part of that is done for comedic effect, but we do have those crazy, unattainable goals. We all do. “Be happy. Find meaning in my life. But also I need to buy cereal and change the tires on the car.” It’s a good illustration of how our minds work, these mundane, milquetoast things we do but also these grand aspirations.
SILY: The character in the song “Valium” idealizes the American West. The song is right before the song “Inferno”, whose characters seem to idealize past moments in their own lives. Was that a purposeful juxtaposition?
JF: Yeah, I think with the genre of music we play, idealization and sentimentality are powerful factors, especially when you’re thinking about the American West because it really wasn’t like that at all. You can say the same thing about moments in our past. Strange moments in our lives stick with us for no reason.
SILY: The song “Silverfish” has a lot of lines about finding different unpleasant household bugs, but where does the “guy from Leeds” who “sends my girlfriend memes” fit in?
JF: The song is about helplessness, in a certain way, against these forces that seem so insignificant, like a wasp’s nest or silverfish bugs. And also stuff like some dude flirting with your girlfriend on the internet. There’s nothing you can really do about that. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just something that makes you feel helpless and impotent. I’m realizing that I feel the same emotions I feel when I see those memes pop up as when I see a bunch of mice living in my car.
SILY: The poet John Clare was mentioned as an inspiration in the track-by-track commentary for “Land of Yesterdays”. When were you or the band in general aware of his poetry?
JF: You know what? That’s a question that you’d have to ask Ian. I should read [Clare], though. I don’t know his work very well.
SILY: Is that something common in your songwriting process as a band, since all of you have such different influences? That the rest of you can channel something without being super familiar with it?
JF: I think so. Ian and I also have diverging interests sometimes. He sometimes writes a line or verse or a whole song and I really have no idea what the hell he’s talking about. But I just enjoy it and try not to ask too many questions, because it can diminish the enjoyment of the song for me. There are definitely lines in a lot of his songs that I think are references to poets I don’t know or artists I’m not familiar with. He’s a smart guy.
SILY: Were there any newfound lyrical or instrumental influences on this record for you or the band?
JF: That’s a good question. It didn’t really come into making this record. We sort of meandered our way through it in the studio. We weren’t listening to a lot of music while making it. Part of the reason was we didn’t have internet in the church, so we didn’t have access to any other music. And there was no record player.
SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the album title?
JF: It’s in a line from “Be At Rest”. Ian sent me the demo, and I thought the song had a beautiful sentiment. We made the record at a certain point when live music was dead or dying. All of our dreams, aspirations, places to go and sing crumbled to nothing. It’s sort of a morbid, dark sentiment, but it felt right for the times.
SILY: What about the cover art?
JF: That was another choice by Ian. That’s an unknown painting from the mid-19th century. It was hanging in a museum near his house. It felt right. It’s a strange winterscape that felt from the same place as a lot of the songs.
SILY: Is it pretty easy to adapt these songs to the live stage?
JF: For most of them, it’s totally natural and easy because we recorded a lot of them live anyway.
SILY: You recorded this album last fall. What have you been up to in the meantime? Are you always writing new music?
JF: We were writing music over the winter. I was taking other jobs just to pay the rent. Now, it’s focusing on tour. There’s a lot to get together. We have to start from scratch in a lot of ways. Survive and thrive for the next month and a half. Then the winter starts again, so I guess it’s time to record another record.
SILY: Anything you’ve been listening, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?
JF: I just listened to Frances Quinlan’s solo record [Likewise]. It’s so good! I’ve been re-watching The Wire since Michael K. Williams died. It still holds up so well.
