interview by Chance Solem-Pfeifer | courtesy photo by Ben Salmon

The kind of Americana music The Felice Brothers tote around the country with them — much like the nation such a genre would claim to represent — is a cross-section of lifestyles.

When it’s written that the band is both a product of teeming New York City streets and the backwoods of upstate New York, both are true. Across five full albums, the closeness to both rural and urban spaces is what makes the moonshining songs sound drunk and stand-outs, like “Frankie’s Gun!”, sound desperate to make the rent.

Their new album, Cherry Licorice, was recorded at Mike Mogis’ ARC Studios in Omaha, the band’s first recording in a proper studio. The result, though, is something that, while full-bodied, is not a foreign translation from the subway platforms and remote family property where the Felice brothers began cutting their teeth as kids.

To preview their Saturday show at Slowdown with Robert Ellis, we spoke to James Felice, who supplies vocals, accordion and piano for the band. In contrast to the side-mouthed snarl of his brother Ian, James endows the band with sweetness. What that balance creates in The Felice Brothers is a sound varied enough to make its sharp blades sharper and its warmth warmer.

“Sometimes if your songs are too emotional, too sentimental, they’re blunted,” James says. “They don’t cut through. They bounce off you like a ping-pong ball.”

Listen below for the full phone interview with James Felice. We talk about Conor Oberst having to “Felice-ify” his sound when the band supported him on tour and the Midwestern equivalent of “hiding out in Jersey.”