Simone Felice was at home in the Catskill Mountains, upstate New York when Tone Deaf’s Anaya Latter spoke to him. Having just finished a novel Black Jesus and about to tour to Australia for the first time, Felice was in an eloquent and philosophical mood.
The writing for the ear and writing for the eye are different arts, and Felice, having dabbled in both, draws a distinction between them. “Obviously they are two different disciplines, two different modalities but storytelling springs from the same well, you know? When you sing, it’s really nice because you get to have a group feeling, even if it’s just a solo show, you and the audience can all interact and you can all sing together. Writing a book is a very solo endeavour. Sometimes it’s good to be lonely and other times it’s good to be with your friends, you know? So it’s a balancing act I guess.
Storytelling is a theme that Felice returns to. “I feel like it’s important for us to get together and share stories…I think the more we can study and delve into heart of mankind and womankind the more we can dig into the heart and understand the different kinds of characters that walk the earth, the more we can understand ourselves and our role as human beings.”
His novel Black Jesus which will see him speak at both the Melbourne and Brisbane writers festivals explores universal themes of love and polarity, and Felice feels like it’s the kind of rarely-told chronicle that he wants to share: “It’s a love story between two young wounded broken American kids. I feel like it’s important to tell the stories of people who are on the fringes of society these are the kinds of people I grew up around. Not everybody’s a knight in shining armour or a debutant; the most important stories are the stories of the common folk, the people that live in the shadows or are brushed under the rug. Black Jesus is a story about healing and how love can help to heal you, and I think it really is a true thing that I’ve witnessed it in my own life how love can heal you.
“I think that polarity is ever present in the world. You have day and night, sickness and health, love and hate, war and peace, the one would not be what it is without the other, so I feel like polarity is ever present on planet earth beyond man’s grasp and that it is a basic truth of what needs to be in the universe you know?”
When it comes to writing Felice focuses on how the words feel, “the words on the page, they’re just words, but if you can put them together on the right string – like on a beaded necklace – if you can find the right string of words you can really bring them to life,” he says.
In terms of what audiences can expect from Felice’s acoustic solo tour, he says “I’m going to be singing songs from the Felice Brothers days, from the Duke and The King days and also songs that nobody’s ever heard before. I’m going to be reading from my book a bit at these shows, and I want to feel that feeling like I said before of everyone sitting around a campfire and passing tall tales around and just being together – I want to have that feeling, because it feels really important and it makes me feel alive when I can feel that way because that’s the way I grew up.”
Simone Felice may be better known as the main songwriter and frontman of The Duke and the King or The Felice Brothers, which he left in 2009 and as the name suggests, there is a family tie. His brothers, The Felice Brothers, along with Mumford and Son, make contributions to his forthcoming debut solo album. “I’m just focusing on my solo album and my novel Black Jesus for the next couple of years – but you never know what the future’s got in hold.”
Felice says it is amongst his proudest work, “[the album] will be coming out early next year hopefully February or March and I really I’m the proudest of it of any work that I’ve done so far so I’m excited to share it with everybody. I’ll be singing some songs from it on this little tour in September, but I’m sure I’ll be back next year for a full nation wide tour.”
Felice is keen to visit Australia. “It’s doubly exciting for me. It’s my first time down there. I’ve heard amazing things about the landscape and the people and I’m really looking forward to being down there and to finally get to sing and share stories.”
He reveals has been reading two very different kinds of books, with some initial hesitation to admit to them: “Do you want me to tell you the truth? I just finished reading Just Kids the memoir by Patti Smith. It’s amazing, it’s so beautiful, just the way she describes her own unfolding and flowering as an artist and a woman and coming into her own – it’s really inspirational. That’s the book that I’m not ashamed to say I’ve read. But right now? Right now I’m reading the third book in George R R Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire. I started watching the HBO special Game of Thrones, and so I got hooked on the show so I started to read the books. It’s like being a kid again and reading Lord of the Rings, except it’s X-rated and ultra violent.”
If you cared to imagine Felice sitting in his home in the Catskills, perhaps reading the Game of Thrones books, he is likely to be wearing his favourite footwear: “I have a pair of Wellington Boots, I’m wearing them right now, and we get a lot of rain here in the summer, it’s a lot like Ireland, so I love to wear them because I know that my feet are going to be dry no matter what puddle I step in.”
SIMONE FELICE : AUSTRALIAN TOUR : SEPTEMBER 2011
ALL TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT www.lovepolice.com.au/tours
WEDNESDAY 7 • THE VANGUARD, SYDNEY, NSW Plus Catherine Traicos
WEDNESDAY 14 • NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB, MELBOURNE, VIC Plus Catherine Traicos
THURSDAY 15 • PALAIS, HEBURN SPRINGS, VIC Plus Jordie Lane
FRIDAY 16 • MEENIYAN TOWN HALL, MEENIYAN, VIC Plus Jordie Lane
