The Duke and the King: easy listening for troubled times

Simon Felice (the Duke) and Robert 'Chicken' Burke (the King) (Credit: Dave Herron)

To most of his fans, Simone Felice is the energetic, charismatic drummer for the Felice Brothers, a ragtag folk-rock outfit he started with his siblings Ian and James in their hometown of Palenville, N.Y., in the Catskill Mountains. The band built its reputation with keen-witted, Dylanesque songwriting and an outlaw attitude that sometimes extended beyond their ramshackle concerts.

“When the Felice Brothers started, we did anything we had to do to get from town to town,” Simone admits with a laugh. “And sometimes that involved felonies.”
 
If the Felice Brothers’ sound embodies that kind of youthful, devil-may-care mentality, the sound of Simone’s new project, the Duke and the King, is more grown-up and contemplative. The music was shaped in part by Felice’s personal tastes—as the oldest and mellowest of the three brothers, he prefers “those ‘Easy Like Sunday Morning’ kind of songs”—but also by deep personal tragedy.

“It’s a meditation and an exorcism,” Felice says of the Duke and the King’s debut album, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” (out August 4 on Ramseur Records). Then he adds with another gentle laugh, “I’m glad it came out in a sort of easy listening way rather than a heavy metal way.”

From his home in Palenville, Felice talked about overcoming that personal tragedy, owned up to his soft rock jones, and tried to explain the many nicknames of his partner (the “King” in the Duke and the King), Robert “Chicken” Burke.

I’m sure like a lot of people, I got interested in this project because I knew you from the Felice Brothers. I actually saw a Felice Brothers show last year and the few times you got up from the drums and sang lead vocals, I thought, “That guy needs to get out from behind the drum kit more often.”
That’s what I’m doing! [Laughs]

In Felice Brothers, were you just not getting enough opportunities to do that?
Well, my brothers and I started the band probably four years ago. I’m a little bit older than my brothers and I’ve had some heavy tragedy happen during the winter. I was just recording songs that I had in my head, with my best friend Bob [Robert “Chicken” Burke], and my lady and I lost our baby in sort of a late-term miscarriage. It was really a life-changing thing for me. My brothers and I absolutely love each other, and I’ve sort of just passed the Felice Brothers torch to them.

I’m sorry to hear about your loss.
Well, thank you…it’s been about six months now and we’ve had good time to heal. Doctor said we’ll be able to have another healthy baby. This was just our first baby and we were really looking forward to it. I was singing songs to the belly and really feeling excited about it. It changed my life; it turned my whole world upside down and made me say: Hey, all this stuff that you’ve been maybe afraid to say or haven’t had the time to say, you’ve gotta say it. ‘Cause, man, it could all just wash away like a sandcastle.

The record is a very gentle, intimate record, but it doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a dark place. Most of the songs are very beautiful and hopeful.
Thank you, man. I’m glad that you feel that way. I’m glad it came out that way. More than anything, I think the songs are sort of like prayers. They’re sort of like mantras for my heart, for my girl’s heart. Growing up, the first music I ever listened to was Joni Mitchell. Her record “Blue,” I think, is probably my favorite, if I had to choose one. When I first got my Walkman, I was about 9 or 10, the song that mesmerized me and sort of got me high on music for the first time was “We Are the World.” It was such a hit in my little hick town. There was a hick radio station—they played it every half hour. So I would wait on my grandma’s lawn with my Walkman and my headphones on and wait for “We Are the World” and sing along. It made me feel like I was on another planet.

There is a reference in one of your songs to wanting your MTV, so you’re part of that MTV generation.
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I’m 32, I’m a little older than my brothers, so I grew up in that MTV time, so pop music and radio music—soft pop—I loved. Growing up, I loved hearing a Lionel Ritchie song. That’s the stuff I love and I’m not ashamed to say it. I love Phil Collins, I can’t front. I love Cyndi Lauper. And at the same time, I love Blind Willie McTell and all the great bluesmen. Nina Simone is one of my favorites. Jimi Hendrix is my hero.

It sounds like the process you and Robert…Bob, you called him?
I call him Bob, I call him Bird. He’s got a lot of names.

He’s the King, he’s Chicken, he’s Bird—how many nicknames does he have?
He’s got a bunch. I think people that have the biggest spirits have a lot of nicknames—like the Devil. The weirdest spirits have a lot of different people inside them.

Not that you’re comparing your partner to the Devil.
No, no, no. It’s like Al Pacino says in “The Devil’s Advocate,” “I have many names.” [Laughs] But, you know, he’s one of my best friends and toured around with Sweet Honey in the Rock, one of the best a cappella groups. He was the first drummer to play with them on a couple world tours. When he came back from those tours, I really sensed a new thing that he had, and it was this sort of understanding of vocal harmony and the strange sort of magic that happens when harmonies come together. That’s one of my favorite things about pop music—harmony—like the Eagles, Crosby, Stills and Nash. I love the Beach Boys, we love old Funkadelic, and funky sorta singing bands: the Impressions, the Band, the way they would blend those voices together.

I thought it was interesting that both you and Bob are drummers, yet the emphasis on this album is really on melody and vocal harmony. There are beats on there sometimes, but it sort of takes a backseat to the other elements.
It’s not a drum clinic at Guitar Center—thank god! The funny thing is, Stevie Wonder was a drummer. So was Marvin Gaye and Barry White; Paul McCartney played a lot of drums, and I think we come from that kind of school where the drums just sort of serve the song and help get the meaning of the song across. The touring group is a three-piece: It’s me and Bob and Nowell Haskins, he’s the son of Fuzzy Haskins from the original Parliament-Funkadelic, which is cool. He’s one of our best friends, and he’s a drummer too. So the touring group is three singing drummers.

Have James and Ian heard the record yet?
Yeah, actually James sent me a text the other day out of the blue and it said, “‘Lose My Self’ is the shit!” So that made me feel really good. Somebody must have given him the record, and him saying that made me feel proud. It was better than any kind of review that could have come in.