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" Here&amp;#039;s the thing about fiddles, accordions, and talk of swilling whiskey: They don&amp;#039;t necessarily have to be employed by an earnest folk outfit in order to work, and they can coexist without coming across as trite and cheesy in a rock setting. The Felice Brothers picked up the nearest instruments that happened to fit in more at a bluegrass jam than a dank punk venue when they started piecing songs together in 2006, and their acoustic identity didn&amp;#039;t direct the formation and foundation of their musical tastes. Favorite Waitress, out on June 17 via Dualtone, is the first in The Felice Brothers&amp;#039; arsenal to perfectly meld their Americana-by-necessity beginnings and rambunctious rock tendencies. In the wake of 2011&amp;#039;s plugged-in and turned-up Celebration, Florida and God Bless You, Amigo, their exploration in traditional music that featured original compositions alongside Carter Family and Blind Lemon Jefferson covers, Favorite Waitress is a product of a life in the band van, and its songs were tested out at a number of live performances before the guys even thought about heading back into the studio. &amp;quot;Cherry Licorice&amp;quot; is an apt representation of why they&amp;#039;ve ditched amps and synths for a slight return to their roots. Before heading into sound check at a gig in Louisville last week, James Felice walked us through the process that brought Favorite Waitress into being.      ESQUIRE.COM: In what ways did Favorite Waitress break new ground for The Felice Brothers? JAMES FELICE: For the first time, we were able to incorporate everything we&amp;#039;ve learned as a band for the past eight years. The vibe of the last record, Celebration, Florida, was dark and murky. I think we all loved it, and that&amp;#039;s what we were all going for, but we didn&amp;#039;t want to make a folk record, and that was definitely stepping away from even the possibility of getting confused with Americana and folk. We learned a lot of lessons with that record and applied them all to this, in terms of production and songwriting and arranging. While the execution is a little more like the old-school stuff, the songwriting is better. It&amp;#039;s more mature. ESQ: You&amp;#039;re one of the only bands I know that can work in an accordion without making people think of the polka or something. What inspired the shift from a hard-rocking song like &amp;quot;Ponzi&amp;quot; to the wholesome appeal of &amp;quot;Cherry Licorice&amp;quot;?  FELICE: This record, we definitely wanted it to be a reflection of our live show. We honed it on the road. When we went into the studio to record it, we recorded it mostly live, with the intention of playing these songs and having them sound similar to the way they do live, and vice versa. That was very important to us. When we first started, for the first couple of records, even, we hadn&amp;#039;t done a lot of touring. Every studio we ever worked in was one we sort of built ourselves, so to actually go to a real studio in a different city was completely illuminating, and it gave us the opportunity to really play the songs because we didn&amp;#039;t have the ceremony of building a studio and testing it out. The bulk of the record, 90 percent of it, was done in a week. Practicing the songs and playing them live a lot brought us to a point where we could bang them out pretty quick. ESQ: How important is travel when it comes to writing and creating something to be proud of? Does the ability to live out of a suitcase lend itself to the kind of stories you want to tell? FELICE: Absolutely. There&amp;#039;s a certain romanticization that happens [laughs]. I hadn&amp;#039;t done any traveling at all in my whole life. I had never been on an airplane before we flew to England for the first time to play. It definitely opened my mind, especially when you realize what a big, beautiful country this is and how many types of people there are here. It&amp;#039;s an eye-opening and beautiful experience, to take it all in and bring it home. ESQ: You&amp;#039;ve opened for some huge acts over the course of the past few years, namely Dave Matthews Band and Mumford and Sons. What was something you&amp;#039;ve learned from the bigger productions you were a part of that you were able to apply to Favorite Waitress? FELICE: We toured with The Killers for a little while, and watching a guy like Brandon Flowers and seeing what a professional he is, he just works. Every day he goes to sound check and is merciless on himself. I don&amp;#039;t know what their schedule is like, but they must do 200 shows a year, day after day after day, and he maintains this incredible enthusiasm, energy, and professionalism. That&amp;#039;s an inspiring thing. There are times when you play show after show, and you take it for granted that that&amp;#039;s what you do with your life, but these guys who have been doing it longer than us at a higher level, I think that&amp;#039;s one of the secrets to their success. And every show seems like a huge deal to them. ESQ: What was a show that was a huge deal to you? When we talk about the tours that served as the testing ground for Favorite Waitress, what were the pivotal moments that formed the foundation of the record? FELICE: Well, we got a new drummer who has a totally different feel in the way he plays. His talent revitalized the band in a way, and we started to realize that we had become better musicians, and that we just had a lot of fun in a very tight group who really enjoyed playing together. When we were starting out, we were pretty ramshackle! We knew how to play our instruments, but we didn&amp;#039;t really know what we were doing up onstage, and so we made up for that with enthusiasm and the quality of the songwriting, which I still think is the most important thing. Now, we understand music, and I&amp;#039;d even go so far as to call all of us in the band musicians. [Laughs] I think one of the strengths of [Ian Felice&amp;#039;s] lyric writing and our music is he can create a really interesting world and have it be emotionally resonant, and humorous, too. I think that&amp;#039;s one thing about this record, is that it&amp;#039;s funny, in a lot of ways. There are a lot of interesting, funny, quirky concepts in there, and it has a more modern feel to it, even though the instrumentation might be an acoustic guitar, fiddle, and accordion. The themes and the stories for the most part take place in a modern-day environment. I think that&amp;#039;s something that&amp;#039;s interesting and kind of new about this record. It feels very contemporary to me. ESQ: Isn&amp;#039;t that what you&amp;#039;re about? How do you confront expectations set before you, or assumptions people make based on your instrumentation? FELICE: We were completely shocked when we found out you&amp;#039;re not supposed to [play traditional instruments] if you&amp;#039;re a young person. When we first started playing music, we played what we played because that&amp;#039;s what we had: We had an acoustic guitar and an old, piece-of-shit accordion and a fiddle. You couldn&amp;#039;t busk in the subway with an amp, and no one could afford one. There were no electric guitars or synthesizers. We just started playing the music we could play with the tools that we had. There was never, ever a conscious decision to play old-timey music. We love that music of course, and that was very inspiring, especially old Delta blues and Pete Seeger and Jimmie Rodgers, stuff like that. We never felt like we had to stay within those confines. The music is folk music because of the themes and story, not because of the instrumentation, and that&amp;#039;s something that some people don&amp;#039;t understand. Folk music is music by regular people, not rock and pop stars. We&amp;#039;d still be a folk band because of the nature of the songs that we write. It&amp;#039;s not because of the superficial aspects or instrumentation. Maybe that&amp;#039;s true, maybe it&amp;#039;s not, but we&amp;#039;ve always had a bit of a punk, DIY ethos, a &amp;quot;Get mad! Play loud!&amp;quot; kind of thing. We used to do that a lot. We still do sometimes. 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<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/news/a28078/felice-brothers-cherry-licorice/>