THE Felice Brothers, the Americana family band from the Catskill Mountains, are ending their July jaunt around Britain with tonight's main-stage appearance just before headliner Billy Bragg at the Deer Shed Festival at Baldersby Park,Topcliffe.

"I've heard good things about the festival," says James Felice, on the phone from upstate New York. "I never knew until I went there that once you pull away the gloom, England is the most beautiful place."

Last year's album, Favourite Waitress, will feature prominently in the show, "though our sets have been pretty varied lately", and maybe there will be the possibility of new numbers too. "I missed your first call today because we're recording songs in the garage right now, here in beautiful upstate New York, where I live in the foothills of the Catskills.

"I hope we're really close to the new album being done. It's pretty much all recorded, though it's hard to say it's finished till it's out of hands and being mixed."

The new album will be a more emotional record, reveals James. "Not in a soppy way, but in a personal way. My brother Ian has a different angle on his songs on this record. They remind me of being at home," he says. "But I think everybody is going to connect to these songs; the album will hit the sweet-spot."

The Felice Brothers' rootsy music, with its rough-around-the-edges charm, was forged initially at home when the self-taught brothers cut their teeth playing as a family band at their carpenter father’s weekly Sunday barbecues. "We still do that, but it's mostly the barbecue part these days," says James.

Their self-released debut album, 2006's Through These Reins And Gone, was marked by songs of wild behaviour, outlaw ways and drinking, and such songs featured on later albums too. "But as we get older, we do tend to write much less about those things now," says James, who is joined in the present line-up by brother Ian, Josh Rawson, Greg Farley and David Estabrook.

"There's an adolescent fantasy about violence and bloodshed and behaving like a**holes, but that's in the past. Now our songs are about bad behaviour in your thirties, leaving home and taking responsibility. We've been a band on the road for almost ten years and living this life for a very long time, and sometimes you can feel disconnected when people are starting families and you're not. You do have to accept that...or maybe not."

It is difficult for everyone, he says, trying to make ends meet and have a family. "That's really tough unless you're getting rich, and that's not happening for us, and that's fine. We're in a job, we're a working-class band, and it's the most pleasurable job in the world," says James. "It can be so exciting and it's always different and even the darkest days aren't that bad."

The Felice Brothers play the Main Stage tonight at the Deer Shed Festival, Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, Thirsk. The festival, which has sold out, runs until Sunday; more information at deershedfestival.com