You Can't Label Prog Rock Derek Ferguson Explores Refestramus's New Album
The band is ecstatic to be included in ProgDay.
“There’s a motivated energy in the band,” says Refestramus leader/drummer/songwriter Derek Ferguson. “ProgDay is exactly the kind of listener-first crowd this band was built for.”
Refestramus’ sound leans on vintage rock hardware—Hammond organ, distorted guitars. The lyrics pull source material from Bulgakov, Kurosawa, Orthodox iconography, and Slavic folklore, all of it delivered with a refusal to take itself too seriously. For fans of Kansas, Styx, Van der Graaf Generator, Crack the Sky, and Flying Colors.
Their latest album, “Morri’s Rock Boutique,” produced by Ian Beabout, features guest appearances from David Jackson (Van der Graaf Generator), Joe Deninzon (Kansas/Stratospheerius), Rick Witkowski (Crack the Sky), and members of Octarine Sky. Ferguson says 'Morri’s' was “created to be heard at ProgDay,” as the album continues to grow in the rock world.
Progressor.net calls the album “a blast from beginning to end.” Prog writes that “Morri’s Rock Boutique” has “a smile on its face [that] is infectious.” Music Street Journal adds: “Unique and innovative… entertaining.”
Refestramus members performing at ProgDay include Ferguson, along with Mitch Lawrence (saxophone), and Octarine Sky’s Jan Christiana (lead vocals, bass) and Dyanne Potter Voegtlin (keyboards, vocals), plus Rocket Scientist and Interdiscipline (Crimson tribute) guitarist Bob Wolkotte.
Founded in May 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Refestramus’ catalog also includes “Decoupage” (2021) and “Intouríst” (Melodic Revolution Records, 2024). The band made its European debut in November 2025 at the HRH Prog 15 Festival in Great Yarmouth, UK, with David Jackson joining them on saxophone—a set Festivals For All called “a superb Chicago band… almost Gong-esque.”
The group is celebrating their song “Hell or NYC?!” included in ProgUK’s current Melodic Revolution Records’ 20th Anniversary sampler and this weekend’s Immersive Audio Release of “Morri’s Rock Boutique.” progday.net/Bands-Refestramus.html
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-view-from-the-writing-instrument--1023245/support.
Speaker 1: I am so glad that you are here, whether you're
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because I know what our attention span is really like. A-R-R-O-E.net.
Enjoy your exploration. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Doing very well, thanks. How are you?
Speaker 1: Doing fantastic. My God, you guys are out on the
road and you're coming through Carolina. I mean, it's amazing
to see what you guys are doing with your music.
What is the reaction and how are people, I always
want to believe, what are they taking with them as
they leave? They have to be mesmerized.
Speaker 3: Well thank you um yes the the feedback has been
extremely positive people are digging seeing uh live progressive rock
for uh you know it's what a lot there's not
a lot of it around uh nowadays so um but
i've always felt this is a kind of music that
does best in the live setting so uh Yeah, the
reaction to it has been extremely positive. People love the
melodies and the energy in the live performance, I think.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so proud of you guys for keeping prog
rock out there because you're right. It is a movement
that seems to be kind of in the background or
basically maybe underground right now. But what you guys are doing,
especially with that song, The Lucky Ones, my God, I
am shocked that EDM stations have not jumped all over
this right now because it has got a rhythm to it.
And it's got a story to it that really is
totally EDM.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we see a lot of crossover appeal. It's very
interesting because when we play progressive rock specific events, people
like the music.
Speaker 2: And they react to it and it's what they know.
Speaker 3: But I think a lot of times with progressive rock bands,
when they play non-progressive rock events, the audiences are sort
of alienated. We don't seem to get that reaction from
non-Prague audiences. They seem to understand it and relate to
it pretty well, which we're very happy to see.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that. What is
the Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple crowd really? Do they know what
Prague music is or is it something that we need
to educate them on?
Speaker 3: Well they don't know what it is and i'm not
sure we want to educate them uh because because because
you know like a while back prog was sort of
like a dirty word right like you know you got
you got hard with that as an epithet but now
um you know the kids today they they listen to
it and they're just like hey i like this you
know it's i like this music i don't need to
put a label against it And so we've come out
the other side of that, where it went through a
period where folks knew what it was and they wouldn't
give it a chance because of the label. Now, without
the labeling, kids are hearing it and they're just sort
of like, you know, hey, that reminds me of Pink Floyd, which,
of course, most of our music sounds nothing like Pink Floyd.
But to them in their mind, you know, that's the
closest thing that they have as a parallel to reach for.
Speaker 1: Well, Maury's Rock Boutique really does fit into our lifestyle because,
I mean, when I was sitting here and I was
studying Lakeview Samurai, right away I'm thinking, oh, my God,
I could hear this while I'm in yoga class, or
I could do it if I just want to do
something mindful. There's something about this song that speaks a
language of, can you just sit back for a moment
and turn off the world?
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Yes, that's, and we brought in real Japanese musicians.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: To play that rather than uh rather than just doing
it with synthesizer we felt that was important to the
ethos of the piece so um you're hearing the real thing.
Speaker 1: Wow and that's what i love about today's music is
that we are willing to explore was it one of
those where you kind of sent out and they sent
you the tracks.
Speaker 2: Back yes that was and that makes it The first
album was all done that way.
Speaker 3: It was all just done through mailings and all that
sort of stuff. This album, Morrie's Rock Boutique, was much
more of us playing together. The upcoming fourth album will
be all in the studio, us playing together as a band.
Speaker 2: Because we like that.
Speaker 3: But You know, for something like traditional Japanese musicians, you
get the authentic.
Speaker 2: Thank God for the internet. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so glad that you're open with this
and transparent with it because I was going to ask
you about the song lyrics. Why do they sound so global?
And I'm getting this vibe because you guys are global
and that you're bringing the world to us.
Speaker 2: That's there is.
Speaker 3: There are all sorts of different influences in the music.
There's Slavic influences and Latin influences. Of course, the way
we describe our genre is we consider it to be
Heartland Prague. It's Prague in the sense of Kansas or Styx.
Or I would even make the case some cheap trick.
It's that late 70s. um, uh, Midwestern, uh, sound that, that,
that we really, uh, adore and, and, and try to
try to do homage to as best we can.
Speaker 1: Well, I picked that up on the song storms. I mean,
this one right here, I turned to my wife. I said,
why am I not listening to this one on the radio? Oh,
that's right. I don't go to the radio as often
as I do, but that song right there is a
radio song and radio needs a hero right now. And
God dang, if that one doesn't fit right in.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: And you know, the music is driving, and it has
a hook that sort of hopefully catches you. But what
a lot of folks don't realize is the intro to
that song is actually in the Not a Time signature.
There's one little extra beat in there that if somebody
were to try to get up and dance to it,
you would....
Speaker 2: You'd find you'd find out.
Speaker 3: Very quickly because that one little extra beat just kind
of will throw you off which is what we like
doing is a little bit of experimentation every song we.
Speaker 1: Do oh now come on Derek because I was the
guy that was in the studio and because for some
stinking reason one day I couldn't hear my click track
so my wife had to come in there and tap
on my back for the click track I mean you're
one beat off and that's okay but boy they were
having a cow with me in the studio.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I guess it depends on whether it's intentional
or accidental, right? Oh, my God.
Speaker 1: That's studio talk right there. Listeners don't get that. Those
moments in the studio where I'm doing great.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Let us know when you're doing better.
Speaker 3: Good job, buddy.
Speaker 1: Now, when you step into a song to explore it,
what does it take to really build a song? And
that's a part of the journey that I wish more
listeners understood. Or do you want the listeners to identify
the wizard behind the curtain?
Speaker 2: That's an excellent question.
Speaker 3: We have been sort of finding our way over the
course of the three albums we've done so far. And
I think you want to get to a point where
it's never formulaic, but where you have a a general
structure and a process that you follow.
Speaker 2: I guess there's a difference between a process and a formula.
Speaker 3: Most of the ideas on the album, actually I would
say all of the ideas on this last album.
Speaker 2: Start with me having an idea for a melody, which.
Speaker 3: I hum into my phone, and then I let it
sit there Or at least a couple of weeks before
I go back to it. In fact, I woke up
this morning with the melody in my head and I
grabbed my phone and I hummed it into there.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm not going to.
Speaker 3: Listen to that for two weeks because I yeah, I'll
come back.
Speaker 2: To it in a couple of weeks along with a
bunch of other ideas. And if I am like, oh,
that's a good idea. Great.
Speaker 3: But more often than not, I'm like, God, what was
I thinking? And I just get rid of that one. And,
you know, you start with like maybe 100 ideas like
that and you get 50 that are worth actually demoing
for the band. And if that maybe, you know, 25 are, yeah, actually,
you know what, let's go ahead and record these. And
then 12 or so make it onto the album. It's
this constant process of whittling down such you hopefully wind
up with just giving folks the real gems rather than
all the muck that you had to go through to
get to the gems.
Speaker 1: You know how I'm learning to deal with that? And
this is going to sound so freaking weird. And it's
because I am. So I admit to it. And that
is when something like that happens to me, when I
get a melody or I get an idea, I will
quickly put it on like a little chip of some
sort of memory stick. And then I'll put it in
a container that is plastic and I bury it in
the earth. And I tell myself, you cannot go back
to that for four months. And just because I want
it totally 100% away from me so that when I
find it again, I want to be able to feel
it again.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. You know, I.
I started with the humming stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm the drummer in the band, but I took
the same piano lessons as everyone else, so I could
go to a piano and just pound it out instead.
Speaker 2: But I do the humming for two reasons. One, if
you compose on an instrument.
Speaker 3: I had an early music composition teacher in college who
told me, if you compose at your instrument, you will
never write anything that is better than your skill on
your instrument.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, better to just hum it.
Speaker 3: And the other thing I find is if a melody
is really strong and really good, just humming it is
sufficient that when you come back to it, you'll be like,
oh yeah, I remember that. I know exactly what I
was doing there. That's almost like an additional filter that if,
if I did it with, if I actually reproduced it
on an instrument, I put it down, it would be, um,
there'd be stuff like the timbre that I chose and,
you know, the, the, the production quality of it that
would put too much glow on it. Whereas if something
survives just having been hummed and you still recognized a
couple of weeks from later.
Speaker 2: You know, it's good.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Derek from Rifa
Stramas coming up next. The name of the album? Maury's
Rock Boutique featuring Hell and NYC, New York City. We
are back with Derek Ferguson from Rifa Stramas. You bring
up that piano and right away I'm taken to Cossack's
dream here. That piano, dude. The drama, the mystique, the orchestra.
Oh my God, where did your emotions go with this
while you were building it?
Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
Speaker 3: You know, I have to give major props to. So
on this album, we were joined by a couple of
people from the band Octarine Sky. That is Diane Potter
Voigtland and Jan Christiana. And those keyboards are Diane, who
is an amazing conservatory trained musician. And Jan Christiana, who
is he's our bassist vocalist, but he is also one
hell of an arranger.
Speaker 2: So massive props to them for for a lot of
the stuff.
Speaker 3: And of course, it's a traditional Cossack song, but they've
taken it to a whole whole new level. So I
got to got to salute them for the for for
how well that turned out.
Speaker 1: With what you guys are doing, first of all, the
name you went unique, which I love you for, because
that's how you make things memorable. That's a Gene Simmons ism.
And the thing is, is that you're also out there
at these Prague festivals that are taking place. Do you
find yourself being a modern day scout or pioneer? Because
you are exploring. And that's why I get so charged
up when I hear the mere mention of your name.
Speaker 2: We try.
Speaker 3: You know, you mentioned Gene Simmons, and he's an underrated bassist,
by the way.
Speaker 2: I mean, sure, he didn't fly all over the.
Speaker 3: Fretboard or whatever, but just the bass parts he chose
and continues to choose are just very tasteful and complement
the song.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And obviously hugely.
Speaker 3: Influenced by Paul McCartney, who I also think is an
underrated bassist just because he's so good at everything else.
But something that I heard Paul McCartney say once was
in every Beatles song, they tried to do exactly one
thing differently. That was new and innovative and super interesting.
And when you think about the Beatles songs, you can
go through and say, oh, that's the song where George
Harrison has the volume pedal and it's gone. You know, or, oh,
that's the one with the orchestra crescendo at the end.
Speaker 2: Or, you know, that's.
Speaker 3: So I try to remember that with every song that
we do. I like it to be approachable. I like
it to be stuff that folks can understand. But in
every song, I try to put in one thing which
is unexpected and different and doing that whole scouting thing.
Speaker 1: Concept the street scene in hell or new york that
had to be one of those where you guys were
in there going it's setting up it sounds good you
know what we need we need something that's going to
put them in the mindset of oh my god this
is the street this is new york we're in hell
or we're not in hell what was that one of
those situations.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was i um um so coming up Bear
Stearns and a legendary sort of Wall Street firm that ultimately,
you know, got into issues and all that.
Speaker 2: Sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: And it was not uncommon in that sort of environment
to have traders screaming stuff when they had trades going south.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's set.
Speaker 3: On the street outside, but really I was thinking about
the Wall Street trading desks of the 2000s and some
of the stuff I saw and experienced there.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about what
you guys are doing? And please tell me you've got merch,
because here in the Carolinas, as you're going to find
out or you have found out, we love our merch, dude.
Speaker 2: You can go to rifastramus.com.
Speaker 3: But the one thing I would say is we just
got Maury's Rock Boutique on vinyl. And we did the
gatefold sleeve. So when you open it up, you have, uh,
this beautiful piece of additional artwork that was done by
the same person, uh, actually a couple who've done all
of our album covers and, um, the lyrics are in
there and it's multicolored, uh, vinyl itself.
Speaker 2: When you pull it out.
Speaker 3: Um, I wasn't skeptic if I'm, if I'm honest, cause
I'm sort of like, Oh, vinyl is the sound quality,
all that sort of stuff. But, Oh my, Goodness, this
is just a gorgeous, gorgeous thing. We're going to be
bringing plenty of those with us on the road.
Speaker 2: So we've got CDs and T-shirts and all that sort
of stuff, whatever you want. But I have fallen in
love with them.
Speaker 1: It's reminded me of the Electric Light Orchestra, the way
they used to do the same thing with their vinyl.
And to this day, when I walk into somebody's home
and I see that dang album up there, I'm going,
I knew they knew what they were doing. They knew
exactly I would live beyond that moment.
Speaker 3: It's, yeah, you know, it's because with streaming, you just
don't have anything to hold in your hand and look
at while listening. So I will raise my hand and say, yes,
the folks in the band who said we should do
some vinyl, they were right.
Speaker 2: I was wrong.
Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
the future, dude. The door is always going to be
open for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir. Tremendously appreciate it. Always a pleasure talking
to you.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant, okay?
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir. Have a great day.
Speaker 1: Thank you.