Track By Track : Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius - Impostor!
By John A. Wilcox



I asked my pal Joe Deninzon to do a track-by-track of his latest album with Stratospheerius called Impostor!. He happily obliged an even wrote the following introduction : Sometimes you write a bunch of songs and you don’t see the thread that binds them together until they are all on one album. Such is the case with Impostor! The title track deals with impostor syndrome. The closing track deals with midlife crisis and unrealized dreams and expectations. A song is a snapshot of what you are thinking and experiencing at the moment of its creation, or an observation about something that happened to you or a friend or loved one, or the state of the world. You capture a moment in time. While I don’t necessarily feel now the way I did when I wrote some of these songs, I think they speak to a lot of people my age, especially if they’re artists and musicians. Also, I don’t think these topics are covered in a lot in the music I hear. Everyone involved with this record poured every fiber of their being into it, and we hope the world enjoys the finished product! So here is a bit of background about each song on the Impostor! album.

Track 1: Voodoo Vortex (Part 2)
JD: Hey, it’s instrumental. We were gonna call it Part 7!

Track 2: Outrage Olympics
JD: This song is raging against cancel culture, with references to George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. The title was taken from a phrase I heard Bill Maher say during one of his “New Rules” monologues. Our society is so easily outraged, and we all live in constant fear of saying the wrong thing or offending someone unintentionally, at the risk of being canceled and losing everything we’ve worked for. Everyone is secretly policing each other, and there are many casualties of this inquisition, whether warranted or not. There is a certain visceral bloodlust in the angry mob that derives pleasure from destroying someone’s life. As someone who was born in the Soviet Union and grew up hearing stories about life there, this hits close to home.

Track 3: Impostor!
JD: A few years ago, I was speaking with friend of mine who is a very successful musician and writer. She confessed to me that she often feels like an impostor, like sooner or later, everyone will figure out that she’s a fraud. I realized that I had felt this way many times in my life, and I am not alone.

The first verse of the song is about someone who is successful but suffers from imposer syndrome, the second verse is about someone who is successful and IS actually a fraud. One can conjure many references, political and otherwise…

Someone once said, “All the wrong people have way too much confidence, and all the right people don’t have enough.” Hence the lyric: “Everybody has an impostor syndrome except the fools who run the world.”

Track 4: Cognitive Dissonance
JD: Cognitive Dissonance is based on something my son experienced with a neighbor’s kid when he was younger. It talks about how we are born a blank slate. We just want to play with our friends and are not be burdened with the weight of dogma and history. Over time, our elders teach us who we’re supposed to hate, whether on religious, racial, or politically ideological grounds.

The second verse deals with political and ideological intolerance. There’s rising extremism, and it’s been this way for decades. People are prisoners of fake news, social media echo chamber bubbles, and politicians who reinforce conspiracy theories and retweet them to their followers. The line ‘No one can touch us now’ refers to people hiding behind their screens, spewing the deep-rooted hatred without fear of physical retaliation. Randy McStine (Porcupine tree) guests on lead vocals on verse 2.

The guitar/violin duel in the last section represents two sides crying and screaming at each other, full of hatred, fading out screaming, never reaching an understanding or resolution. The song starts with innocence and ends with vitriol.

Track 5: Storm Surge
JD: Storm Surge was inspired by a piano etude written by 19th century German composer, Friederich Burgmüller. My son Max was practicing his piece, L’Orage (The Storm) a few years ago, and I thought, “This piece has beautiful chord changes, but they go by too fast to be appreciated. Why don’t I slow them down and make it a power ballad?”

I wrote the arrangement and lyrics, which were later tweaked by guest vocalist, Michael Sadler (Saga). Jason Gianni, our drummer, added an epic rock waltz in the middle with soaring strings. We also brought in some titans of the prog world to guest on the song; guitarist Fernando Perdomo, cellist Ruti Celli, and the amazing Rachel Flowers on piano and flute. The song was written and recorded during the pandemic, and the lyrical themes deal with uncertainty and anxiety we were all experiencing during that time, the storm raging inside of us.

Track 6: Frame By Frame
JD: We had been performing this King Crimson classic on many of our live shows. Adrian Belew’s voice is right in my range and I think the song suits Stratospheerius very well. It’s especially fun to recreate Robert Fripp’s fast ostinato 16th notes on the violin. Val Vigoda (Groovelilly) provides the backup answer vocals during the verses.

Track 7: Voodoo Vortex
JD: I wanted to go for a classic 70’s Jean Luc Ponty, Imaginary Voyage-era sound. A tribute to him, Eddie Jobson, Didier Lockwood, Jerry Goodman, and other great fusion violinists of that era who were my heroes growing up. Originally, “Part 2” was supposed to segue out of “Part 1,” but we thought it would make a stronger statement as the opening cut on the album. We decided to keep the title. Who knows? Other non-sequential movements. Voodoo Vortex suite might make their appearances on future albums, and it will be interesting to see what hidden meanings people find in the music.

Track 8: Tripping The Merry-Go-Round
JD: I describe this song as “If Gentle Giant wrote Eleanor Rigby.” The title was taken from a Bruce Springsteen lyric from the song Blinded By The Light. The lyrics are not about taking mushrooms or dropping acid. They are a snapshot of a long relationship where the “merry-go-round” of life keeps you from taking adequate time for each other. It’s hard to get off that merry-go-round.

Track 9: Chasing The Dragon
JD: This was the most complex track we’ve ever recorded. It started when our drummer Jason Gianni sent me a minute of music he put together using midi tracks. It contained a few different themes that we kept developing until it turned into a 12-minute, 8-part mini rock opera with over 200 tracks! The song took over a year to write, record, and mix.

I call this my “midlife crisis” song. It’s a bit self-aggrandizing. The main character is loosely based on me, but is also a composite of many people I know and kind of pokes fun at them (us). I call it the “middle aged rocker’s lament.” The kids who never grew up, still chasing the dream. The first verse references a dream I had of driving on an empty highway at night, to the next town, to the next venue, with an imaginary dragon wagging his tail, running in front of me, always out of reach. This song also asks the question, “What IS the dream? What is success? Are we ever satisfied?” The dragon represents that elusive goal, always just out of reach.

In part 1, the main character is a kid who gets swept away with music and has dreams of rock stardom, spends years writing, recording, touring, spending all his money chasing the dream (chasing the dragon).

Part 2: He wakes up 30 years later to a cold reality, a mundane 9-5 dead-end job and a realization that he never achieved his goals.

Part 4: A woman (maybe his wife or girlfriend, portrayed by Chloe Lowry), implores him to come to his senses and give up the dream. He stubbornly refuses. He can’t let it go.

A few years back, I listened to an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with Pete Docter and Kemp Powers, the director and writer of the 2021 film, Soul. In the movie, the main character loses himself in pursuit of his art and can’t let go. They talk about how obsession can block out a lot of things that are important in life. When you find something you love and are passionate about, it’s easy to use it to hide away from life. Your passions are not what define you.

I wasn’t aware of it at the time of writing, but this song was me addressing my fear of becoming a “lost soul,” like in the film. The main character in the song is deeply flawed and lets his obsession destroy him.

We leave the interpretation of the ending up to the listener….

###



Table Of Contents

Contact