Airport Incident After Festival Performance Becomes Tipping Point for Politically-Charged New Release
Chicago-based Progressive Rock project Refestramus have released their new single, “Goodbye, America!,” on January 02, 2026. The song is an explicit political statement that confronts empire, sanctions, and moral blowback, drawing on mythology and lived experience to ask hard questions about power and accountability.
Stream “Goodbye, America!” via the Spotify player below:
At the center of the song is Kashay Besmertny, a figure from Russian folklore whose “deathless” power comes from hiding his soul outside his own body. Derek uses him as a metaphor for empires that can no longer feel the human cost of their actions.
Refestramus returned to the United States from Heathrow Airport in November after performing at the UK Progressive Rock festival HRH Prog 15, where the band performed with acclaimed progressive musicians including David Jackson (of classic prog act Van der Graaf Generator) and Alex Hutchings from Steven Wilson’s touring band.
Following the performance, Refestramus founder Derek Ferguson was involved in a routine customer-service dispute at Heathrow that escalated when a comment about documenting the interaction online was recorded as “threatening.” No safety or security incident occurred, but the experience proved formative.
“What struck me wasn’t the inconvenience,” Ferguson says. “It was how quickly ordinary speech can now be reclassified as ‘threatening’ in environments shaped by preemptive harm-prevention frameworks that can unintentionally normalize intimidating behavior within authority structures. In combination with similar dynamics playing out elsewhere, you realize how easily systems meant to protect people end up allowing some people to exercise power over others.”
Ferguson adds that the moment resonated precisely because it echoed concerns closer to home, “not across borders.”
The band stresses that the incident itself is not the story, but rather a real-world illustration of the themes explored in “Goodbye, America!,” which addresses the human cost of sanctions, displacement, and moral distance.
Lyrics include: Mothers left out on the street, Your sanctions left no food to eat. America, the things you do — I see now they’re coming back to you.
“Goodbye America!” features Octarine Sky’s Jan Christiana (vocals, keyboards, guitars, and bass) and Dyanne Potter Voegtlin (keyboards and vocals), and bandleader/writer Derek Ferguson (drums).
“Goodbye, America!” is the central movement of a longer ten-minute composition on the forthcoming album “Morri’s Rock Boutique” titled “Deathless,” which uses the Kashay myth to trace how unchecked power ultimately consumes even those who wield it.
“Goodbye, America!” will be released as a stand-alone single on January 02, 2026.
The album “Morri’s Rock Boutique” follows on March 20, 2026.
“Deathless” will be available on streaming media on March 06, 2026.