Q: Welcome back! Your past work has touched on memory, longing, and time. With Imaginary Lover, did you find yourself revisiting these themes or uncovering entirely new ones?
A: Thanks, Hanna. It’s always a pleasure talking with you. The Crazy Angels band & I appreciate you & all the you do.
Imaginary Lover builds on the themes of loss, longing & the tragi-comedy of human life. The title track, for example, is based on Plato’s idea that before we are born humans are whole – we are united with our soul mate. But the gods, jealous of our power, separate us at birth, and we spend the rest of our lives searching for our lost love, the one who completes us, so that we can feel that sense of wholeness again. Songs like Veiled Angel, Tsunami Love and Ain’t So Bad to Ride Alone are all about trying to come to terms with loss, and learning to live a good life in spite of everything.
Amazon Mist, These Memories of You, and Pelican Ballet are story songs set in wild places & expressed in exotic chord structures & rhythms
The album also takes up political themes. I’m a Victim Too, a snarling punk rocker,satirizes people of privilege who try to claim victimhood as a mark of social status (the so-called ‘Victim Olympics’). Goodbye BB King takes on Cancel Culture and asks, how long before it comes for the Blues? All Foam, No Beer takes a swipe at the political bozos of every stripe who afflict our lives. Ten Wankers Wearing Business Suits is an angry R&B that lashes out at the Big Tech bros who are ‘richer than the Pharaohs and doing our children harm…’
Q: How has your songwriting voice matured or shifted since your last release? Do you ever look back on earlier lyrics and think, “I’d write that differently now”?
A: My song-writing continues to evolve & I find I’m embracing new genres & combinations of genres. The title track, Imaginary Lover, for example, is a 1950’s style Do Wop with multiple modulations in the style of Brian Wilson. Ten Wankers Wearing Business Suits is homage to Barry Gordy and the Motown music I grew up with. All Foam, No Beer is a straight-up Big Band number in the style of Count Basie. Veiled Angel is a show tune in the style of Stephen Sondheim. As I wrote it, I heard Tony Bennett singling. These Memories of You uses exotic Turko-European rhythms & instrumentation.
I really like our earlier albums, but I don’t think about them too much. The band & I are very focused on the new albums in our pipelines. I sometimes pinch myself: Am I really working with such wonderful players? Is David Logan really our producer? Life is very difficult, but sometimes things come together & hold, and it’s magic. I feel blessed to have it even for a short time.
Q: The title Imaginary Lover evokes something both intimate and elusive. Is this a concept album, and if so, how does the idea of fantasy or illusion weave through the tracks?
A: This theme of original, aching loss – lost from the start – weaves in & out of the album, and finds it’s most intense expression in the title song: ‘I’ve known you all my life, though I don’t even know your name. You’ve always been with me, I never met you all the same’. Imaginary Lover refers to our lost love, the one we were separated from at birth, the one we long for, and spend our lives trying to find. ‘Imaginary Lover, you who never did arrive. Are we meteors in endless space, destined never to collide?’ These themes also find strong expression in songs like Veiled Angel: ‘How many lifetimes have I lived, since I left this rocky shore? Would you even recognize me if I were standing at your door?” In Tsunami Love, the lover realizes it was an illusion: “How did we manage, how did we cope? I saw nothing but trouble in our horoscope. Continual drama was our daisy-chain, our comic alert, our mystery train…”
Q: Can you tell us about a moment of spontaneous inspiration that made it onto the album, maybe a lyric, melody, or unexpected collaboration?
A: Little White Weasel is a song about living a good life in crazy times. The core metaphor came to me watching a seagull take off with a French fry : “Bird with a French fry, dog with a bone. I was tenor, now I’m baritone. To fly up on trapeze, step one, get off you knees.” I realized that this was the key to living a good life: be a bird with a French fry, and enjoy whatever comes your way. Accept it gratefully, and don’t complain because life is short & joy fleeting.
Q: Are there any genres or sounds on Imaginary Lover that might surprise longtime listeners?
A: The exotic Turko-European rhythms & instrumentation in TheseMemories of You. David Logan’s wonderful arrangement of Amazon Mist – one of my most complex compositions. The modulations & chord structure should not work, but somehow they do. I felt I was entering a beautiful, alien world, and channeling Jobim in some small way.
Q: What lyric from the new album do you feel captures your current mindset or artistic spirit most clearly, and why?
A: The final verse in the title song, Imaginary Lover, expresses who I am:
My heart is wide open,
It rings just like a bell
I want to know heaven,The way I’ve known hell
Q: Is there a song on Imaginary Lover that almost didn’t make the cut? What made you change your mind, and how does it fit into the bigger picture now?
A: TheseMemories of You almost didn’t make it. I felt it was just too different – a Turko-European dance song wtih complex rhythms & instrumentation. But David Logan, our producer, & the band loved it, and came up with a terrific arrangement. The song has helped me reconnect with my roots in Eastern Europe & Asia Minor
Q: If a listener could only hear one track from this album to understand who Pascal Dennis is today, artistically and personally. What track would that be, and why?
A: Imaginary Lover, the title track. This song expresses who I am & what I believe in. It’s a 1950’s style Do Wop that continually changes keys. It’s informed by Plato & German romantic poetry (especially Rilke). It’s a strange combination which shouldn’t work, but it does & it’s beautiful.
I’m an engineer & an artist; a vagabond & a family man, a dreamer and a pragmatist. Our albums are an exotic, unpredictable mix of styles & genres: R&B, Do Wop, Country, Vintage Pop, Big Band Jazz, Bossa Nova, Turko-European dance music…We’re not supposed to do this. We’re supposed to pick a genre & stick to it. “They are a Country band…” But I don’t care – I’m going to keep writing, and we’re going to keep playing, in the genres & styles we love. As with the song, Imaginary Lover, it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does.
Imaginary Lover expresses my belief that life is tragic – we never find our ‘imaginary lover’. But life is also comical! “Get over it, buddy. She’s gone – stop moping around!”
Q: If this album were a place, a room, a street, a city, what would it look and feel like?
A: From Imaginary Lover, the title track:
Imaginary landscapes
I carry deep inside
A garden once so beautiful,
That someday will revive
Q: Finally, what does success mean to you now? Has your idea of success changed over the years, especially after releasing multiple projects?
A: Success means playing music you love with an ensemble of superb players who understand & believe in what you’re aiming for. Success means recording simply & truly what it’s like to be alive in a dangerous time in this beautiful world. Success means telling my family’s story this past century, their painful odyssey from Eastern Europe and Asia Minor to North America – their suffering & sorrow, and survival in spite of everything. Success means leaving a body of work that will continue to whisper to people long after we’re gone. Thanks, Hanna, as always.
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