What if Harry Potter had a band? And what if Ron and Hermione played backup?
Paul DeGeorge had been stewing over this idea when someone yelled out “We love you, Harry Potter!” at a concert for his younger brother Joe, who looks like the boy wizard.
Then lightning struck, figuratively.
“Forget Ron and Hermione as the backing band – have two Harrys fronting the band simultaneously,” Paul explained. “I thought that was the most bizarre and ridiculous idea. And if you’re going to do a band about Harry Potter it better be bizarre and ridiculous because otherwise it’s just cheesy and bad.”
The brothers, who will be playing the Los Angeles Public Library on Aug. 2, have since made two albums as Harry and the Potters. Their self-titled debut album was recorded in their living room and features songs such as the hilarious “Save Ginny Weasley” on which they sing defiantly, “You can’t take my best friend’s sister / and get away with it.”
They moved from the living room to the shed to record their second album, “Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock.” Titles include “Stick It to Dolores” (the chorus repeats “Oh my God, you look like a frog”) and “Cornelius Fudge Is an Ass.”
Inspiration for “Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock” came mostly from the fifth book in the series by J.K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” in which Harry endures his first date, among other teenage trials.
“We had so much fun writing the ‘Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock’ album. Harry’s 15, he’s so angsty. It’s like the perfect thing to write songs from that perspective,” said Paul. “(Harry) has a few qualities that lend themselves to punk rock. He’s not afraid to break the rules.”
Paul and Joe both dress up as Harry Potter during concerts, wearing round glasses, messy black hair, and maroon-and-yellow striped ties.
They draw a fairly large and diverse crowd, depending on the location. “If we were playing a smaller, branch library in suburbia, the crowd is maybe 50 to 60 people. But at larger city libraries it’s upwards of 300,” said Paul.
A typical audience is a mix of teenagers, kids with their parents, and 20-and-ups. Just this month, they drew more than 200 fans to the New York Public Library.
Since starting to tour about two years ago, it is rare that a library will turn them down for a rock show.
“Word is getting out to the library system. They tell everybody in Storytime (to come).” said Paul.
Their concerts usually last about 45 minutes, but length is not the main restriction of which songs they play.
“We only have a certain number of songs programmed on the drum machine. We have to tour with our own sound system because libraries aren’t usually ready for rock bands. It’s just me and Joe and a drum machine,” said Paul.
Paul plays the guitar, Joe plays keyboard, and they switch off on lead vocals, usually depending on who wrote the song. When they want to rock a little louder, they put on shows with other bands in basements and pizza places. While Paul said that it is rare that he does not see almost the entire audience smiling during a show, they have received snide remarks from other bands.
“We played with some high school bands once and all the kids in the bands were like ‘These guys aren’t any good. Why are all these girls going crazy?’” Paul said.
Despite the generally positive feedback, they have not tried to send JK Rowling a CD, nor do they plan to.
“I kind of don’t want to know what she thinks of the band. If she doesn’t like it I wouldn’t want to feel guilty about doing the band because it is really fun,” said Paul.
On their next album, Paul wants to try a dance party record, something you could put on at a party in the Gryffindor common room. For inspiration, they plan on reading the newly released heart-wrenching sixth novel “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” to each other in the car as they take turns driving across the country in their Potter Mobile, a van with a lightning bolt on the roof.
Come September, the band will have to slow down. Joe will start his first year of college and Paul is pursuing a doctorate in biology. They are also not sure if the band will make it to the highly-anticipated-but-nowhere-near-being-published seventh book. “Who knows how old I’ll be then? I could be 30 by that point, and that might be time to hang it up,” Paul said. “Pretending to be a 17-year-old wizard? It might be a little sketchy.”
But at least for the summer, the DeGeorge brothers are fully committed. Paul quit his job as a development engineer for a vaccine company to go on tour.
“You get to point where it’s like, ‘Screw this real job, I’m going to go have fun,’” Paul said.
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