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.