AN INTERVIEW WITH HARRY AND THE POTTERS By KYLE OLSON Preeminent wizard-rock band Harry and the Potters puts on fantastically fun Harry Potter-themed live shows, which are generally free at public libraries. Kyle hopped the train at platform 9¾ to interview guitarist/vocalist "Harry Potter Year 7" (Paul DeGeorge) in the Gryffindor common room (which is no small feat considering Kyle's muggle status, as well as certain Hermione-centric restraining orders). Let it never be said the HBC will not go to great lengths to share things with you.

OK. I'm sure you get about a billion of these questions, so we're going to get all the Harry Potter questions out of the way right at the beginning. What are your predictions for the final novel? Is Snape really evil?
Harry from Book 7 travels back in time to start a rock band with Harry from Book 4. Together, they tour the world, fighting evil with rock music. Voldemort tries to put a stop to it by buying up radio stations and media outlets, but the independent spirit is too strong and Harry and the Potters, oops-I mean, Harry Potter wins.
I don't think Snape is necessarily good or evil. He's by far the most complex character in the book. He's sort of like Rowling's Raskolnikov. He's full of pride, and ultimately, I think he will seek to correct some of his past wrongs and that will align him against Voldemort.

What is your favorite book in the series?
Book 6 has been my favorite. With each book, the writing improves and the characters become more and more complex. Plus, I love all the Dumbledore action.

In order to create enmity between fans, who would win in a fight: Dumbledore or Gandalf?
Oh man, this is really difficult. I think I might have to go with Gandalf on this one, though. I think Dumbledore's biggest flaw is that he can be really passive and he tends to wait to see how things pan out. It's a mistake he repeatedly made during Harry's years at school and it's probably the same mistake he made when Voldemort rose to power. Gandalf on the other hand totally took care of that Balrog when he had to. He didn't wait to see if it'd go away.

What types of music do the other inhabitants of Hogwarts enjoy? My guesses are Hagrid's a huge hesher, Draco is possibly into some type of hipster coke-rock, and Luna Lovegood owns Straight Outta Compton on vinyl and CD.
Honestly, I would have had Luna pegged as more of a spaced-out art rocker. I bet she listens to Negativland's weekly radio show via the wireless. Fred and George are way into total geek stuff like They Might Be Giants and Atom and His Package. They tried to pass that down to Ron, but he only feigns interest. He's more into 90's alternative like Soul Asylum. Hermione has no real interest in music, but while studying she might listen to some classical. Draco has his house elves buy whatever gets good reviews in Spin magazine. His friends, Crabbe and Goyle, are into nu metal and will eventually grow really bad goatees. Ginny's favorite band is Pavement and she makes killer mix tapes. Harry is into low-fi home recordings like early Of Montreal and the Mountain Goats.

Photo courtesy of Harry and the Potters

You have no idea how it warms my heart to know that my favorite bands are being played in Gryffindor. To further satisfy the college DJ in me (KUCI represent), I would like to know what kind of music you are currently enjoying (both wizard-rock and muggle-rock). I noticed you are buddies with Wolf Colonel and Japanther and am eager to hear what else you endorse.
Indeed, Jason Anderson (Wolf Colonel) is one of our best friends in rock and roll. He's my Ms. Pac-Man buddy and Joe [DeGeorge, "Harry Year 4" in Harry and the Potters] even plays sax in his E Street style band. All-time favs are Springsteen, Andrew WK, the Flaming Lips, Pixies, Les Savy Fav, Pavement, and this amazing, defunct Boston band called the Wicked Farleys. Recent love affairs include Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Art Brut, Matt & Kim, the Blow, and a rock opera that our friend Fishboy is going to release soon.

What is your best (and worst) tour story?
It's really hard to choose a best moment. Mostly I think about all the wonderful people we've met though this band. All the people who have been nice enough to let us stay in their homes. All the friendships we've made. All the great and inspiring emails we've gotten after shows.
In March 2006 we played at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the second largest military base in the United States. We booked the show about five days beforehand when this guy who works at the Teen Center noticed an off-day in our schedule and asked us to play. He said he couldn't pay us, but he could get us some dinner and a place to stay. Spinal Tap has always been one of our favorite movies, and we figured that this was probably our one chance to play on an army base, so we went for it. We played for about 40 kids and were met with almost complete indifference, with the exception of one super-fan type kid who showed his affection by heckling us for most of the show. At the very least, we performed "The Weapon" (with the chorus "the weapon we have is love") at the end of our set and that was rather cathartic to play on a military base. From there, the night only got stranger. The house we were staying in was straight out of a low-budget horror movie set. Cat urine, huge piles of laundry, and ash trays on the living room floor. When the emo kid came into the living room at 3 a.m., I realized our best bet for getting some sleep was to head to the van. Joe and I left our tourmates in the horror house to fend for themselves. When we work up at 9 a.m., we were dreading have to re-enter the house, but when we looked out the van windows, they were all on the front stoop ready to hit the road. That's when we knew they'd had a rough night. I can't actually tell you what went down, but it was weird. Clarksville, Tennessee is a weird place. Don't go there.

At the risk of being a massive downer, what do you expect to happen to Harry and the Potters, and the wizard-rock community at large, when the last book comes out and Voldemort is defeated by the power of rock once and for all?
Well it's always been our approach to take this band one-day-at-a-time. We never sought—nor expected—any success so even if it were to all evaporate on July 21, we'd be perfectly happy and content with what we've accomplished. I'm sure that interest in Harry Potter will die down after the publication of Deathly Hallows. This will especially be true among adults because I think that older folks are typically engaged by the debate concerning characters, and much of that will be settled after this summer. But for younger kids who are starting bands, they'll continue to write about what they know, and a lot of them know Harry Potter pretty well, so I think wizard rock will probably continue to flourish, although probably not at the same level of intensity that we're at right now.

Rocking out in Portland. Photo courtesy of Harry and the Potters

Why do you choose to play libraries as venues? Do you feel more bands should play them as venues?
Part of the reason we started Harry and the Potters was so that we'd have the opportunity to perform to a younger audience and introduce kids to live rock music. The libraries are a perfect fit because while some parents might be hesitant about sending their kids to some seedy rock club, they usually don't think twice about sending them down to the library. In fact, they're probably psyched about it. Plus, libraries are almost exactly like a rock club in many ways. They have their own regular patrons, a publicity staff, and rooms with good acoustics. All they are missing is the sound system, so we bring that.
I absolutely think more bands should look into performing in libraries. Sometimes we'll have our friends' bands open for us and they're always blown away. It's a great vibe, and for many bands, it's a great opportunity to play to an all-ages crowd instead of the normal 18-plus/21-plus stuff.

Using that as a segue, we can move on to more book-related issues. What are you currently reading?
Oh man, on tour, my reading habits are terrible. After many recommendations from friends, I tried reading Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, but that was too flowery for the van. Then, I started a Philip K. Dick book, but he wrote it on acid and it was really boring, so I quit that after a few chapters. I got a book on donuts recently and I've made some headway in that. Recently, I've just been rereading parts of Half-Blood Prince and going deep into the pensieve in preparation for HP7.

If you were to start a band based on the collected works of another of your favorite authors, who would it be and what would the band be called?
Actually, Harry and the Potters was not my first idea for a band about books. Back in high school I had an idea to make a band whose source material was calypsos from the Books of Bokonon in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. I think the band name would have been "The Bokononists." It was going to be some weird performance art/beat poetry type stuff. I even went so far as to print out all the calypsos.

Vonnegut is sort of the unofficial mascot of this website, so you're definitely in good company. What would you say is the mission of your band (aside from defeating dark wizards with the twin swords of love and rock)?
We're going to continue to spread the DIY gospels across the country. We'll keep promoting literacy by rocking it out at the library, and we'll continue working to raise money for literacy-related organizations like First Book and Reach Out and Read. And we promise to try our best to make our one hour on stage the most fun hour of the week for whatever city we happen to be in.

I had the chance to see you twice last week when you were playing some free shows in my area, and I will say that it was easily the most fun I had all week (beating out a night of go-karting), so mission: accomplished. At the show I went to in Anaheim, you asked the audience who had brought book reports for you. What is the story behind that?
Before our tour last summer, we published a reading list and offered a Harry and the Potters toothbrush to anyone who read one of our book suggestions and brought a book report to the show. The cool thing about books is that when you really get into a good one, it sort of consumes your life and then when you finish and you emerge, you have a changed perspective. The Harry Potter books have inspired many people and changed their lives in such a positive manner, so Joe and I wanted to offer up some books that have had a similar effect on our own lives. This year's list includes Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, The Catcher in the Rye, Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Is there anything else you'd like to say to the world at large, using this massive and history-changing internet book review edifice as your tool?
It's never too loud to read.

At this point, high fives of the most epic nature occurred, and all was right in the world.

Harry and the Potters are currently touring libraries across the United States. Visit their website, http://www.eskimolabs.com/hp, to find out where they'll be rocking near you. Free library shows win. That's just science.

(July, 2007)