Hello magical friends, and welcome to episode 98 of WZRD Radio! I’m your hostwitch Bess, and we are getting so close to the 100th episode! Thank you to everyone who’s been reviewing and starring and spreading the good word of wrock as part of the 100 for 100. You all write such nice things, and it’s surprisingly heartening to see all the stars on places like Spotify.
Today’s episode is with a wizard rocker who came to the community, as many do, with the thought “this is silly,” and found out what a wonderful place this really is. I can’t wait to share that story with you, but first we’ve got some music.
Here’s “Felix Felicis” by Swish and Flick.
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That was Swish and Flick’s cover of the Harry and the Potter’s song “Felix Felicis,” Dream Quaffle and “Sleep, Little Hippogriff” [lyrics], and “Fluffy’s Lullaby” by Muggle Snuggle.
“Felix Felicis” is dedicated by my wonderful patron Amanda to her cousin and her cousin’s wife, who just had a little Felix of their own! Congratulations! (I threw in the lullabies. You can never have too many.)
And now, here’s my chat with Andri of Rubeus and the Hagrids!
Welcome to the show, Andri of Rubeus and the Hagrids. I am so excited to talk with you today.
Andri: Hello and welcome to– Not Pagefire. Where am I? Oh oh podcast. Okay, nice. Hello!
<laugh>. So now that is the perfect segue because I only know you as Rubeus and the Hagrids, but that’s not in fact uh, where you began. So how did you end up in wizard rock?
Andri: <laugh> Well the history of my involvement with wizard rock is like the involvement with Pagefire, which in short is just a YouTube channel started by a couple of friends where like we just wanted to upload dumb stuff to the internet and I’m fascinated by like sort of parody tutorials and I wanted to do that with music ’cause that was my passion into and I knew I wanted to do like weird genres and I had a list and wizard rock just happened to be on the list. It is one of those genres that I just knew about. I don’t remember exactly where I learned about it for the first time, but I just knew that at some point I was looking for weird genres and then “oh wizard rock, what is this weird thing?” And then of course like in Omen it usually like appears in different ways to me.
Like there are two YouTube channels that did coverage about wizard rock. One that was This Exist and the other one was uh, Fuse I believe. Uh, Fuse did like a coverage of a wizard rock concert that featured Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, and a couple of others there. And This Exists also covered fandom rock. That’s where I also learned about Twilight rock, Rockingjay and a lot more. So wizard rock was just kind of always on my mind and that just made me do go like “okay, yeah, this is definitely a potential video idea.”
I appreciated in your video that you didn’t just include the biggest names–
Andri: <laugh>
–uh, as examples. You also had some of the smaller, less well-known bands. Did you end up having–
Andri: Right.
–like a favorite during your research? Were there any songs that really stuck out to you?
Andri: Definitely the Moaning Myrtles. Like uh, what I usually do when I research each episode is uh, I try to make a playlist and then try to find as much music that I can add to the playlist. Oh yeah, and I also like to hop around in the playlist in order to like see what other wizard rock obscure stuff I might be able to find on uh, Spotify. That’s how I managed to find one–I think it was Hank Green, I believe–who made the song called “This Isn’t Hogwarts” and like another obscure artist who had the bizarre song, “My Hufflepuff knocked My House Elf Up” <laugh>. But I remember also finding the Moaning Myrtles. Like for me they kind of understood that yeah, this is comedy and this is for fun and outta all of them that I’m managed to find they among others didn’t take themselves like too seriously and that made me like them a lot.
Do you still have any favorites? Are there songs that you keep on a regular rotation?
Andri: Uh, no sadly. <laugh> Uh, usually when I do a video about a specific genre, I usually only listen to it in the research and editing time period just to be in the vibe. And unless the artist is in my favorite wheelhouse, I don’t listen to them that often. So I don’t think I have listened to wizard rock since covid was a thing. <laugh>. Yeah, sorry about that.
Now as part of your how to, you actually created the band Rubeus and the Hagrids and I always like to know where people get their band names from. ’cause oftentimes there’s a funny or wild story or other band name possibilities that they’ve considered. So how did you pick yours?
Andri: So like when I was doing research for the episode, it was probably the most obvious thing for me to choose <laugh> because okay, there’s Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, and there’s probably like others, but I don’t remember seeing Rubeus and the Hagrids. So for me that was just the obvious choice to grab and that way <in a gravelly voice> I could just do kind of a fake voice <end of gravelly tone> and do like a creepy Hagrid character for the music. And also when the YouTube channel was starting to get big, everyone was calling me Hagrid <laugh>. So I was just like, “yeah, the stars are aligning.” And that’s like the most straightforward version of like where the band name came from. I did have another band in mind, it was gonna be called Hufflepunks. Basically Hufflepuff students who start a punk band and would basically write the most punk music you can imagine but it’s all about like being nice and such. But sadly that never got that far because I gravitated towards Rubeus and the Hagrids the most while editing the script and such.
Do you think you’ll ever bring the Hufflepunks back?
Andri: Sadly, no <laugh>. And also, here’s the random funny thing I learned after the video came out. Turns out in the wizard rock community there was already a band called Rubeus and the Hagrids. I tried to contact uh, the wizard rock Wikipedia Twitter account to ask them like, “do you know who they are?” And the account said they’re trying to archive as much wizard rock as they can, but sadly Rubeus and Hagrids might be the most lost media of all wizard rock media ’cause they had a MySpace page that’s now deleted. They only had one song and because of that they basically fell into obscurity. So there was already a Rubeus and the Hagrids and I kinda unintentionally took that title away from them. If I ever meet them one day in every circumstance, I just wanna say sorry <laugh>,
All old names are new again, this happens not infrequently. There’s only so many named characters you can have a band named after.
Andri: True that.
Now you said you had a list of genres for these videos that you made. How did you pick them? How did you decide which ones you wanted to make videos of?
Andri: Uh, honestly it is just vibes <laugh>. Like when I write episodes or want to start writing something, I usually just go through my list of genres and go, “okay, what feels right to do?” For example, I don’t know if the episode will be out, I’m currently writing a new episode about an obscure punk genre and my brain is just like, “this genre is obscure, it’s niche.” There’s not much to say about this just feels right to do while I’m kind of in vacation mode. And that’s basically true for all the genres. I usually just go by what feels right to do. Same thing happened with wizard rock, like Norway was about to enter, like I believe I start the episode in after the summer. So just like Halloween’s coming, I need excuse to dress in a silly costume. This just feels right. But also it depends on like what do I want to dedicate at least four months of my life to <laugh>? Because I know once I start properly doing an episode my life will be engulfed in that music for at least big part of the year until the video is done.
That must be fun though, getting exposed to so many different kinds of music.
Andri: Oh yeah.
Uh, I just did an interview with a British wizard rocker, uh, Sonorus, and I noticed that his list of influences overlapped with a bunch of the niche genres that you’ve covered.
Andri: Oh?
I think stoner metal was one of them?
Andri: Oh hell yeah. <laugh>.
Is this just like a European thing? Is it something about niche obscure metal that appeals that, you know, American wizard rockers haven’t heard of or don’t know much about? Sorry, sorry Russ. I’m sure you know all of them.
Andri: <laugh>. Uh, that that sounds like a good question. I think it is just more of a… Like, I can’t say for European, but I can say for metalheads like me, we love to, if I’m allowed to swear, we love to brand the shit outta things <laugh>. Like we don’t like to just go, “oh this is pop,” “this is country.” No, we have to go super specific about the music. Like “oh no, this isn’t just metal, this is stoner metal.” “This isn’t just regular death metal, it’s more technical. It’s technical death metal.” So I like to think like at least European metalheads are more into the specific brandings of genre. That’s my only guess.
So when you were researching wizard rock, you found a variety of other fandom music and my patrons wanted to know, are you tempted to do a video or even create a band cover any songs in any other fandom?
Andri: I can– I can reveal this a free insider information that I haven’t told anyone. So here’s an exclusive <laugh>. I was actually planning on doing every fandom rock genre after wizard rock. I already had like a script for how to make Rockingjay, the Hunger Games genre, but I decided to drop it because I was still a bit cynical at that time. And just know that the script was just 90% insults at the Hunger Games and Hunger Games fans, which was not the right vibe for me when I decided to like sit down. Sadly most of these ideas kind of dropped, but the joke would’ve been I would do all the fandom rock music under Rubeus and the Hagrids. So Hagrid is just dimension warping into these fandoms <laugh>. But sadly I never got that far.
Oh that would’ve been fun.
Andri: Yeah. <laugh>
That was something I appreciated about your video. There was a lot of making fun but it didn’t feel abusive or hurtful toward wizard rock fans.
Andri: Okay. That’s kinda interesting because I, every time I re-watch my own videos just to see if I could learn something from them or see if they’re aging decently, I always feel like especially the wizard rock one, I’m like the most cynical ’cause… ’cause like when the script was written with the original Pagefire crew at the time we were very cynical and very nihilistic. So whenever we, we wanted to make fun of a certain group in the music industry or, or sorry, in the music genre we usually go really hard. I’m guessing on wizard rock I was a bit more soft. But there’s definitely some jokes in there. I’m just like, “yeah this was a bit too cruel” ’cause especially when the video was done and I was kind of dipping my toe into the community, like everyone was so nice and so generous. So I just felt really bad with this really mean video out there saying like, “your wizard rock is so easy!” <laugh>
Well that’s what we like about it. The the low barrier to entry. So you’re exactly correct.
Andri: Oh, okay.
And it is I think, hard to take something as cruel or bad faith when the person making it then goes on to make at least one complete wizard rock album.
Andri: Oh yeah.
And submit to the Sampler and engage with the community.
Andri: <laugh> Oh yeah the sampler. Uh, if we’re talking about the European Sampler one, I believe I remember… Okay, sorry about this, cuz I don’t remember this cuz it was forever ago. But I remember there was, like, a Wizard Rock Collective asking for like wizard rock songs and they wanted wizard rock from Europe and I just kind of threw an old demo in there just for fun.
No, I was thinking of the Wizard Rock Sampler, the annual collection.
Andri: Oh yeah!
Of just music people have created in the last year. Yeah, you submitted “Expecto My Fist.”
Andri: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I almost forgot about that one too. <laugh>. I know–There, again there was that one and there was another sampler… The other one was a bit obscure ’cause it was kind of behind a paywall or something? I don’t remember…
The Pedia Comp Club, yeah.
Andri: Yeah. <laugh>
Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to take something as bad faith when the person writing it is engaged as you did.
Andri: Yeah. <laugh>
So even if you’re not going to make the series as intended of fandom music, is there a fandom that you would create music for? Is there something that you love? Besides music.
Andri: <Laugh>
Not to get recursive–
Andri: Yeah, it’s fine <laugh>
–that you would give a shot to?
Andri: See, I’m already kind of halfway doing that with my main band Nekonomicon. Like the band’s concept is the songs are inspired by video games or video game topics. Some are a little less obvious and some are just kind of based on the scene because I don’t like to write about specifics. There are a couple of songs there are already like about Pacman and the Yakuza series that are there. But I like to keep it like not so direct as Rubeus and the Hagrids. But if I were to like… If I were to do a new band about a fandom, I would definitely do either Dark Souls or Elden Ring. ’cause I love dark fantasy and I love how all the monsters and the lores presented in the games. Like it’s just vague enough that you could write a song about anything in that story and it would still fit. So definitely in like the FromSoft games would be a dream.
And it sounds like it would fit right in with what you do now.
Andri: Mhm. <affirmative>. Yeah.
There’s some music coming up, so let’s pause here. Here’s MC Kreacher and “We Are Wizards.”
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You just heard “We Are Wizards” by MC Kreacher [lyrics], Pussycat Dolores with “7 Books” [lyrics], and Bradley and the Dadleys singing “Harry Potter is Playing at My House” [lyrics].
“We Are Wizards” was a special request from my magical patron Geoff and is dedicated to Laurie, Bethany, Alfred, Jessica, Theresa, Ann, Lorrie, Michelle, Lara, Matthew, Samantha, Sierra, Autumn, Brent, Elsa, Molly, Luna, Danielle, James, Crystal, Amanda, Julianna, and Mary, saying “Thank you for showing me how much you believe in me. I’ll never forget what you all did!”
Here’s some more of my conversation with Andri.
So you’re saying that the wizard rock video was a little bit cynical, a little bit maybe uh, snobbish and yet you committed to making a music video for every song that you wrote for Rubeus and the Hagrids.
Andri: <laugh> Oh yeah.
Why?
Andri: Because I can <laugh>
<laugh>
Andri: Like here, here’s the thing, I’m not just a songwriter, I’m also the video editor. So when you have the power of being the songwriter and the video editor, you can basically do whatever you want. And I knew that if I was gonna commit to the bit, I might as well go all the way. So the songs weren’t just left on the side. So I was just like,” yeah every song is gonna get a very lazy music video.” And they were also pretty simple. It was just me in front of a green screen with a little bit of help of a friend filming me. It took just a few days to film it all and around four to five weeks to edit it all because uh, my computer was a little bit not that good back in the day. So rendering a four minute video would take like four hours. But yeah, so <laugh> doing those 13 music videos minus the one for the main video took about four to five weeks.
That’s still uh, an incredible amount of dedication. I am impressed.
Andri: Thank you.
So now that you’ve had this whole experience, uh, done your research, dipped your own toes in with the music and the music videos, what advice, uh, would you give other folks who are looking to get into wizard rock?
Andri: Just do it. That is like the most straightforward way you can just say it, just do it. Because when it comes to making music, there is nothing stopping you from just starting. And any age is really a good age to start. So the only thing that’s like stopping you is of course a wall of like, oh you need to learn how to write the songs or write the lyrics. But everything is skill and every skill can be learned. So the best way to start is to just start. Like for me, I actually didn’t start making music until I was 20 years old and I’m currently in my thirties so I just spent 10 years just working on this skill of playing guitar, writing lyrics and making music. And I always felt like I came in very late in music and I also felt a little bit old compared to like my other students and like the music school and such. But in reality not everyone was like in the exact same age. Some were older, some were younger, and all of them had the same motivation of just doing it while they can. And that’s my best advice is to just do it.
My regular listeners will know that I like to get some good technical advice as well.
Andri: Mhm <affirmative>
And since you made all these music videos–I would love for the world to have more wizard rock music videos–uh, what suggestions would you have there?
Andri: Uh, a more casual answer would be to just binge as many video editing tutorials as you can. There are a lot out there and I just learned making music videos just from picking little pieces from what I could learn. And it also helps that I also went to a media class in my high school, so I got a little bit of an advantage on that by learning video editing from that. But also there are plenty of schools that are like focused on video editing. So if you were to do it casually, YouTube is the best place. There are also plenty of courses online. And if you wanna take it seriously, take a film course ’cause what you can learn from film courses, you can easily apply to music videos.
Are there any tools that you recommend? Like is your green screen the best or the most accessible or…
Andri: Oh no. <laugh>.
–editing software?
Andri: Like I started… I can say that I actually started with video editing before I started music. I started video editing when I was like 11 or 12, but I never took it seriously. It was more like ‘how do I make cheap YouTube videos quickly,’ which was mostly just remixes. A lot of them now lost in time ’cause I never saved the files or kept the YouTube channel longer than a week. <laugh> And my green screen… The first green screen I used in all the Pagefire videos was just a cheap green cloth that barely fit the frame. So I could only film like my head and my shoulders <laugh>. And the green screen I’m using now is a little bit more better, but the secret is to just find what works. And I also, uh, let’s see, there’s a technical way of saying this <laugh>. Uh, yeah, back to the cheap green screen cloth I use my early videos. I think I’m also using the same cheap cloth in the Rubeus and Hagrids videos. It is just cheap green cloth. And if you know how to color correct and key out stuff, then you should be able to make it semi-professional.
Well now that you have your, you know, decade plus of experience and your fancier equipment–
Andri: Yeah.
–What are you working on these days?
Andri: Uh, right now I’m kind of taking it easy because the Pagefire channel, uh, reached a hundred thousand subscribers few months ago.
Congratulations!
Andri: Yeah, we did it boys! <laugh> And so now we’re just taking it easy. We just released our April Fools video and I’m currently writing scripts for future videos, but also my current life has been taken up by my band Nekonomicon and we’re currently working on our next album and also performing live. We’ve got a couple of small concerts in Norway that we’re working towards. And other than that I just work on music casually. Like one thing I like to do is to not work on music with deadlines. Sometimes I’m just like, “oh, here’s a riff idea. Why don’t I just write a song with that riff?” Or “oh, here’s some lyrics ideas, maybe work on a song around that?” So I have like a couple of like secret songs in the background that I don’t really know what to do with. So, but also I just like making music for fun even though they’re not for like professional release. I also have a secret project that I might announce next year. It is currently a project that’s currently out there and if you know what to look for, you can already find it <laugh>. But it’s currently like a experiment to see if I can make this secret project go viral without relying on a fan base. And once that year is over, I will probably announce it at some point.
Intriguing. Are we likely to see any more Rubeus and the Hagrids?
Andri: Uh, sadly not. <laugh>
Never?
Andri: Definitely never.
Ah well.
Andri: <laugh>, so here’s a sad thing about this project. I would love to do more. The problem is I can’t sing. Uh, the voice I’m doing. <gravelly tone> the Hagrid voice, <end gravelly tone> uh, hurts to do after about 20 to 30 minutes. Recording the voice for the album was very painful. I had to take a lot of long rests and a lot of the takes had to be one take wonders. ’cause I knew as soon as that section I was recording was done, my voice would give out. So it was like the most painful experience for me, <laugh> of recording that album.
Oh no!
Andri: Like I don’t regret doing it. I love the album. Sometimes I re-listen to it and go like, “man, this slaps more than it should be” <laugh>. But also I don’t have any proper voice training so I could not realistically go through this process again.
It’s time for our final music break, with Tayor Brogan and “I Hate Lavender Brown” opening.
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That was Taylor Brogan and “I Hate Lavender Brown,” The Sweetwater All-Stars and their tribute to the Mudbloods, “Reflections on a Pensieve,” and DJ Dumbledor with “I Love Hogwarts.”
Let’s get back to the rest of that interview.
Thank you so much for talking with me today. It’s been an absolute joy learning a bit of the behind the scenes for Pagefire and for Rubeus and the Hagrids.
Andri: And thank you for having me.
Where can WZRD listeners find you online?
Andri: Youtube.com/pagefire and youtube.com/@NekonomiconBand or just search Pagefire or Nekonomicon YouTube. That’s where you’ll find my videos and such. And you can also find the music from both channels on Spotify and Tidal, iTunes and wherever. I don’t use a lot of, uh, social media accounts because I want to be a bit private lately, but I still use Instagram. So if anyone cares about just me and not just the Pagefire brand or my band brand, I do have an Instagram Andri Von Pagefire.
If you heard a song today and you thought “I could listen to that again” then go to the transcript at WZRDRadioPod.com, follow the link and buy a copy of your very own. It’s the best way to support your favorite musician, and without our wizard rockers, we wouldn’t be here.
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If you want to keep up with WZRD between episodes, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at WZRDRadioPod. If you don’t believe in social media, you can also comment on the transcript or email me at WZRDRadioPod@gmail.com.
And now, magical friends, here’s Rubeus and the Hagrids!
Andri: So “Expecto My Fist” was the last song written for the album because when I was looking at all the songs, I was thinking to myself, “this album needs a better punch at the beginning” and just ‘punch.’ Huh… And then I remember there’s a joke about muscle wizards, like people making D&D characters that are like, it’s like a wizard with max strength and their magic spell was their muscles. Like it was probably on Tumblr, probably on a Reddit meme, but I saw the phrase “expecto my fist” and immediately got a song idea from that. Even the phrase “muscle wizard cast fist” is from a similar like meme setting. So I just wrote a song about Hagrid punching everyone in the face. And it’s also ended up becoming my favorite song. It’s like the most raw punk of them all. And also I took a lot of inspiration from like Norwegian punk bands for the energy, which was like really fun for me to write. So outta all the songs I have, like the best memories from that one.
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