Episode 100: The Original WZRD

Hello magical friends, and welcome to episode 100 of WZRD Radio! One Hundred! Can you believe it? We’ve heard so much music and met so many amazing musicians and done so much in that time—including roughly doubling the number of reviews WZRD has on places like Apple podcasts and Spotify, so thank you so, so much to everyone that took the time to star, like, and review. I was a little anxious about asking for reviews and you responded with such generosity and enthusiasm.

In honor of our 100 episodes, I decided this interview would take a look back at where it all began…with the original WZRD! Amy and Jamie came on to chat about the good old days and you know what? They can take over for me any time.

Before we dive into this pensieve, here’s our first block of music. This is Amy Snow with “Fat Lady.”

~*~

You just heard “Fat Lady” from Amy Snow [lyrics], “Lumos Girl” by Randy Meyer from the Gnargles album, and Insane Ian with “Hey There, Hermione.”

Now let’s get to that blast from the past with Amy and Jamie!

I am so excited today, magical friends, ’cause I am talking with the hosts of the original WZRD, Jamie and Amy. Welcome back to the show!

Jamie: Thank you.

Amy: Hiii. <laugh>

Jamie: Hi. Yes.

When I first wanted to start WZRD, a lot of people were like, “We already had one of those.” So I actually got in touch with Amy to be like, “Can I use your name?” And you were so gracious about it. And here we are, four years later into the new WZRD, and it seemed like a good time to learn about the origins. Like, how did you all meet?

Amy: Jamie?

Jamie: <laugh> Um, it was on LiveJournal, which is a throwback, and I believe that Amy posted something about wanting to start a, a something with wizard rock, podcast or something and I replied to it and that’s how we met, like straight off.

Amy: Yeah. Oh, we should probably try to find that post.

Jamie: Oh man.

Amy: That would take a long time though.

Jamie: Eh.

Amy: Like it was on a wizard rock–

Jamie: I don’t even know if–

Amy: –LiveJournal group, I think.

Jamie: –if the group is still there or not.

Amy: Yeah, it might not be.

Jamie: I don’t know. I’m really good at Google, so…

Amy: I’m not, I’m not good at Google at all.

Jamie: We’ll see. <laugh>

Amy: That’d be a funny like novel archive item to have.

Jamie: It would.

Amy: So yeah, so I don’t know anything about anything, so I just had an idea and I posted it and then Jamie said, “Oh, I know how to do stuff.” <laugh>. We just started talking <laugh>.

Jamie: I hadn’t known about wizard rock at all. Like, I had just joined that group I think that recently and I was kind of learning and then I saw it. Or maybe it wasn’t even in a wizard rock group. Was it a straight-up Harry Potter group?

Amy: No, I think it, I think it was the wizard rock group.

Jamie: Okay.

Amy: I’m about to do some Googling.

Jamie: Okay. <laugh>. See, we don’t even remember. It was, uh, it was a minute ago.

When was it? 2007?

Jamie: I think it was the end of 2006 for some reason. So pretty close.

Amy: That’s crazy that you would remember that.

Jamie: I’m really good with dates. Which is–

Amy: That’s unbelievable. You’re amazing.

Jamie: –Like it’s a joke at my trivia nights.

Amy: <laugh>

Jamie: If it’s like a movie year, everybody in the room kind of looks at me. Well not everybody in the room, but the people who know me are just like, “oh crap.”

Amy: I feel like I have to measure things by other things that happened. So, like I have to go, “okay, well that was around the time that I graduated from college” or “that was around the time that I went to this event.” Or like, everything has to be a landmark.

Jamie: No, I’m, I’m a lot that way too. Yeah, I get that.

Amy: But no, that is brilliant. Don’t, don’t, don’t do yourself down there now. I’m just looking– We, we ha- we made it a LiveJournal account ’cause we were serious business. We were like

Jamie: Oh yes.

Amy: We did a WZRD Wrock LiveJournal <laugh>.

Jamie: Oh I remember that.

Amy: Oh God. It’s cute. It looks nice. I just remember how much work this was.

Jamie: It was a lot of work.

Amy: So much work.

Jamie: But towards the end we had some helpers.

Amy: We did.

Jamie: One even made a website for us and it was beautiful.

Amy: Yeah. But we were so terribly crap.

Jamie: <laugh>. That’s fair.

Amy: <laugh>.

Jamie: We were, yeah, busy and in college and…

Amy: Yeah. That’s it. I mean, we were doing our degrees at the same time.

Jamie: Yeah.

So you all met specifically because Amy wanted to make a wizard rock podcast.

Jamie: Yes.

And you, Jamie, were new to wizard rock?

Jamie: Pretty much. I think I had just joined that group because I was big into Harry Potter and I saw something about… probably Harry and the Potters and kind of was interested. So I clicked around and you know those rabbit holes you go down and then you find it. I just happened to see the posts.

Amy: Amazing. And the rest was history.

Jamie: Yes.

Amy: <laugh>.

Amy, what made you want to start a wizard rock podcast? They weren’t–

Amy: Oh.

–particularly well known as a medium.

Amy: Um, I probably just liked the sound of my own voice too much. Um, <laugh> and then, I don’t know, it was about music and it was about meeting people and I don’t know, I think it was really, it didn’t exist, did it? It, there was nothing like that going on. I mean we had like Pottercast and there was a Leak– or a Mugglenet um, podcast. Was it called MuggleCast?

Jamie: Yeah, I think so.

Amy: Definitely listened to the Leaky Cauldron one and I just loved it. I just really loved just listening to people chatting about stuff that I was interested in. And this was, like Jamie said, ’cause I’ve just confirmed it was our first post on LiveJournal was the 3rd of July, 2006. Um, so it was like you said, it was before podcasts really kind of took off. I was also working on the college radio station at the time, presenting and stuff. Um, so I was interested in presenting and I thought “there have to be more people who are interested in listening to people chat about things that they’re interested in” <laugh>. And so I just said it and then Jamie made my wish come true.

Jamie, was your background in radio as well? What made you feel like you could jump in on this project?

Jamie: Um, I was kind of fearless back then. I didn’t know anything about wizard rock really, yet, but I was eager to learn. And I am not a musical person. Like I love music, but I am just- don’t have that talent. However, I, I enjoy other people’s talent so I kind of just, I I think it was a whim.

Amy: Worked out okay.

Jamie: Yeah. And I went to college for digital media first, so it kind of was a good opportunity to learn, you know, hands on.

Amy: Did you get to- that’s, sorry, that’s, I just posted in the first date of our first post. It was March 11th, um, 2006. At 1:12 AM.

Jamie: <laugh>

Amy: <laugh>

That’s a very college age time to be posting.

Amy: Isn’t it? Um, Jamie, did you get to use any of your WZRD stuff for college? Like, did you get to submit any of it or use any of it for any kind of credit?

Jamie: Not really. I used the exp– I talked about it a lot ’cause it was a whole personality trait. <laugh>.

Amy: Yes.

Jamie: Then, and I remember one of my finals, one of my professors was like, always asked me about wizard rock stuff because I had like, I told him about it and like I helped my class start a podcast. I mean just for the class, which was fun. And, but during one of our finals, we had to have a password to get into the final on the computer, and he wrote wizard rock for the, for the password.

Amy: Aw.

Jamie: And I’ll just always remember that.

Amy: Nice.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: I remember I did my seminar on wizard rock and I got invited back after I graduated to give the seminar to the next

Jamie: That’s awesome!

Amy: –class. Yeah. <laugh>. I think it was just very novel. I think- I remember the lecturer asking me when I was giving my seminar the first time, like, “oh but don’t they run outta things to write songs about? And I kind of said, well how many songs are there about love? You know? And like the main theme of Harry Potter is love, so there’s endless things you can write about.” It was brilliant <laugh>. It was great to be able to get some college credit for it.

So you sort of suggested that it grew beyond just the two of you working on WZRD. You said you had helpers building websites and things.

Amy: Yeah, we had a staff.

How did that happen?

Amy: That was crazy. We just started to realize that we couldn’t keep up with it, and it was so hard because <sigh> we used to record, everybody would record their own track on their own computer and then everyone would upload it and then one of us would download it and edit it. And certainly at the time I was very obsessed about sounding very polished, which is hilarious looking back <laugh> like I used to edit out breaths and coughs and long pauses and stuff. And I think, yeah, I think it was just too much work to like splice everything together and then edit it and then also try to keep on top of the updating of all of the different, like we think that there’s a lot now, but there was a lot then too ’cause we were probably on MySpace and LiveJournal and Facebook and then a website and you know, like there, there was a lot going on. And then we were also trying to do our own lives and I suppose like especially around the time that we were graduating. Would you agree?

Jamie: Oh yeah.

Amy: Jamie?

Jamie: Mhm.

Amy: Yeah, I think it just got to be too much. But like, people were interested, so we just kind of put the call out there and great people, really kind generous, selfless people volunteered to uh step in.

How did y’all divide the labor? I think you both took turns editing?

Amy: Can’t remember.

Jamie: I think that whoever had the time at the moment did it, honestly.

Amy: Probably.

Jamie: That’s kind of what I remember. It’s like

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: It is just, oh, Amy has a big exam this week, I’m gonna do it <laugh> kind of thing.

Amy: Yeah. I think we kind of tried to play to what our strengths were. Like, Jamie was much better at the technical stuff and understanding like what a, a server. Like a what? A like a, well I can’t even remember what the thing is, but. The RSS feed?

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. Like you used to know all about about that stuff and I had no clue and you’d be explaining it to me and I’d be like, “yeah, oh, no idea.”

Jamie: <laugh>.

Amy: But I think I am just naturally very curious. So I would do a lot of questioning and maybe leading the conversation a bit more. And then, I don’t know, I think the editing, like you said, was just like, just whoever had time. But to be honest, we probably would’ve saved ourselves a lot of time if we hadn’t spent so much time just chatting to each other.

Jamie: True.

Amy: Yeah. <laugh>,

Jamie: A couple people have told me though, that they enjoyed our chatter. Like that we kind of just were natural and like had fun with it. And so I don’t know it, it still was for the best I think.

Amy: Yeah. But they didn’t hear the half of what we were talking about for sure.

Jamie: That’s true. We did edit a lot of that out.

Amy: Yeah, we edit a lot out <laugh>. Oh my God. But like we would just go down, we would just be so random with what we were talking about.

Jamie: Well I’ve now been diagnosed with adult ADHD. So <laugh> that ex–

Amy: Have you?

Jamie: Yes! So–

Amy: Oh my God.

Jamie: –that’s not surprising at all. I mean a couple years ago, but I have it.,

Amy: No, I don’t think that was it. I think we just got on well <laugh> and like, I think there was always something going on in one of our lives. You know, when you’re at that age, there’s always stuff happening. So there was a lot of like catching up with what was going on. There was always drama in somebody’s life. And I remember like staying up really late to talk to you.

Jamie: Oh yeah.

Well we tried to avoid that today, so hopefully we won’t make it until too late.

Amy: Well I’m much older now, so I get sleepy much earlier. <laugh>

Jamie: <laugh>

Now Jamie has already said you’re not particularly musically inclined, but Amy also has a wizard rock band. So which came first? Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons or WZRD?

Amy: I’d say it was Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons because I remember, um, I remember that I did a songwriting class and that would’ve been in 2005? So I would’ve written my first wizard rock song at the end of 2005 and just uploaded it because that’s what you did, even though it was so unpolished and it was literally the first song I’d ever written. I just threw it up there. It was called “Frozen.” And yeah, it was nice and people were nice to me and so I, I don’t think it did, obviously didn’t predate it by much because if we were already starting posting on LiveJournal in March, 2006, then there wasn’t a big gap between uploading my first song and and starting the podcast.

And you had a fun story about how your band got named, which is my first question whenever I interview a band, so I figured I’d throw that in here too.

Amy: Oh yes. Lauren Fairweather has full credit for naming the band because… In those days, we had something called MSN, and we spent a lot of time on MSN talking to each other. I was talking to Lauren and I just said, “oh, I don’t know because I wanna be a character but I wanna be in Gryffindor.” And I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Oh, I think I was between two names. <laugh>. I wanted to be called Krum, K-R-U-M, just Krum. I just, I thought that would be a really cool name. And then I, but I wanted to be like a, I wanted to be able to get into the Gryffindor common room. I don’t know why that was important to me, but it was really, really important to me at the time. And she suggested Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons. So that’s her claim to fame <laugh>

I was gonna ask whether your wizard rock inspired your interest in having a podcast, but it sounds like they were so intertwined, there’s no way of teasing that out.

Amy: I think it was just a really exciting moment for young people and new technology and the internet and Harry Potter to all come together, you know? This was kind of the beginning of kind of sharing music online and it was just so accessible to everyone. And I think, I think, and Jamie, I’d be really interested to hear what your thoughts are on this, but like, I think we wanted there to be a platform for everyone, no matter how well known they were.

Jamie: Yes. I remember you saying that.

Amy: Oh cool. <laugh>. ‘Cause I don’t.

Jamie: I do.

Amy: Aw, well done, Past Amy.

Jamie: <laugh>.

Amy: I think Jamie you were way better at like listening to more bands as well.

Jamie: Yeah. I still ha- I was telling Bess that– we were talking a couple weeks ago, that I still have a lot of that old music on my hard drive, and I think I, I’ve been having trouble locating it, but I think I still have our, all our little like commercial clips.

Amy: <gasp> You should send them to Bess so she can use them.

Jamie: I’m definitely looking for them.

Amy: That’d be cute. I loved the Morning Myrtles one. I think that was my favorite one.

Jamie: Oh that one was cute.

Amy: Yeah.

The first time I heard one of your stingers from The Hermione Crookshanks Experience,

Jamie: Oh yeah.

I was like, “can I just cut this out and put it on my show?”

Amy: Work away girl, you do it.

<laugh>

Amy: They’re not doing anything else right now so you might as well use them. And they’re vintage.

Jamie: True.

I like that: they’re vintage.

Amy: Yeah, vintage and sustainable ’cause you’re reusing.

<laugh>

Amy: She was great; do you remember her?

Jamie: Mhm <affirmative>. I do.

Amy: The Hermione Crookshanks Experience. I liked her music a lot. I actually still have all those CDs.

Jamie: Oh that’s awesome.

Amy: I kept all of the CDs. I, you know, the way like everyone has gone through all their CDs and <laughs> thrown them out. I have not thrown out any CDs.

Jamie: Cool.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: Sometimes you can’t find it anywhere else, so.

Amy: Yeah. Especially the smaller bands where, if you were like at a show or they were, you know, like if we were doing a show together, and you’d have this like little like 19-year-old like, or 18-year-old coming up, or even 14 year olds and they’ve made their own CD and you got to like buy their little CD. It was just so nice. You know, that’s, that’s such a,

Jamie: I completely agree

Amy: Relic. Yeah.

The band Striking Down Diggory, during my interview with them, there are seven CDs out in the world.

Jamie: Oh my God.

that have bonus songs that you can’t get anywhere else.

Amy: <gasp> That’s like the horcruxes.

Yeah, exactly. So that’s like the CD holy grail.

Amy: That’s amazing.

So y’all ran WZRD for four years. There were 50 odd episodes. What was your favorite interview?

Amy: I love how Jamie and my faces are just like, you know more about it than we do <laugh>.

Jamie: I have no idea how long we, I’ve recorded.

One of us did research for this interview.

Amy: What’s on? <laugh> Hey, I Googled. What was our favorite interview?

Jamie: Oh, there were so many good ones.

Amy: Yeah. I think loads of times, what would happen is as, soon as we like stopped recording, we would have really good chats with people.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: And they would give us all the tea <laugh>.

Jamie: Right, exactly. Because now they were relaxed ’cause we weren’t recording.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: Or more relaxed. Most of them were very good about that. That I remember.

Amy: I think Moaning Myrtles was, was obviously very, very high up there. Probably my most memorable one, just ’cause I loved them so much and I loved their music so much. We never interviewed Harry and the Potters, did we?

Jamie: Nope.

Amy: And yet I’ve played several shows with them. They’ve been to my house in Ireland.

Jamie: That’s amazing.

Amy: I mean, we never interviewed them, but I don’t know. I mean, it’s probably better left as an enigma, that one.

Jamie: That’s fair.

Amy: Plenty of people were interviewing them.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: I don’t think they needed the publicity lol from, our podcast.

Jamie: <laugh>.

Amy: Um, well there was our live show that was amazing.

Jamie: Ohh yeah.

Amy: Jeez.

Jamie: Do you remember why, like the conflict everybody had with it though?

Amy: Did we get kicked outta the hotel?

Jamie: No, no, no. We, we didn’t, no. That’s a story; we’ll come back to that <laugh>.

Amy: I don’t remember anything Jamie. I remember nothing.

Jamie: I- I have a really good memory. I’m sorry.

Amy: Oh my God. Please tell me everything.

Jamie: Okay, so we had the live show.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: And we recorded it and everything. But we picked a time that wasn’t gonna conflict with a lot of the other wizard rock things, ’cause it was during one of the breaks.

Amy: Very sensible.

Jamie: And John Green was having a book signing or something, like at the exact same time. And people are like,” I wanna go to both.” I’m like, “I’m so sorry.” It was like the Nerd Fighters thing.

Amy: They absolutely should have picked us because the Nerd Fighter thing is still around and we’re dead. So.

Jamie: <laugh>.

Amy: we were limited edition. All of you who made the choice–

Jamie: So many people still came. I was very happy.

Amy: So many people came.

Jamie: I was very happy.

Amy: Yeah, it was really.. Like, looking back, we had no recording equipment. We had no amplification for anybody. We didn’t really have much of a plan.

Jamie: <laugh>

Amy: Everyone was sitting on the grass. In the recording, you can hear like the traffic going by.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: It was such a huge learning experience. I, I genuinely really wish, I still had- I had a podcast, because I feel like we learned so much doing that. Like all of the stuff that we did, we learned so much.

Jamie: Oh, absolutely.

Amy: What was the other drama?

Jamie: Oh, just, um, all of our trains and flights were so much later than the checkout time. So we all hung out. I think you got to leave pretty early.

Amy: Probably. I don’t remember.

Jamie: But a bunch of us were like hanging out in the hotel lobby and they tried to like, they were like getting mad and trying to kick us out. <laugh>.

Amy: Oh I do remember that. Like, the RiddleTM was playing the piano and they were doing an amazing beautiful show. Actually we did a song there.

Jamie: I remember that too. <laugh>

Amy: Yeah. Crazy! And I remember like, didn’t the hotel get real crossed that people were doing little live performances in the lobby?

Jamie: Yeah. They were mad. Yeah.

Amy: I just can’t understand that.

Jamie: I don’t think there was ever, I mean, I can’t quote that, but they made it sound like we weren’t gonna go there again. <laugh>.

Amy: Well we didn’t.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: It was a fabulous hotel.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. Probably one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever actually been in <laugh>.

Jamie: Yeah. It was a cool spot too.

Amy: Yeah. A lot happened at that conference. That was so great. Oh my God.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: My friend went to, um, a Comic-Con in the UK recently, like as in last weekend. And she’s my like, like platonic life partner who I met through wizard rock. But um, she went to a con and she just kind of said like, “yeah it was just kind of, like it was nothing like a Harry Potter conference. You know, there was no kind of central bonding thing or there was no like, live events that were going on throughout the day that people could go to and dip in and out of.” And I just said, “yeah, like, we’re actually so unbelievably lucky that we got to experience that at the height of its being.”

Jamie: Oh, absolutely.

Amy: Do you remember anything from Terminus apart from that? Like what’s, what are your outstanding memories?

Jamie: Um, I remember the ball.

Amy: Yes.

Jamie: Yes. Which was a lot of fun.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: I do remember Georgia playing a lot of the piano, like you said.

Amy: Hmm.

Jamie: There was like little shows, like people brought their guitars and it was great.

Amy: Wasn’t there like an un- like a basement show and the Mudbloods played? Because I think they weren’t–

Jamie: I feel like I remember that, ish. I don’t-

Amy: Yeah. I think like all of the cool boys – ’cause remember it was very much a cool boys club.

Jamie: Yes.

Amy: And it was all about the cool boys. So, I used to get really, I’m not gonna swear, but most perturbed about this.

Jamie: <laugh>

I have an explicit rating, by all means.

Amy: Okay. I used to get really fucked off about this and Jamie used to have to sit there and listen to me going on big, big rants about like how it’s all centered around these men. And there’s all these super talented women doing stuff and nobody cares because they are not men. But anyway, they did a great show and they were underground. Like they were in the basement and I don’t know if the hotel knew we were there, but I remember the Mudbloods played and I think it was their first time, like their first big sh– because they hadn’t done a main stage show.

Jamie: Oh, okay.

Amy: I’m not a hundred percent sure about that, but I remember just, we were all in there crying and it was great. And wasn’t there like an another show going on like Wrock Chicago?

Jamie: That sounds familiar. Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. It was like around the corner in a sort of a club.

Jamie: Oh yeah. And we had problems with the bus, like buses and stuff.

Amy: Yes.

Jamie: I remember there was a whole thing. And we went one night. Me and you went one night.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: Or you and I.

Amy: Yeah. Oh my God, we were so young and cool.

Jamie: <laugh>

Amy: With our Harry Potter music.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: I love us <laugh>.

Jamie: Uh, trying to think of anything else. I, I remember little tidbits, like I remember hanging out with Steph.

Amy: Oh yes.

Jamie: Awesome.

Amy: Tonks and the Aurors, yeah. And I remember like that they had like heads of houses and Brian Ross was one of the heads of house and they gave all the heads of houses really cool flowy robes. And he never took his flowy robe off for the whole–

Jamie: I love that so much.

Amy: Yeah. It was brilliant. Oh it was just so great. That was my first one.

Jamie: Oh, I still have the dress from the ball. I found it a couple weeks ago ’cause I’m cleaning out my house and I was like, “why do I still have this?”

Amy: That was so long ago.

Jamie: But it’s beautiful. My mom made it.

Amy: Yeah. Aw.

Jamie: My mom was one of those moms that like made all my Halloween costumes and my prom dresses and stuff.

Amy: I made my dress for that. Did I? I actually can’t remember which dress I wore. I think I wore a pink dress and I made it and it was so shiny.

Jamie: <laugh> shiny is good.

Amy: Oh it was the shiniest dress ever. I met like so many people. Like my friend Ellie who’s getting married this year, who I’m still friends with. I met her properly like at Terminus and I was her chaperone ’cause she was only 14.

Jamie: Oh wow.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: Yeah. That was a while ago.

Amy: Yeah. Anywho. Bess, do you have any more questions? <laugh>

Instead of questions, how about some music? This is “Quidditch” by Small Folk.

~*~

That was Small Folk with “Quidditch (that devil of a song)” [lyrics], Dan Cantrell’s “Deathday Waltz,” and “Being a Veela” by the Parselmouths.

And now here’s some more of Jamie and Amy.

Amy: Oh, we were all about the gossip

Jamie: <laugh>. We were.

Amy: We really were.

Jamie: I randomly will see something in a, I mean I have a head that just goes all over the place all the time.

Amy: That’s so good.

Jamie: So I still remember a lot of little cute things. Like remember when we did the Big Brother episode?

Amy: I remember doing The Voice.

Jamie: Yeah. And like we did like an intro that made it sound like it was Big Brother and you were really excited about it.

Amy: Yeah, I probably was.

Jamie: And I’ve never seen Big Brother and I was so confused.

Amy: <laugh>. Oh my God, that’s so funny. Oh no!

Jamie: But I just ran with it.

Amy: Was that like the haunted house episode? Didn’t we do a haunted house episode?

Jamie: Yes, we did for Halloween.

Amy: Yeah. And we had like a creaky sound effect. <laugh>

Jamie: All that, you know, internet 1.0 fun sound effects.

Amy: Oh my goodness. That’s so fun. But like how nice that we were just able to play and experiment and I feel like people now just, they have to get things right the first time because everything is on the internet forever.

Jamie: That’s true. That’s a lot of pressure.

Amy: It is. But I kind of also can’t believe that Bess was able to send us every single episode of WZRD ’cause–

Jamie: I know! I was so happy.

Amy: I had a really weird accent. I think I must have been putting it on

Jamie: <laugh> Oh, I doubt that.

Amy: No, I think I, I think I was doing something really strange with my accent. Like, ’cause I listened back to, I think the Godrics or the Hollow Godrics episode… Sounded really weird. <laugh> It wasn’t my voice though. It was my actual accent.

Jamie: Huh.

Amy: Yeah.

How did you all structure the episodes? I don’t think I’ve made it to a Big Brother one yet.

Amy: Well we did our intro, which I was very insistent on being scripted. It would have to be, “hi, I’m Amy. And I’m Jamie and this is WZRD” or something along those lines. Do you remember? I was like anal about that.

Jamie: Yeah. We’ve sometimes we started over a little bit.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah. We did have to a lot.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. And then we would do probably general chitchat, maybe news, then we would do interview and then, I don’t know, outro?

Jamie: Songs. Sometimes we threw in songs.

Amy: Songs. Songs and chatting about the songs and then outro?

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. That was our format.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: I think people liked it. I think like a lot of people did comment on how they liked the music, like listening to the music as part of the podcast. Like as if it was an actual radio station.

Jamie: I think they did too. There was a couple people that kept up and had mentioned stuff about how much they liked the podcast and things on Twitter when or X.

Amy: And we were so shook.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Every time anyone said anything.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: But then like we had quite a big listenership. Like the numbers were large.

Jamie: Oh we did.

Amy: But anytime anybody said anything we were like, “what!?” <laugh>.

Jamie: <laugh>. Thank you. You love us!

Amy: Can’t believe you’re actually listening to us talk and chat and ramble.

Jamie: Right.

Amy: But then I think Bess like, it was just a case of like Halloween was coming up and we wanted to do something different. And I think probably it, yeah. If it, if it involved Big Brother, it was obviously my thing. ’cause that was the year that I watched Big Brother and I was very obsessed and I just obviously…

Jamie: So cute,

Amy: So silly <laugh>.

Jamie: But a part of the fun was being able to be silly and–

Amy: Yeah, definitely.

Jamie: –just be ourselves in a way. I mean we were still, like you said, polished and, but we, I don’t know, I kinda had fun with it.

Amy: Yeah?

Jamie: Kind of tried to be myself in a more structured environment.

Amy: Did you? Did you feel like I was nice to you? ’cause I’m worried that I bullied you too much.

Jamie: What do you mean?

Amy: I don’t know, maybe I was just too like “we need to do that again.” <laugh>.

Jamie: Okay.

Amy: Do you know what I mean? Like maybe I was saying that too much. Like we need to start again. That kinda way.

Jamie: Yeah, no, you were fine.

Amy: Okay. <laugh>.

Jamie: No, no, no, no! You were seriously fine. Like I remember all of it fondly.

Amy: Okay, good. Me too. Except for all the editing.

Jamie: Except editing. man.

Amy: Yeah. <laugh>.

Jamie: <laugh>.

You know Amy, you were saying you wish you had a podcast still or again all of this stuff is a lot easier these days, just saying.

Jamie: It is, Amy.

Amy: You see, I think I’m traumatized from everything that from before. I would love it.

Jamie: Me too.

Amy: I don’t know what it would be about though.

You could have another wizard rock podcast. I just already have your name so you need a new title.

Amy: Hmm.

Should talk to Ren. See, see what they’ve got for you.

Amy: Maybe I’ll pop in and be a special guest on yours. I’ll be your foreign correspondent.

Perfect.

Jamie: Love it.

So we’ve talked about the interviews that were the most fun, your favorites. Were there any interviews that you wish that you had gotten but just never managed to make happen?

Amy: We would’ve said Harry and The Potters at the time, but I think looking back it’s fine that we didn’t get them.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Because they were definitely interviewed plenty of times all over the place. We… we were trying to lift up the little guy, weren’t we?

Jamie: Yeah. I mean, like you said, we were regardless of, you know, their popularity, we wanted to feature them. So–

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: I was happy getting some of the smaller bands.

Amy: I think we did Margot from Death Sticks.

Jamie: That sounds familiar.

Amy: Um, who, nobody would remember <laugh>, but like I do because she just had the most incredible voice and she was only very, very young. Like she was very young. I think we did a show with her and she wasn’t allowed to actually play in the show. ’cause she was under– Yeah. They made her like, stay upstairs. It was in a bar, a college bar. And we were doing a show with like Siriusly Hazza P and her and RiddleTM and me. And they were just so condescending. They were like, “oh, I think we have some like toys in the cupboard if you wanna play with them.” But she was like, I think she was a teenager. <laugh>.

Jamie: That’s so funny.

Amy: And she was just like, “no, no thanks.” But she was amazing. And we ended up going upstairs and doing a show upstairs as well. And she was fab. She was so, so talented and actually went, she went on and became an opera singer. Like, she trained as an opera singer.

Jamie: Oh, that’s amazing.

Amy: Mhm. <affirmative>. She was How I found Florence in the Machine because she had done, um, a cover of “Dog Days.”

Jamie: I love Florence.

Amy: Yeah. What was her thing? It was like, it was all, it was like she completely rewrote the lyrics. It um, it was a filk as we used to call it in those days. It was just amazing. Oh my God. I I wonder if I could find it. I bet I could. No, I bet you could. Jamie <laugh>.

Jamie: <laugh>.

Amy: I definitely remember talking to her about like how her parents were Byzantine musicologists.

Jamie: Interesting.

Amy: And I don’t think we ever interviewed Siriusly Hazza P, actually <laugh>, Which is so silly.

Jamie: I don’t think so either.

Amy: I did like an on video one and I don’t know if it ever got uploaded anywhere.

Jamie: Oh my hard drive’s not letting me look. So we’ll do that later.

Amy: Yeah. Um, but they’re great.

So Amy is in Ireland and Jamie is here in the US. When did you all first meet in person?

Amy: Terminus. Chicago.

Jamie: Yeah, that was it. I’ve only met her once, unfortunately.

Amy: I know. Isn’t that crazy?

Jamie: I remember you bought me Nutella,

Amy: Did I?

Jamie: Yes. At the grocery store. ’cause they didn’t, it wasn’t a thing here yet. Not as big. And now it’s everywhere. It’s in my gas station, you know, down the street from my house. But you were like, “this is amazing and you have to try it.”

Amy: Just a hipster <laugh>. I wanted to get you in there early. It was 2008 was her, was Terminus

Jamie: Okay. Hmm. Don’t like that.

Amy: Yeah. I, see Nutella was, Nutella’s always been big here. Like it’s a staple of childhood. That’s so funny. I can’t believe I brought you that. I, that was probably completely illegal.

Jamie: Oh you bought– No, you bought it for me at a grocery store in Chicago.

Amy: Oh, no way. I just really wanted you to have it <laugh>.

Jamie: Yeah. You just really wanted me to have it. You were like, “I bought this for you” and I was like, oh, aw!”

Amy: That’s so funny.

So you all met in person once in the four years that you all were doing the podcast?

Jamie: Mhm! <Affirmative>

Did you have any other fun stories or how you made the interviews happen?

Amy: Just asking <laugh>.

Jamie: Amy’s a great networker.

Amy: Am I? Oh that’s nice.

Jamie: It was really tough for me at times, I’ll be honest, during the podcast, because I’m kind of a reserved person. When you first meet me it takes me a minute to warm up and then I’m, you know, fine. But so Amy was a good networker and she got a lot of the interviews to be… yeah, completely. And can you tell I’m out of practice?

Amy: I don’t know. Like I think you were very, like I said, gentle bullying. I think you were responsive to my gentle bullying. I’d be like “Jamie <laugh> your turn Jamie, come on.”

Jamie: Yeah, yeah. I did it but it was hard for me at times.

Amy: Aw.

Jamie: But not in a horrible, no, not in a bad way. In a learning way. I had to put myself out there more.

Amy: Yeah. It’s probably good practice for like,

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Life.

Jamie: <laugh>. Right.

Amy: Um, I think really the answer is there that I just used to spend too much time on the internet ’cause I wasn’t really that interested in my real life.

Jamie: That’s fair.

Amy: So much of that time was spent just talking. ’cause we all had the same interests. We obviously all loved Harry Potter and we obviously all were interested in music and we were interested in people and we were interested in being near other people who were interested in what we were interested in. So like I think we were all just equally online.

Jamie: Yeah. I was online a lot. Yeah.

Amy: And I think you were–

Jamie: I still am. I mean, on our phones.

Amy: Good at like staying in touch with people.

Jamie: Yeah. There was a couple bands that kind of in a, and I mean this in the best, like a great way they kind of stuck around and talked to us.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: Even after the interviews were over. Like we became fun at friend friends.

Amy: Isn’t that so funny? Because like I do think we were going like, “really?” Like <laugh>,

Jamie: “Why do you wanna talk to us? I’m grateful. But why?”

Amy: Yeah. Like remember Brandon from–

Jamie: “You’re so much cooler than me!”

Amy: Hollow Godric. And we were just like “I think you have to be our friend.”

Jamie: And Creevey Crisis? He was really nice to us too.

Amy: Oh yes. Oh yes, of course. I’m still friends with him on Facebook.

Jamie: Oh, that’s awesome.

Amy: His children are grown up now and it freaks me out.

Jamie: <laugh>. I I feel you. My nephew was born the weekend we were at Terminus.

Amy: Oh wow.

Jamie: The week of Terminus. And he’s gonna be, you know, 16 this year.

Amy: Oh.

Jamie: In August. And I–

Amy: It actually feels like longer ago than 16 years. I’m gonna be honest. It feels like a completely different lifetime and a different human.

Jamie: It does. But I see him and I’m like, you’re gonna drive. Alright. <laugh>.

Amy: Yeah. You can’t do that here until you’re 17.

Jamie: Oh nope. 16 most places here.

Amy: That’s too young. That’s so irresponsible.

Jamie: That’s fair.

Amy: To be a 16-year-old on the road. <laugh> uh, who else were you? I think there were people as well who we wanted to be friends with who really clearly did not wanna be friends with us as well. <laugh>.

Jamie: Oh, oh yeah. Absolutely. I remember one of the bands had a forum that I made friends on, like that they had a forum for their band and the Hinky Punks I think?

Amy: Yes, I remember them.

Jamie: Yes. And I made some friends through there.

Amy: Oh no, I’m thinking of the Shrieking Shack Disco Gang. They were the Welsh people. The Hinky Punks?

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. I think maybe that’s part of why it worked. ’cause we were so much equally fan girls.

Jamie: Oh, we were.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: Absolutely. I mean, we fangirled a lot of bands. I still do.

Amy: Yeah. I think I still do.

Jamie: Yeah.

Amy: Yeah.

If you were going to start a new wizard rock chat podcast, what would you call it?

Amy: Oh, well we’d have to have our name back.

Jamie: <laugh>

Amy: We would have to take you to court.

<laugh>. Oh no. So maybe we just all do WZRD together. Alternating episodes.

Amy: Yeah. I don’t know. I think WZRD is the perfect name because it’s like, obviously <laugh> a wizard and then, but ours wasn’t just WZRD, it was WZRD Your Wizard Rock rad– Your Wizard Rock Station.

Jamie: Yeah. We said the whole thing almost every time.

Amy: Yeah. We were branding, we were doing–

Jamie: Remember when you made T-shirts?

Amy: No.

Jamie: You made t-shirts with like paint like and stuff. I remember I ran into a girl to show who was wearing one.

Amy: Oh my God. Yes, I do. I cut it out of like a piece of plastic.

Jamie: Oh my.

Amy: And I had done like WZRD and the like, I think the Z was a lightning bolt, maybe.

Jamie: I have a picture with me and the girl still. Somewhere.

Amy: Oh my god. That’s so funny.

Jamie: That’s so– No, it was so cute.

Amy: I remember getting stopped–

Jamie: I loved it.

Amy: –in Disney World in I think– No, in Universal. I remember getting stopped in Universal by girl who wanted to take a picture with me. She was like, “oh my God, are you Amy Snow?” And I was like, “huh? Yeah. What? Why ?”<laugh>.

Jamie: That’s crazy.

Amy: I know. It was so, so crazy.

All right, if you guys send me an original WZRD shirt, I will send you a current WZRD shirt.

Amy: That would be fun. But, uh, it’s probably lost in the annals of time.

Aw.

Amy: But look, I will have a look and if it, if the stencil comes up, I will stencil you a T-shirt. I promise

It’s a deal.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: Here I found the folder with, uh, all the episodes.

Amy: Oh yes.

Jamie: And sometimes I put who we interviewed in the,

Amy: The show notes?

Jamie: Yeah, sometimes I didn’t, I wasn’t consistent.

Amy: So four was Hollow Godric. Yeah?

Jamie: No, I’m just looking at Runil Wazlib and oh…

Amy: Oh yeah. Runil Wazlib

Jamie: Striking down Diggorry. Oh, I remember the House of Black.

Amy: Oh, she’s, yeah, that’s Erin Pyne I think. Yeah. So the last time I was speaking to you about, I said that Erin Pyne wrote a big old book about wizard rock? And– not wizard rock, but like the Harry Potter fandom. It’s on Amazon.

Jamie: Oh that’s awesome.

Amy: Yeah. We met some really great people. really, didn’t we?

Jamie: We did.

Our last music break of the episode is here, and with it “As the Sun Rises and the Smoke Clears” by Hawthorn and Holly.

~*~

You heard “As the Sun Rises and the Smoke Clears” by Hawthorn and Holly, Totally Knut’s “Phoenix Song”, and Into the Pensieve with “Hogwarts, Here I Come” [lyrics].

“As the Sun Rises” was a special request from my wonderful patron Autumn, who dedicates it to all the wrockers and wrock community at LeakyCon, saying “thank you for your art, your invitation, your collaboration, and the sparkle in your eyes meeting mine when we sing and play together. Y’all are magic.”

And here’s where you can find our WZRD Radio hosts!

This has been amazing. I am so glad to have gotten to connect with both of you who originated perhaps the WZRD brand. Where can WZRD listeners find you all online?

Amy: Well, Jamie has her own business.

Jamie: Yes, I do. I’ve been making shirts and totes and merch in general kind of for things. And it’s a lot of fun. It’s Rebel Sea Designs on Etsy and Facebook. Um, I have an Instagram and stuff, but I don’t really update it, but I’m just kind of getting started and done a– I did a show last weekend with it and it’s, it’s a lot of fun. But I’m still around if anybody wants to chat about Harry Potter or wizard rock or any other nerdy things,

Amy: I am doing my reassessment of my relationship with social media at the moment. So, I don’t know, I haven’t been online a lot. I did have a little sticker business before I got too busy and it was called Robin and Snow and I just made the little Irish-y stickers with Irish on them. <laugh>. So if you look up Robin and Snow, it’s on Etsy. But I, I mean, I need, I mean, I have, I don’t think there’s anywhere that you can really find me. Is there?

I’m sure Romilda Vane is somewhere.

Amy: Yes. Thank you. Yes, you can do Amy Snow Bandcamp to hear all the music for free and stuff. I think I pretty much have it all available. Stand out for free if anybody wants anything. And I generally am pretty open if people want to say hello, if you can find me anywhere. [Tiktok]

And we’re working on getting some of the original WZRD episodes, uh, more widely available again, so keep an ear out for that, magical friends.

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.

If you want discounts on WZRD merch, the inside scoop on everything that’s coming up, and bonus gifts and episodes, then you want WZRD Radio’s Patreon at Patreon.com/WZRDRadioPod. It’s just two muggle dollars a month and also supports the Community Wrock Fund, where we’re raising funds to help wizard rockers achieve their musical dreams.

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.

Until next time, magical friends: Happy 100!