Hello magical friends, especially my incredible patrons whose support makes these interview episodes possible. I had a wonderful chat with a new wizard rocker that I can’t wait to share with you, but you know how this works. It’s not a radio show without the music!
Here’s Hurray for Everything, Harry with “Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock.”
~*~
That was Hurray for Everything, Harry covering “Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock,” The Wargs and “Death Eater,” and “Winner Takes All” from Gadding With Ghouls [lyrics].
And now it’s time to share my chat with Harrison of The Galleon Guy!
Welcome to the show, Harrison of the Galleon Guy. I am so stoked that we are talking today.
Harrison: Thank you. I’m really thrilled to be here.
Now we actually have met in person a couple of times because you came down for uh, WZRD Presents.
Harrison: Yes.
But you are on the whole very new, I think, to wizard rock
Harrison: Basically. Yeah. Um, although it’s kind of weird, I’ll go into this later, but it feels like my whole life was setting me up for wizard rock. I just didn’t know it.
Do tell.
Harrison: So for those who, who may not know, I’m totally blind. And I started learning piano when I was six from a totally blind piano teacher. And he taught me a lot of music theory and a lot of things like that. I almost got a, a decent crash course in music education before the age of 10. And then… I always have had a love for Harry Potter. I wanna say that I read them all in around 2000. I was about six and I read them all and we played Harry Potter games in the kindergarten, you know, playground and all that. And then obviously fell–like read books 5, 6, 7 as they came out. Did the whole MuggleNet thing. But I still had no idea of wizard rock because I was just a little too young for, I guess the, the heyday of it with Harry and the Potters and such. As y’all may know, Swedish is kind of like the second largest language that wizard rock seems to have. And I learned Swedish during the pandemic for unrelated reasons. And a couple years ago I took some lessons from another blind person on how to do virtual instruments and midi and all that other fun stuff to kind of professionally produce and mix and master. So I have all these pieces, right? But I’ve never really put them together, if that makes sense.
So how did you get into wizard rock then?
Harrison: I don’t even know where to begin. Okay. So I guess I should start… A couple years ago. I am, I’m part of a Harry Potter trivia team. ’cause another thing I love is Harry Potter trivia. So one of my trivia friends from the city where I am, Austin, Texas, went to LeakyCon, now known as EnchantiCon. And she came back with this song, it was what I know now, but what I did not know then as Dream Quaffle’s “Fickle Fudge.” We were singing it for weeks, but–we meaning the trivia group, honestly thought it was a bit of an isolated incident. We did not realize that there was all this. And now fast forward to, I wanna say last September-ish. Uh oh, well, I guess another thing is I, during the pandemic was running an online Harry Potter group called the Harry Potter Meetup Group of Chicago. Even though I wasn’t in Chicago, it had started in the beginning of 2020 and then it went online and I kind of took it over for several years because in my real life I work in technology, so I kind of had the technology background to set up all the games and such. And I met a really incredible individual through that club. The Bookish Hufflepuff is is what she goes by, uh, in wizard rock circles. And she is an absolutely incredible human being. And we were just hanging out last October, or last September, it would’ve been in the discord of that group. And she was showing me all this wizard rock. I’m like, “what? This is a thing?” Like I thought it was just this “Fickle Fudge” song as far as like songs written about Harry Potter. There’s no way I actually thought like, this is a thing, right? And she turned me on to like the sea shanties and the, you know, wrock and stuff.
And so we got to know each other a little better, texting almost every day. And she’s like, “Hey, there’s this thing coming up and you should come.” And I’m getting into wizard rock more. I’m starting to listen to more. And I’m like, “what you think I’m gonna fly down, pay $300 to fly down for a $20 concert? What?” Because I didn’t know, right? And this is still around September, right? A week goes by and she’s like, “well look, pay for the second slot in the hotel room, right? And that way your hotel is in half.” I’m like, “okay, sure. Whatever. I’ll book this and hang out and whatever, right?” And at that point I started asking her, Hey, because she’s a teacher, I said, “Hey, is there um, children’s music in wizard rock?” And she’s like, “there really isn’t.” I said, “that’s ridiculous because we need music for the Harry Potter.” And how was I supposed to know that I was turning into a wizard rocker? This was all unconscious. I’m like, “that’s insane. How is there no children’s music?” So I started on my piano in Reaper at home, just mixing a couple instrumentals. A couple turned into a 13 track album. That album is released under “Cast, Cast, Cast A Spell.” And I created children’s songs based around Harry Potter. And that’s how I became a wizard rocker <laugh>. I went to WZRDFest and the rest is history.
That’s amazing.
Harrison: Mhm <affirmative>.
So did you release music before WZRDFest?
Harrison: Nope. Well, oh yes I did. So basically September was a really light week or light month for work for me. So basically I started working on the album, I wanna say September 5th. I was basically cranking out a song a day ’cause I was having ideas. What took me the longest time was backing tracks. I finally have that process kind of figured out. It is my least favorite part of the process is making the backing tracks. There are reasons I make my own and I can dive into that later. But I wanna say I released… God, I’d have to go to my album page, but something like September 22nd or October 22nd. So I started at like the beginning of October and I was basically released by October 22nd. ’cause when I set my mind to something, it happens.
That’s amazing. You kind of speed ran the process.
Harrison: A little bit. And then I um, went to Office Depot. I do work at a graphics design– I don’t work in graphics design, but it’s complicated. But I work with a lot of graphics designers. So I had one of them that I trust the most, help me make up some really nice promotional cards. Went to Office Depot, printed them, laminated in them and handed it on WZRDFest <laugh> to get my name out there. <laugh>
No one can see it, but I have mine right over here on my bookcase in the recording room.
Harrison: That’s right. I, yes, yes.
Now my listeners know that the part of this interview I do more for myself than anyone else is find out about your band name.
Harrison: So it’s September 21st, right? If I release September 22nd, it’s September 21st. It’s the day before I’m about to release, right? And I’ve got the album… Album’s done, mixed and mastered best I can. My mixing and mastering teacher has already chewed me out over all the little mistakes I made that I fixed. ’cause I asked for his advice. Okay, so now it’s time to release, right? I called The Bookish Hufflepuff and I’m like, “alright, it’s time to release. I’m ready. Now what?” And she’s like, “well make a BandCamp account and, and find your band name.” I’m like, “…what’s my band name?” She’s like, “well you need to figure that out, <laugh>. Right?” And so I get on and I’m thinking, “what is applicable to me, right?” I had seen a ton of them, right? The Blibbering Humdingers, Hawthorn and Holly, Tonks and the Aurors, Dream Quaffle, you know, so many fun names.
The Bookish Hufflepuff. And I’m thinking, “who am I?” Right? “What is cool about me?” So obviously wizard rock is not a career for me. My day job is at a bank. So I thought, okay, well I work at a bank. I don’t actually do any banking things, but I work at a bank and what are banks known for, money? And so I thought, okay, maybe I’ll be like Gringotts Guy or something. Right? Well, there are the Gringotts Girls… I didn’t want to get myself confused with them. So I’m like, what else? How about Galleon? What what rhymes with Galleon? Galleon. Galleon Guy? Galleon Guy. The Galleon Guy! And that’s kind of how it happened.
I love that.
Harrison: <laugh>.
I think I’m talking to the Gringotts Girls later this year.
Harrison: Oh, awesome.
So maybe there’s some collab potential?
Harrison: I think there might be some banking related collab pot– potential in the banking world. We study a lot of like rules and regulations. Maybe I should write a song about Harry Potter anti-money laundering. I don’t know!
<laugh>, that sounds so much fun.
Harrison: Maybe that’s in my future.
Make a note of that. That sounds hilarious.
Harrison: <laugh>. Okay. Alright then.
Now we’ve hinted at it a lot and I know we’ve talked separately about some of it, but what is your song creation process look like?
Harrison: So my song creation process, it’s– okay. Usually it’s an idea that starts in my head. I am not going to crank out songs for their sake. If it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come. But it’s been coming pretty quickly lately. I start with an idea. Usually I maybe hear a song on the radio or something. I am pretty much mostly parodies. I have some original work coming out, like some non-parody work coming out when it decides to come out. But I wanna make enough of it that it makes sense. But I’ll think of something, right? And I’ll have an idea and a Harry Potter idea, right? That’s how it starts. Then I’ll sit down and I’ll just start writing, right? ’cause usually it comes as a fragment of maybe the chorus or a verse or something, right? And that’s already built. So I have a song [singing] “cast, cast, cast a spell do your swish and flick.”
All right. So, right? Okay. That’s how I started. Then I’m like, okay, now what rhymes with flick? “if you do not use your wand, it will be a stick.” So I start with a word like maybe that’s Harry Potter related or related to this theme. And then I build around it. So then I have my lyrics and you know, I just keep building on top of it. I don’t write from top to bottom. I write, you know, the line and the next line. And then maybe I’ll go up and down and, and, and eventually I’ll come up with something or, or I won’t. Or maybe I’ll trash it, right? Or maybe I’ll save it. And that’s that until I get another strike of inspiration. I know that happened on my Broadway and Broomsticks album where I had a chorus and one verse from “Do You Hear the People Sing” from Les Miserable.
But unfortunately, that next verse didn’t come to me. Uh, it only came to me a month and a half later. So I held onto it and I’m like, “oh, well what if I combine these?” So that’s lyrics. That’s honestly my favorite part. And then there’s the music, which for copyright reasons, I do not like to use regular karaokes, I like to build my own. I have a couple tools in my toolkit for this. The first one is PG Music. They made a piece of software called Band in A Box. And that can build a lot of the music, um… That can build a lot of the music. Um, if you put in the chords. So like, usually, I have perfect pitch. So I go in and I hear the chords in my head. I put them in, and then I sing my lyrics straight to that.
And the reason for that is then I have a chance to fix any syllabification issues or anything of that nature. That’s usually pretty fast. So I export that out. But Band in a Box, it makes great songs. And I have not used that other than on my recent album, because I just got that in December. That is a purchase I made for me in December in order to kind of do more of this, uh, because making backing tracks was taking up too much of my time. My old process would’ve started here where I would just lay everything out. Um, kind of like the way a movie composer scores a song. That’s basically what I would do. I would take a piano part, a bass part, a trumpet part, you know, flutes, whatever, and just keep laying down tracks. And I still do that. I take the Band in a Box tracks that I get, and I lay more stuff out on top of it, you know, to give myself the creative control that I want because I want some sort of creative control.
So I just lay out track-track-track-track-track. Then I have the backing track, which is, you know, usually takes a couple iterations. Um, you know, lowering, raising, changing a note here, changing a note there. Luckily using computerized virtual instruments, that becomes pretty easy. Uh, software I use for that includes Reaper. Reaper is my main, uh, digital audio workstation of choice. It does have a slight learning curve, but once you’ve figured it out, you’ve got it. I find it gives me more control than things like GarageBand and I am a control freak. So then I also use, as far as virtual instruments, I am a fanatic of the stuff that comes from a company called Spitfire Audio. They make really, really good virtual pianos and orchestras and things like that. In fact the, my favorite orchestra from them is one that was sampled from the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation.
So I’m honestly playing with mostly their instruments. So their violinists have played the notes and, and Spitfire has sampled them so I can do that in the computer. Then, um, maybe I’ll add in a real instrument. I’m actually waiting right now. My tin whistle is gonna be delivered soon, which I’m excited about. So that’s the one instrument I haven’t found virtually. So I’m gonna learn to play that myself. So once I’ve laid that out, then I sing, you know, edit in post, do the post-processing and export it to an FLAC file. And I’ve got a song. Do that as often as I need to and I’ve got an album! And then up to BandCamp it goes.
Sounds like you’ve really developed a, a wide array of tools and knowledge.
Harrison: But that’s the thing. I developed all these before I started with wizard rock. That’s why, I mean, like, it felt like everything was setting me up, up. I mean, I didn’t have to learn any of these because I wanted to do wizard rock. These are things I already knew how to do.
We do tend to either have, it seems anyway, folks who have, you know, a long history, maybe a degree in music or also people who just decide they wanna do wizard rock and pick up a guitar for the first time.
Harrison: I feel like I’m a mix of both. I don’t have a degree in this. My degree is in comp sci. I do not have a degree in music, but I do have like a decent amount of music education and a will to do it. So it was a lot of like learning on the first time and it was a lot of pre-knowledge. So I’m in the middle.
A little bit of everything.
Harrison: Yeah.
Now that you’ve learned a bit more about the wizard rock community and what’s out there, are there any bands or performers that you would love to work with?
Harrison: Well, by this time, uh, Bess does not know this yet, uh, at the time of recording, but I am currently working on a collab with two other people. It’s amazing and it’s about to come out by the time this releases. Uh, you guys will hear this and it’s a really, really cool collab that I can’t talk much about, but it is Harry Potter related, but also kind of not Harry Potter related, if that makes sense. It’s, it’s very Harry Potter related, but not in the way you think. So that’s coming out. That is actually nearly done. I need to just put on the finishing touches of that and get a couple more things, a couple more pieces. Um, collabs that I’d like to do. I definitely want to do, uh, the next cover swap. I am definitely gonna put my name in the hat for the next cover swap. I just wasn’t in a position to do that when TK put out the last one. I don’t know… I, I would say I wanna do some sea shanties. I, I’ll collab with just about anyone, right? Like, you know, good music shouldn’t be hard to find. And making good music shouldn’t be exclusionary. So I’ll collab with just about anyone. I won’t say I have any dream collabs because of my process, right? It’s not like, “oh, I want to do this, right?” It’s like, “oh, I have an idea. This just came to me right now. I’m gonna do it right now.” If my muse stops speaking to me, then unfortunately that’ll be that. But my muse, I don’t think will stop speaking to me.
Well, that’s fascinating and tantalizing and I can’t wait to find out what that mysterious hint was about.
Harrison: Oh, you’ll find out soon. You’ll find out by the next listening party I, I, I expect.
Exciting.
Harrison: Yeah, and, and guess what? This idea did not come– like, it came out organically from something else that a couple of us were doing. We were looking over some stuff and had the idea for it, and it is coming out. That’s all I’ll say.
Let’s play a little music here. First up we’ve got “Expelliarmus” from the incomparible Totally Knuts.
~*~
You just heard Totally Knuts and “Expelliarmus,” “Weirdwolf” in acoustic from The Hinky Punks, and Tianna and the Cliffhangers singing Harry and the Potter’s “The Missing Arm of Viktor Krum.”
Now let’s get back to my interview with The Galleon Guy!
Uh, diving into the wizarding world, you’ve met a lot of the music. You said you’ve read all the books. Yes. Have you tried any of the treats or sweets available? Do you ever do any make your own butterbeer?
Harrison: Yes, I have. Oh, I don’t make, I don’t cook hun. Oh. Oh, honey, you, you actually think I can cook? No, that is not my talent. No, no, no. Not my talent. I have tried some of the sweets and treats when I went down to Orlando for WZRDFest and actually went back in December, I hung out with a friend of mine who works in Disney and lives in Orlando. And she got me some Bertie Botts and some lemon drops or sherbert lemons. I’ve had the chocolate frogs. I’ve had homemade butterbeer, but just not made by me. Because I have a Harry Potter trivia group that I hang out with and some of them are excellent at cooking. Uh, so they make Harry Potter treats that I get to enjoy, but I personally do not make.
Okay. So we’re going strictly hypothetical here then, but are there any gaps in the wizarding candy world that you’ve noticed and would rectify if per chance you cooked?
Harrison: Hm. Gaps in the wizarding candy world? Fizzing whizzbees. We need those. Although I think those might exist, I just haven’t had them. I don’t think you can get licorice wands. See, I’m super canonical. I do not want to eat cockroach cluster or blood flavored lollipops.
Honestly, the canonical chocolate frogs kind of freak me out.
Harrison: Really?
I don’t want my food to move, you know?
Harrison: But wouldn’t it be fun? Wouldn’t that just make it more fun?
Oh my god, no. <laugh>
Harrison: Oh I think it’d make it fun.
That’s that, uh, predator drive coming out in you. You wanna kill your own food.
Harrison: Well, I’m, I don’t know, <laugh> people say I’m slightly, I, okay. I’ve had a lot of friends say I’m a Slytherin. I disagree. I’m a Ravenclaw with slight Slytherin tendencies.
You know, Slytherspouse took that route too. But once you embrace your full Slytheriness, I think you’ll be much happier.
Harrison: No, I’m not a Slytherin. It’s just that simple. I’m just not one.
There’s no shame in Slytherin.
Harrison: I know. There’s no shame. I am not a Slytherin. It’s not that I think there’s any shame in it. Every house is valid, but that’s not the house I belong in <laugh>
We got comprehensively off track. Did you, uh, invent a a wizarding candy anywhere in there?
Harrison: I don’t know. Wizards just need Skittles okay? It’s really that simple. They should just sell Skittles on the Hogwarts Express.
You know what? That’s totally fair.
Harrison: <laugh> Or, or maybe gummy fantastic beasts. Actually wouldn’t be bad.
Oh! That sounds awesome.
Harrison: Gummy nifflers, gummy– Oh man. Actually that could be invented the muggle world.
I love that. Do that.
Harrison: Sure.
The, the biggest mind blowing revelation that the Gayly Prophet ever gave me was when one of them pointed out there’s no drinks on the Hogwarts Express.
Harrison: <gasp>
They take that whole full day train ride. ’cause they leave at 11 in the morning and they get there at dinner. There’s no water.
Harrison: No, that’s insane.
Right?
Harrison: That’s is true.
There’s no beverages. Those kids don’t drink anything for like eight hours.
Harrison: I mean, only the sixth years can do aguamenti. I don’t know. Are the sixth years walking in and down helping out? I don’t think so.
Is that–
Harrison: Is that what prefect patrol is? <Laugh>
That’s what I was going to say! Is that what prefects do?
Harrison: I never thought of that.
Yeah, that one just blew my mind.
Harrison: Mind blown.
Now, as someone who is new to wizard rock, but also has this extensive musical background, uh, what kind of advice would you have for other folks who are looking to join in?
Harrison: If you wanna join in, just do it. Pick up your instrument. If you don’t have an instrument, then, I’m sorry. There’s online lessons for everything. There’s online lessons for piano, guitar there. Heck, there’s even Masterclass on the tin whistle. I found out. Just pick it up or just start singing and just start doing it. You’re not gonna do it by saying, “I’m gonna do it”. You’re gonna do it by doing it. So pick it up and, and just start creating the music. Whatever, whatever your muse speaks to. I, I use that word a lot because I think that’s so important in wizard rock, right? It’s authentic. It’s not something that you should force out of you, but like, hey, if you come up with a song about Ginny and Snape having it on, then come up with a song about Ginny and Snape having it on. I don’t care. There’s space for that. Somewhere. God, I hope you don’t have to edit that out.
Oh no, I’m keeping that.
Harrison: <laugh>. Okay
Now “just do it” is the advice I get the most.
Harrison: Mhm <affirmative>.
Bess: Which is why I have a follow-up question–
Harrison: Yep.
About concrete or practical advice. And you had so many tools you mentioned during the songwriting process part
Harrison: Yo, okay, well, but that’s just my route. That’s the problem. Like some people want different things, right? If you want backing tracks, right? PG Music’s Band in a Box is wonderful software. It’s not cheap, but it’s wonderful software. Just you buy it and it can build chords and melody for you… And it can do backing tracks, right? Reaper, I would say Reaper over some of the other tools that are out there, because Reaper is $60 and some of these other tools are about $600. So if you’re looking for a cheap, uh, digital audio workstation, I’d say Reaper is a good one. And you know, there are so many people that make virtual instruments Spitfire, Orange Tree, Native Instruments, although I do not like them. But these are just tools. These are just tools. I can give you a ton of advice on tools that I like, right?
But in the end, they’re just tools. None of them are gonna make wizard rock for you, right? The wizard rock is gonna come from you, right? And maybe you take a couple music theory. I can say take a couple music classes, right? Take a couple guitar classes. I can say that, or I can say take a couple music theory classes, but I don’t know. It’s, it’s like, what music do you want to create? What kind of thing do you want to do, right? It’s, I can’t really say this is the definitive path. This was my path to it. These tools are the tools I like to use. I will name drop them just in case, you know, it helps you figure out what tools you want to use, but the tools aren’t what make the wizard rock. The wizard rock comes from you. I’m not the Galleon Guy because I open my computer and I have Reaper and I have Spitfire and I have Band in a Box all laid out there. I’m the Galleon Guy because, well, because something made me say, why don’t we have children’s music? And then the first one I wrote was called Cast a Spell with Wand Held Tight. It was a parody of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It is the first song on the album. And like, these tools are obviously not just for making wizard rock, they’re for making any music really. They’re just music making tools and that’s fine. The wizard rock comes from the Harry Potterness and the sense of community and just doing it.
No, that’s all beautiful and makes a lot of sense. But these are tips for people whose path might overlap with yours.
Harrison: And that’s fine. Again, I’ll name the tools. These are tools that I like. There are other tools… I, I don’t think there’s anything else quite like Band in a Box. Band in a Box is a little bit of a magical tool that I’ve been using. Um, in fact, I made a testimonial for them in December where I built a wizard rock song in under 10 minutes and that video should be on their site soon. Uh, but again, it’s a nice tool. Reaper is a nice tool and those are the ones I like. But find the tools that work for you. You know, if you want to try these ones that I’ve named dropped, that’s great, but find the ones that are right for you.
So assuming someone does try out Reaper or Band in a Box, what are the buttons or tools in it that you find the most helpful?
Harrison: With Reaper? Um, backing track building is fastest with multi– with instruments. Seriously. Reaper is just a kind of like an editing workstation, so you need virtual instruments to go with that. That’s where I mentioned Spitfire Audio makes lovely virtual instruments. That’s the ones I like. But you know, there are free ones through places like Sforzando and Production Voices and stuff like that. Those, they, they tend to specialize more in pianos. I do tend to like those. They’re easy to use. You do need a MIDI keyboard to use most of this. I had one leftover from when I used to play around in college, so I just picked that up. As far as microphones– I feel like I’m just getting into the tech side of things here.
Bess: Perfect.
Harrison: But for microphones, um, my two recs are either the Samsung Q2U, which was about a $60 microphone. It’s pretty nice. It’s USB. They say that to do it professionally you need an XLR and an audio interface. But honestly, I don’t find that to be very useful for something like wizard rock, where it’s more of a do it yourself approach. I think that adds complexity maybe for like a performing, traveling, you know, band like Hawthorn and Holly, I don’t know what they use, but maybe some band band that size, sure. But for just a DIYer getting started, either that or if you want a little more quality, actually what you’re hearing me talk into now is an Apogee Hype MiC. It’s also USB powered and it’s… It’s great. I, all the recordings on my BandCamp have been done with this. It wasn’t cheap, it was $350, but it’s about the quality of a thousand dollars microphone.
So it does really get you some studio quality. Reaper has some tools built into it. It has eq, it has compression, you know, anything you really could need for post-processing That is a little bit beyond the scope of this podcast and more towards like, just do a lot of research. Yeah, no, there’s people that do online teaching. Like the person that taught me how to kind of build all this, um, is still teaching. And you can definitely hit me up if you’re interested. I mean, but again, that’s only one path. Like I learned how to do the instruments that way because that’s what I wanted to do. But yeah, no, he’s still teaching, so you can obviously hit me up. And he’s a close friend of mine, so I’m sure he would accept new students from me, from the wizard rock community.
Does he have a website or anything?
Harrison: No, I don’t think so. He kind of does it more via word of mouth. But yeah, no, I mean, again, but that’s one path to creating music. I would say it’s a pretty quick path to creating music. If you already know how to play something like the piano. If you don’t Band in a Box is your friend, because it really is a bandit, a box that you can just type chords into. I’m not saying it’s cheap. Uh, the cheapest edition I think is $140, so it is not cheap. Um, but it’s a nice to have and it can get you started relatively quickly producing music.
Well, now that we’ve covered your extensive setup, uh, your years of training and some hints at things you might be working on, uh, what can we look forward to in the future for Galleon Guy?
Harrison: Well, um, I am currently putting together a compilation, uh, and anyone who wants to is open to submit to it. Um, it is called “Cast Cast Cast a Spell, part two.” It is another batch of children’s songs. And if anyone has any children’s songs they want done, uh, like if they want included on the album, feel free to hit me up. Submissions are gonna close at the end of March, so at the end of quarter one. Yes, because I, I work at a bank, I tie things to quarters, so a submissions will close at the end of quarter one. And let’s see, what else? A couple other small projects I have on the back burner. Yeah, this, this kind of February 8th one is kind of like what my time has been going towards lately and I can’t really talk much about that here, um, because it’s a surprise for everyone other than the three of us involved. So that’s a hint, there’s three of us involved. I, I mean, wherever my muse takes me, right? Like, I don’t know, I, I was listening to some music at a bar two days ago just hanging out and they played a song that I actually want to do. I don’t know when that’s coming out, but it’s gonna be a lot more parodies for me, I guess. I’m thrilled.
Here’s our final music break of the episode. Leading the charge is The 8th Horcrux and “Potions Wizard.”
~*~
That was The 8th Horcrux and “Potions Wizard” followed by Obliviate! and “Love, Ginny” [lyrics], and finally HEAD BOY with “Ravenclaw Song.”
And here’s the last of my chat with The Galleon Guy.
Thank you so much for talking with me today.
Harrison: Thank you for having me.
I’ve been very excited about this and it has in fact turned out wonderfully. Where can WZRD listeners find you and your music online?
Harrison: Well, um, you can find me at my Discord. My Discord is TechLuver, T-E-C-H-L-U-V-E-R. I’m not really on a lot of like the traditional social media, but I have a BandCamp. It’s just TheGalleonGuy.BandCamp.com. I wanna say, I think I have four albums on there currently, or I guess one album and a bunch of eps. I don’t know, I need to think. Okay, so I have Cast, Cast, Cast a Spell part one. And then I released “WZRD for Good,” which was kind of a one-off, and that, that really epitomizes my process. I was actually up in the air flying away from WZRDFest and I wrote a song about my experience there. And so that is there. And then, um, over Christmas I released a holiday album Walking in a Wizard Wonderland. And then last January I released, uh, Broadway and Broomsticks. It’s about a five track ep. I guess both those last two are eps, uh, four and five tracks respective and it’s Broadway music. Uh, couple from the Sound of Music, Les Mis, Evita, set to Harry Potter lyrics. I had a lot of fun with that and that’s where they can find me. And then there’s Discord and yeah, that’s pretty much me. Just get to me in one of those ways. I’m pretty reachable.
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.
And now, here’s The Galleon Guy!
Harrison: The song that I have chosen for y’all today, uh, we’re gonna be doing a bit of a double feature. Um, in my regular life. I also really enjoy learning foreign languages. I’ve studied several foreign languages over the years and I love to incorporate that into my wizard rock. And on my first album, uh, because of the general amount of Swedishness, there is, I included a Swedish children’s song as a bonus track. With the Broadway album, this time what I decided to do was, as, don’t “Worship Me as a Savior,” is a parody of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.” And that was in Evita. On the standard Evita soundtrack there is a Spanish version of that song at the end as a bonus track. So I have included a Spanish translation that I did myself as a bonus track to that album. So you’ll hear now the English version followed by the Spanish version. The texts are substantially the same. Obviously text has to be really adapted to work in a foreign language, but the texts are substantially the same, conveying the same meaning. But you’ll see a lot of my songwriting process because I had to write it almost twice, once in English and once in Spanish.
WZRD Radio Podcast 