Episode 119: Priori Incantatem

Hello magical friends, with an extra big “hi!” to my magical patrons, whose support makes these interview episodes possible.

I wanted to make a quick note here that it’s the Summer! Of! Fun! and that means having fun, making things, and sharing it all with friends. If the news is distressing, turn it off and take a wizard rock walk instead. That’s something your hostwitch will be doing a lot of. We’re all doing our part to fight fascism and transphobia, but if all you do is fight, you forget what you’re fighting for and, more importantly, you forget to take care of yourself. So go admire all the baby birds at the local park and color a coloring page. Build up your patronuses, people!

While you make your ‘fun plans’ list, here is a bit of music to keep you company. We’re starting with The Pumpkin Pasties and “The Tale of the Three Brothers.

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That was “The Tale of the Three Brothers” by The Pumpkin Pasties [lyrics], “Muggle Library” from Ariel Factor Birdoff [lyrics], and The Basilisk in your Pasta with “Muggle Town.”

“The Tale of the Three Brothers” was requested by my beloved patron Geoff who dedicates it to Celia, saying “It’s not Hogwarts without Hagrid and it’s not the wizard rock community without you.”

Now let’s go get to know Priori Incantatem!

All right y’all. Today I am super excited to be talking to one of our more elusive wizard rockers, Julie of Priori Incantatem. Welcome to the show.

Julie: Thank you so much for having me.

I am so excited about this. You were actually a recommendation from Irvin who people will know as the author of “Dumbledore,” uh, a couple of podcasts, other Harry Potter podcasts, uh, and the wizard who puts together uh, what is it called?

Julie: Avada Kedavrock.

Avada Kedavrock. Yes.

Julie: Yes. He also does the Dancing Death Eaters.

Yes. So he is fairly well known to us. Uh, but today I am looking forward to learning a bit more about Priori Incantatem. So why don’t you tell us a bit about your history with wizard rock?

Julie: Sure. So Irvin is actually a huge figure in how I got into wizard rock. Irvin and I have been friends since before the pandemic. I feel like I’ve known him forever. I don’t actually remember when we officially first met, but now we co organize a Harry Potter meetup group here in the city called The New York Order of the Phoenix. I think I first got involved with the Dancing Death Eaters because he invited me to come dance and I’m really super not a dancer, but I had a lot of fun and the people were wonderful. And I stopped dancing with the Dancing Death theaters prior to the first Avada Kedavrock that I was now included in Irvin’s fold for. And he asked if I would be willing to sing some stuff. He had already done some filks that he offered for me to take over and sing, and I started kind of running around with the idea in my mind and asking him would it be okay if I wrote some of my own to-do as well?

And he said, “Of course! That’s the point of all of this.” And so the first time that I performed was Avada Kedavrock pre-pandemic. I don’t remember the year. And I didn’t even have a band name yet. I was just Irvin’s friend Julie. Um, and so I did some filks that he wrote and leading into that I’m a big musical theater/Broadway nut. I actually went to Arts High School for musical theater and I love The Last Five Years. And I was going through a a period at that point where I was listening to a lot of Jason Robert Brown and “Still Hurting” from The Last Five Years was really on my mind. I was also teaching voice lessons at that point of my life and one of my students, um, was working through the role of Kathy from The Last Five Years. So I was working on the piano part for it so that I could better teach her voice lessons and it just kind of came together to write, um, “Still Hurting,” which is a filk from the point of view of George Weasley after the books have ended thinking about Fred and it seemed to fit really well with The Last Five Years’ “Still Hurting” song.

And so that’s kind of how that piece came to be. But yeah, that’s kind of how I first got into wizard rock was all thanks to Irvin.

So you said when you started you were just performing as Julie, but you do have a band name now. How did that happen?

Julie: So during the lockdown, Irvin said, “you know, you should really record “Still Hurting” and submit it to Grace for the Wizard Rock Sampler.” And at that point I didn’t know who Grace was, I didn’t know what the Wizard Rock Sampler was. I just knew that I had copious amounts of time with very little to do. Just before the pandemic started, I had started getting into voiceover. And so I converted one of my closets into a recording studio and I had it all set up and at this point my church gig that I was singing had gone virtual. So I was doing singing for the virtual choir every week and I had just enough computer and recording skills to put this together. So I recorded everything and sent it in not having any idea what I was getting into, but I needed a band name. And so Irvin and I spent a lot of time on the phone during the lockdown–because there was a lot of time to be had–and we kind of spitballed ideas back and forth to each other. And I really liked the idea of Priori Incantatem because most of what I’m doing are filks. And so I liked the idea that, uh, “Priori” is, you know, bringing something that was previously there, “Incantatem” of course is incantation, but I’m bringing my own spin to previously existing work. So that’s how I settled on that name.

That’s really beautiful and it does seem fitting if what a lot of your music is parody.

Julie: Yeah.

What were some of the, uh, other options you were considering?

Julie: Oh wow. I don’t even remember. Probably something about Hufflepuff, ’cause I’m a Hufflepuff, maybe like Badger Pride or something, I don’t even remember. But this just kind of fell into place and I said, “yeah, I guess I could do this. Is that weird?” And Irvin said, “well, there’s no one else with that name yet.” And it ties into the fandom and directly people immediately know what this is in reference to. And he liked the spin on it from a musical perspective of doing so much parody. So that’s how that happened. I don’t remember the other names though. He might remember. I should ask him. He’s on an airplane right now though, so I can’t reach him <laugh>.

That sounds right. He’s always traveling.

Julie: Yeah.

So you’ve performed in a variety of ways then up in New York. Do you have some fun stories to share from Avada Kedavrock or other things?

Julie: So a wizard rock story?

Mhm <affirmative>

Julie: Okay. So Irvin and I have our meetup, the New York Order of the Phoenix, which I mentioned before. Um, and one of the events that we do is Harry Potter Karaoke and we rent a private karaoke room down in K-Town and we go and we sing wizard rock. We basically sing filks and parodies. And once we run out of wizard rock music to do, we tend to sidestep into more Broadway and musical theater stuff. And we were singing “Defying Gravity,” so of course we had to get up on the benches and I mean, you can’t, you can’t sing “Defy Gravity” on the floor. And we got kicked out of the karaoke room because we were standing on the furniture. Still not wizard rock related <laugh>, but slightly more so.

So, um, Avada Kedavrock is a little bit of a legend as far as you know, Harry Potter events go. For those of us that haven’t ever been to one, what is it like?

Julie: Avada Kedavrock is so much fun. Irvin does a great job of organizing the dances that the Dancing Death Eaters do with wizard rockers. And so this past Avada Kedavrock I performed, the Gringotts Girls performed… my mind is like a sieve today. Um, but in the past he had the Blibbering Humdingers I believe came. He is really incredible at organizing so many different wizard rockers, both from the New York City area and further out to come. And so it’s a really great mix of wizard rock that he’s choreographed dances to for the Dancing Death Eaters and then wizard rockers coming and performing live as well. There’s normally pizza halfway through, which is nice ’cause it’s a very long day, but it’s a really fun way to spend the afternoon with wizard rockers and people that just love Harry Potter.

It sounds like so much fun. I always hear wonderful things about it.

Julie: Yeah, it’s really fantastic. It it is a whole day commitment.

Wow.

Julie: But it’s a lot of fun. It’s really great.

So my patrons, uh, were curious about your songwriting process. You know, how do you pick what you’re gonna parody? What’s a hard part? What’s an easy part? What’s your favorite part?

Julie: Sometimes the songs write themselves. So often what happens is I get on a kick where I’m listening to a certain genre of music, a certain show soundtrack, I’m listening to music from the eighties, music from the nineties, and I’m really in that jam. And then all of a sudden I think, “oh, this would be really clever, this would be funny, this would be good.” Um, that’s what happened for “It’s My Life,” which is a parody that I did on Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” and it’s from the point of view of Voldemort. And so I was, uh, singing along as I was driving and I was like, “it’s my life. It’s now or never ’cause I just wanna live forever.”

I was like, “oh, this could be Voldemort! I just wanna live for all time / It’s my life / I asked Slughorn if there was some way / to extend my life all the way / my horcruxes will keep me alive / it’s my life.” And I like that just kind of came to me. It was on the middle of driving on I-95 and I was listening to Bon Jovi and I was like, “this is, this is the story of this song.” And so I always try to find what is the story that I wanna tell and how does it align with the music that’s already there? Um, because Bon Jovi does have that more gritty sound like ‘rah rah’ and the history of Bon Jovi as well, I, it wouldn’t make sense to make this like a love song, right? That wouldn’t work. But oftentimes I find if I look through the eyes of a character, a song can kind of just flow and write itself pretty quickly.

And then I actually have to sit down with the lyrics and the music and start working on the verses. So the chorus normally writes itself. And then I try to get deeper as I’m writing the verses. So I know for, for “It’s my life” I was sitting down–and I was really proud of myself–because you try to maintain the rhyme scheme of the original poetry of the song if at all possible. And so I was like, “this is for the ones who remained loyal / for Severus and Lucius and Crabbe and Goyle.” And I was just so proud of myself for putting that one together because now I’m working in more characters and the point of view of Voldemort because as we know, like Severus was not loyal to him. And so I think really committing to the characterization of whoever it is that you’re using their voice really helps with making things come together and keeping it within the same worldview and voice, if that makes sense.

That is a brilliant, uh, set of lines. That’s really fun.

Julie: Thank you. Yeah, that one’s pretty great.

So is that your favorite song that you’ve, you’ve written so far?

Julie: I don’t know. That’s like asking me to pick my favorite child. I think that every song has something that it’s saying. Some of them are just fun, like.. I hardly had to do anything to “My Heart Will Go On” from the Titanic. Most of that song tracks in a wizard rock context, if you just twerk it a little bit, looking at Harry and Voldemort and their connection. <sings> Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you. That is how I know you live on.

And you know, sometimes, like, I’m not fully thrilled with them how that one is. I’m not, I’m gonna keep twerking- twe- not twerking, tweaking it. Um, I’m gonna keep tweaking it so that I’m more happy with how it flows together. But the base is basically right there. So, um, yeah, I really, I have a lot of fun writing them, but sometimes they just come together and you’re like, “this is pretty perfect.”

Yeah. So I’d say like my two favorites right now probably are, “It’s My Life” and “Still Hurting.” I think that the emotional journey of “Still Hurting,” yeah, it might be a, a cheap pull at emotions because we all care so deeply about the Weasley twins, and the idea that George has to continue going on without Fred is really… It’s devastating. You know, like, why couldn’t Percy have died? Right? Like, <laugh>, would we have cared? I don’t know. I wouldn’t have written a song about Percy being dead, um, <laugh> and, and I don’t think that people would cry about a song where Percy dies. So it’s this idea that Fred and George are two halves of one whole. And Fred was always the more extroverted of the twins. He was the forward facing twin. We always say ‘Fred and George,’ we don’t say ‘George and Fred.’ And so the idea that George needs to find himself and figure out how to walk again, um, how to live again, how to, how to enjoy life again without Fred.

And I think that that’s really heartbreaking. I don’t personally know any twins where one has has passed away and the other one still has to go on. But I think that even just thinking about fictional characters like Fred and George, there’s, there’s an emotional journey there that I don’t know that we ever really get to explore within the series themselves because it happens at the very end, and we’re kind of like, “oh, this is really sad.” But to really delve into that and really explore where George is- I think also the fact that I was writing this during the pandemic, when things were very, very sad, <laugh>, um, people were passing away left and right. I personally lost one of my best friends. And I think that this was a, a time where we were more comfortable exploring those darker emotions. Um, we were more in touch with grief and mourning and loss and death.

And being able to put that into a song, um, and explore where George is coming from, was both cathartic for me but also from the feedback that I received from people, um, I’ve been told that it’s the song that people go to when they just need like a good cathartic cry. Um, that it put them into a mindset- not a mindset, but it brought them into a different view of George than they had really seen before. Um, that we think of the twins as joking and jovial, but that they’re really deep, full rounded people. And what does the future look like for George now? And Schmutzy, my dog is snoring away, so I-

I know, I could hear it! It’s so cute. It’s so cute.

It’s time for a music break. Have you stretched? Taken your meds? Here’s a chance to do what while Bella and Le Strangers serenade us with “Breakout.”

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That block of music started with “Breakout” by Bella and Le Strangers [lyrics], continued with Seven Potters and “Lightning in My Hand” [lyrics], and closed out with Anvil and the Hints singing “The Ballad of Ronald B Weasley” [lyrics].

Don’t forget to refill your water as we get back to chatting with Julie of Priori Incantatem.

So we’ve talked about a few of your songs, but most of my listeners will have only heard one, which, uh, left my patrons wanting very badly to know: when are we getting some more Priori Incantatem recordings?

Julie: The short answer is, I don’t actually know, but I hope soon? I actually had no idea that there was any interest in having more recordings until this past Avada Kedavrock, when I was approached by people who said, “where’s your CD? Can I buy it? Is it downloadable? Where can I hear more?” And I said, “oh, oh wait, people actually want more?” Um, I thought that this was just kind of something fun that I recorded in my closet and it was a very-

To me, it took place in a vacuum. And I felt very honored that I was included on the 2020 Wizard Rock Sampler, but I didn’t actually expect anyone to listen other than me. Um, so I’m actually incredibly honored that people want to hear more.

Recently, I connected with someone who is helping me redo my opera/acting/voiceover website, and I’m gonna be recording some opera stuff and musical theater stuff for that. And while I’m- got the recording space and my pianist and everything, I’m hoping to also record um, some Priori Incantatem stuff as well. I just didn’t realize that people actually were interested. So I think that that’s pretty cool and I’m gonna try to make it a project I work on sooner than later.

So we should all keep an ear out.

Julie: Definitely. And I can let you know when something is actually ready so that you can let everyone know when and where to find it.

Excellent. Please do.

Since you are basically at the beginning of your, uh, wizard rock journey, what kind of advice might you have for other people who are thinking about maybe dipping their toe into Harry Potter parodies, or recording, or even just songwriting for it?

Julie: My biggest advice would be, just get started. That if all you are able to do right now is download a karaoke track of a preexisting song and write a parody, write a filk, do it! Because, hey, worst case scenario, you come to my karaoke Harry Potter night with The Order of the Phoenix and maybe we’ll get kicked out of another karaoke room. But just start putting things together. Just starting doing it, just start recording it. Just start doing it. Just start recording it and it’ll feel like you’re in a vacuum because that’s certainly how I feel. But before you know it, you end up on a podcast talking about wizard rock.

So I think that it’s a really cool, expressive art form and medium; I think that it’s a really great way to interact with the fandom, and we get to tell new stories this way; we get to expand on stories. It’s a great way to keep the characters that we love alive. And I say just do it. Sorry, that might be a terrible answer?

It’s perfect. And that’s the advice I get the most frequently, which is why I have a subset to this question. And I think you mentioned that you do singing lessons, so that’s perfect. I like to get some concrete advice, like a vocal warmup you really enjoy or something, you know, tricky that newcomers to singing might not know that’ll help them get over the first hurdles.

Julie: Okay. Sorry, I’m gonna try not to get too in depth in this. I actually have a master’s degree in vocal pedagogy, which is how to teach singing

Dive as deep as necessary.

Julie: Cool. Step one with singing is all about connection to your breath. A lot of times, especially as adults, we are not connected at all to our breathing. And it’s because, when we control our breathing, we’re able to control our emotions. I can’t tell you how many times in a voice lesson, one of my students, even myself, we have a breakthrough moment, we’re really able to connect down to our breath, and before you know it, one or both of us is just sobbing or hysterically laughing. It’s very extreme, intense emotions that get unlocked by unlocking your breath, because so much of our regular daily life, we walk around holding everything in, fitting into the box that society expects us to fit into. Um, we can’t be too emotional, we have to show just enough emotion that we’re human and we are able to lock all of that down and bottle it up by not really breathing.

So my biggest advice would be to breathe. After that, make as much noise in as much different ways as you possibly can. Really get to know the range of what it is that you’re working with. Sing as high as you can. Sing as low as you can. Don’t be afraid to access your head voice, even if it’s not a very coordinated sound yet, because most of the time, most of our speaking that we do is in what we would call a chest-coordinated register. Um, your vocal folds are literally in a thicker, um, more contracted position. It gives our sound more depth, um, more volume. And, again, talking about how we fit into society, a lot of women will actually speak lower than is natural for their voice because having a lower, deeper voice brings us more suspect with- more respect within our society. And actually being able to get out of that chest voice, a lot of people who haven’t sung before get stuck in a mix of chest voice trying to get into head voice. If you kind of feel like you can’t break through that ceiling, it’s probably because you’re stuck in a mix. So one of the best exercises to do would be vocal sirens. I will often start from the top down, so I just go, <demonstrates> Ooh.

And so, you have to really start in this like heady, airy space. And so, really trying to- actually, a really great warmup would be imitating Julia Child. <demonstrates> Hello everyone, how are you today?

And just really getting into this like heady space. <demonstrates> We’re speaking up here, and it’s very haughty, and there’s a lot of airflow, and you might sound very airy inside of your head.

And as you continue to work on that, the coordination will actually get stronger. And so, if you hear people who can belt really well, but then it sounds like they have two different voices when they pop into head voice for something, it’s because they haven’t fully coordinated that head voice yet. So, I would just kind of get used to what it all sounds like. The other thing, and this is something I actually hate and all my teachers have always told me to do it and I hated it, but they were all right: record yourself and listen back.

It’s the hardest thing to hear yourself sing. It’s the hardest thing to hear yourself speak. It’s awful to watch yourself giving a presentation or whatever, but it will be the most objective form of feedback that you can receive. And when you’re singing especially, you’re hearing your own voice being transmitted to your ears, uh, by bone conduction. So your, your skull is actually vibrating, and that’s why you sound so different inside your head than outside your head. And so a lot of that airiness that you’ll experience in the head voice inside of your head is actually not present outside of your head. And so, it’s really important to have that objective recorder, that you then go back and listen to, to really get a firm idea of what it is, the sound that you’re actually producing. So that would be where I would start. Get a good teacher. Good singing is good singing; the rest is just nuance. So if you find a teacher who specializes in opera, they’re gonna teach you how to sing good. If you find someone who specializes in musical theater or rock, as long as they’re good singers and they can teach you how to sing well, the technique is the technique. The nuance is what brings you into the type of music and sound that you wanna be having. So that would be where I would start, I guess. Sorry, was that too much?

No, that was perfect. I love to get as much advice as I can for listeners, ’cause there’s so many people who, you know, are curious, who like it, but don’t feel equipped to dive in.

Julie: Yeah. Actually, I could show you some more warmups; the only thing is that Schmutzy sings with me.

That sounds perfect. You’ll have a little student helping out.

Julie: Yeah. Okay. For real. Do you want me to like.. Okay, so another warmup that I like to do, and I apologize if my dog here starts howling along. She’s a Shih Tzu, and apparently they have a lot of wolf DNA in them, so that’s why they sing along with you. So, I like to really work on the coordination between head and chest voice, like I was saying before. So I do yodels, so at first I’ll go, <yodels> a-woo-a-woo-aaa, a-woo-a-woo-aaa, a-woo-a-woo-aaa.

And so you can really hear where the break is between that chest register and that head register. And then I go back and forth even faster. <yodels> a-woo-a-woo-aaa, a-woo-a-woo-aaa, a-woo-a-woo-aaa, a-woo-a-woo-aaa

That was not in tune, but that’s fine. So that, that’s just kinda like letting the head voice be whatever it is. When you actually coordinate it with the chest voice, this is gonna be like more opera-y, you go, <sings> aaaa-ooooooo

Julie: And so that is just the coordination of the head voice in like, the-

Schmutzy: <sings>

Julie: Oh, there’s Schmutzy. Um

Schmutzy: <sings>

Julie: <laughs> Yeah. Good singing, girl.

Schmutzy: <sings>

I love her so much.

Julie: It’s the funniest thing. <laughs> Yeah, Mush, you wanna be on the podcast too?

Okay. So, uh, I think she’s done. She realized this was not a group activity.

Whenever we warm up, we always think of going from bottom to top. It’s actually better to go from top to bottom, because the higher you’re singing, the more stretch your vocal folds are experiencing. And as I was saying before, when we’re in our speaking register, we have a lot of muscles in our larynx. And so the vocal folds themselves, or the vocalis muscle, and they’re used to being in a more contracted position. So when you’re singing higher, what ends up happening is the two cartilages of your larynx actually tilt a bit to stretch out your vocal folds. And so, you’re using muscles that you don’t tend to use outside of singing. And so, as you’re relaxing and going more into a speaking register, it’s easier for your body to gain the coordination. So I’ll start off like, <sings> Aa-ooo And then you go down. <sings> Aa-ooo

There we go.

Schmutzy: <sings>

Julie: There’s Schmutzy. Um, and so.. So yeah, so that’s- my advice is always start higher and then go lower. Um, and then you’ll eventually get to a point where everything is coordinated well. The highest notes and the lowest notes all come from a strong foundation in the middle, so, work on your middle voice, work on bridging that gap between head and chest, and.. Good singing is good singing; the rest is just nuance.

I really should be bringing this back to the subject at hand, but I’m, I’m curious now. What is the head voice, chest voice? Is that like high notes, low notes?

Julie: Kind of, yeah. Okay. So, it’s actually the coordination and the actual positions of the vocal folds. So, you’ll get to a point where your vocal folds are in that contracted position where you can no longer go higher, right? So when you think about big Broadway belters, someone like Idina Menzel, Sutton Foster, they’re singing in that chest space, they’re belting. <demonstrates>. Right? And that’s, the vocal folds are thicker, they’re shorter, and you’re going to hit a ceiling of how high you can go. Um, but kind of like a rubber band, if you stretch it out further, you’re gonna be able to get higher pitches as you like strum a rubber band. And so, when your vocal folds, when your larynx tips, it oscillates a little bit and it like stretches and it stretches out the vocal folds into, um, a thinner position that’s longer. That’s when you, <demonstrates> you get into this sound, the Julia Child space.

Um, because the vocal folds are thinner, it actually takes more coordination and pressure to coordinate, um, it’s the arytenoid cartilages, they slide back and forth across the, uh, cricoid cartilage in, in the back there. Um, and they actually have muscles that make an X in between them that don’t just bring the vocal folds together. But when these oblique X-shaped muscles twist, they create a firm closure between the cord so that there’s no gap. And so that’s actually what it is that you’re training to coordinate, to get a head voice that doesn’t have air in it. Otherwise you end up with like a little triangle-shaped space between your vocal folds in the back. Um, and that’s what lets the extra air through. It’s called the tr- the glottal chink. Um, <laughs> and so we wanna try to close that to get a firm, uh, nice smooth straight, uh, closure of the vocal folds, because, once that happens, the sound loses that airiness to it, and the vocal folds are actually functioning. Uh, they have like a higher level of functioning?

And so, your air control is going to be better, you’ll be able to sing longer, higher, louder, and it allows for physics to actually do what it’s doing, so. Sorry, not to get like too into the weeds here, um, but when we’re singing, a physics principle called the Bernoulli effect takes over so, it, you can observe it in water, um, but- I think it, Bernoulli was really looking at airflow- but, if you think about a river that has water running through it and the river is a certain width, when the river gets more narrow, the water starts going faster through that narrowing, and that’s what happens with airflow as well. So if you think about your airflow, your trachea, your vocal passage as being an open tube, when the vocal folds come in, it creates a narrowing that actually speeds up the airflow through that area and creates suction to help full, pull your vocal folds together to make that nice tight seal that we were talking about. And then the vocal folds vibrate, they break up the air, you have compression and rarefaction cycles of the air that your vocal folds are vibrating at, and that’s how we create sound waves, and that’s the physics of how we actually produce sound.

I could ask questions about this forever, but this is–

Julie: Sorry, that was- that, that really got off track there.

That was fully on me, and it was totally fascinating. Uh, but I’m gonna reel it back a little bit, uh, to the subject at hand, which is, you know, wizard rock, Priori Incantatem, uh, and we’ve talked a little bit: website, maybe album. But just, you know, to recap, to reaffirm, what are you working on now? Or I guess, what are you and uh Schmutty working on now?

Julie: Yeah, right? So, um, every year at Christmastime, the New York Order of the Phoenix, our meetup group, goes wizard Christmas caroling at Bryant Park. Um, Heather Denny has written a bunch of wonderful Christmas carol parodies that we do every year, and we’ve discussed maybe recording a Christmas album of different Harry Potter Christmas carols, um. <sings> Have yourself a Harry Potter Christmas. Um, <sings> God rest ye merry H-Hufflepuffs, no wait-

Hippogriffs? It’s usually, it’s usually Hippogriffs.

Julie: Hippogriffs. Yeah. Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll write an extra one that’ll be about Hufflepuffs. I don’t know. But yeah, so that could be a lot of fun. And I’m always just thinking about what might work in terms of a wizard rock song, uh, in terms of a context. I was really into the eighties and nineties music recently, but I think it’d be really cool to do an album of just Broadway musical theater stuff and then do an album of more pop stuff. Um, and then do a Christmas album. Because Christmas music is timeless, you can play it every year for like six weeks.

And we do.

Julie: I’m pretty sure the guy that wrote “Santa Baby” is only living off of royalties from “Santa Baby.”

And well he should.

Julie: I met him, I auditioned for him. His name was Phil. He was very old. <laughs>

That feels right.

Julie: I did not get that job.

Do you know what we could use more of? Hanukkah wizard rock.

Julie: Yes! Okay. I am a proud member of the tribe, and as a Jewish person, I would love some Hanukkah wizard rock. Also, JK Rowling was like, “sure there were Jews at Hogwarts,” but why wasn’t Harry invited to any of the bar or bat mitzvahs? Okay, I want to, I wanna hear Anthony Goldstein’s voice cracking as he chants his Torah and haftorah in the great hall with the portable ark and Torah that they brought in. And then, you know, a rousing game of Coke and Pepsi while the grownups eat their dinner at the party. I mean, <laugh>, where, where are those scenes? Just saying.

Here’s our final music break, beginning with Ginny and the Weasleys and “Happy Harry Birthday.”

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You just heard Ginny and the Weasleys’ “Happy Harry Birthday,” “Gone” by Lauren Fairweather [lyrics], and “Lose Myself” from The Blibbering Humdingers [lyrics].

So now let’s hear a little bit more from Julie!

Thank you so much for talking with me today. This has been amazing. Where can WZRD listeners find you and your music online?

Julie: Right now, I only have one song that’s out there, and it is part of the 2020 Wizard Rock Sampler. It is “Still Hurting,” um, which is the parody that I wrote based off of The Last Five Years. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the main place right now. But hopefully, there will be more soon.

You said you’re putting together a website. Is that something people should keep an eye on?

Julie: Yeah, definitely keep an eye on it. It’s going to be my opera/voiceover/acting website, but maybe I’ll put a little Easter egg on there for some Harry Potter stuff as well. Yeah, I’m gonna have to, I think there might have to be an Easter egg in there just for us wizard rockers.

What’s the URL?

Julie: It is–under construction–it is Julie Lauren Stevens, J-U-L-I-E-L-A-U-R-E-N-S-T-E-V-E-N-S dot com. And hopefully, there will be something by the end of the summer, maybe.

And now, magical friends: Priori Incantatem!

Julie: So this is “Still Hurting”, which is a parody from the last five years. It’s from the perspective of George Weasley, after the book series have wrapped up, talking about how he needs to move on and continue living his life, even though Fred is no longer here with us. I really like this song because I think it gives us a perspective of what happens to George after the series concludes. And, uh, we get to see another side of his character besides the playful, jokey, very smart, but fun, boisterous twins. So, I think that- this is one of my favorite parts of wizard rock is being able to explore other sides of characters that we maybe didn’t get to see in the series themselves. So that’s what inspired me to write this.