Hello magical friends, especially my wonderful patrons who make these interview episodes possible! (Literally. You folks pay for the hosting.)
This has been a year of new beginnings and we’re not through yet! This month’s interview is with our newest wizard rocker so far! I can’t wait for you to hear her story.
First though, we can’t have WZRD without the music! Here’s Madam Pince and the Librarians with “No Squeeing in the Library.”
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We kicked off this episode with “No Squeeing in the Library” from Madam Pince and the Librarians, “Wizard Rock Heart Throb” by the Whomping Willows, and the Mudbloods singing “Zombies!”
And now it’s time to meet Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead!
Welcome to the show, Darbi, or do I say Lordess Voldina?
Darbi: Either one. Either one you wanna say.
You are, I think our brand newest wizard rocker. So I’m really excited to be catching you at the beginning of your journey.
Darbi: I’m excited to be here.
How did you get here? How did you find out about wizard rock?
Darbi: Well, it’s really weird, like, ’cause I’ve, I’ve known about it two different times. I just, ’cause the first time I heard about it I was like, “oh, that’s kind of neat.” Then I just put it outta my mind, forgot about it. And then it kind of like circled back around to me finding out about it again because, and I’m sure a lot of people found out about it how I did that guy on YouTube Pagefire or something like that. He makes these videos, it’s like, “how to make this genre, how to make this one.” Like I know he has like a “how to make a death metal video,” “how to make a bluegrass video.” But he had one about wizard rock and I was like, “what in the hell is that?” And I watched it and I thought it was all a spoof, like parody thing for a long time.
And then I googled it and that it was real. And the first wizard rock like band or whatever I ever found out about other than his, that he made in the video is the, um, the Striking Down Diggory, uh, guy. Because I googled like, is there any wizard rock that’s metal? And he was like, kind of who I found out from, I think it was Reddit, like Reddit posts and stuff. I found out about him and I listened to, I can’t remember which album it was. There was some of that stuff he had that was really like heavier stuff. And then I found out about other things and it actually took me a long time to listen to the softer stuff just because I, I wasn’t into it at the time, but now, now I am, like, now I’m writing my own like acoustic sad girl things. But that’s just how I found out about it was it was just through that video.
That’s so fun. And you might be the first person I’ve interviewed that said you found us through Rubeus and the Hagrids.
Darbi: Yeah. I forgot that was what that band was called. Yeah, yeah, that’s right.
“Expecto My Fist” is still one of my favorites.
Darbi: That some of the riffs, because there’s more than one song he’s done. Like I don’t know if he did a whole album.
He did.
Darbi: Oh, he did? Okay. I didn’t know that. But there was one of the songs I found, I actually, there’s no tab for it, but I actually picked up one of my guitars and I was like, fiddling with it because I just wanted to learn how to play it because that riff is so good.
That’s so cool. Most people do tend to say that they learned about wizard rock through first generation bands like Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, the Parselmouths…
Darbi: So the only one of those that I knew about for a long time was Draco and the Malfoys. And the only reason I knew about them, I do this thing where like I research different kinds of music. Like if I learn about it, like I’ll hear about some like just use like metalcore as a, for instance, like when I found out about metalcore, I went and I read like the Wikipedia article and then I went to Spotify and typed in metalcore and I would just listen to that playlist. That was what I did with wizard rock too, is I looked up wizard rock on Spotify, found a playlist. I don’t remember what the song was, but there was a, um, Draco and the Malfoys song that I’ll listen to on repeat for about two weeks because it was so catchy. And that was like, I do this thing where I’ll get obsessed with like three songs and I’ll just listen to them over and over and over again. But that was like, I, I didn’t know about Harry and The Potters till actually recently. Like I learned about like how apparently there who started the wizard rock thing. I didn’t know that.
That’s so fun. You came in from a whole different trajectory.
Darbi: I guess what happens when you like metal? Like you, like when you, when you used to only like metal, you come at it from a different way.
Now since you’ve reentered wizard rock, you have not one but two musical projects.
Darbi: Yeah, that was an accident. I didn’t intend for that to happen. Like, so I didn’t know like anybody could just do it. Like I didn’t know the community was just as friendly as everyone is. So I, I kind of thought like, “oh, this is not my thing.” And then everybody’s like, “no,” like, “girl, make some music. Like do the damn thing.” So I came up with the idea of Veil into Black, which was gonna be like a, um, a really just heavier metal than what I had heard existing in wizard rock already. Like I think actually… I’m lying because I think there is a black metal band. I can’t remember what their name is, but I’ve heard about it like, ’cause I… Because in black metal there’s like people that refer to black metal as, like, “true Norwegian black metal” or something like that. And I think on the, one of the wikis, there’s a band that says they’re like “Voldemort worshiping black metal” or something like that.
I, I cannot remember who that is, but I remember reading it somewhere. But I wanted to make a black metal band or like a death metal type thing. And I called it Veil Into, into Black. And it was supposed to be a reference like when Sirius Black fell into the, the veil and like croaked. So I was trying to make a metal band and do that. And I had my fiancee’s grandma gave me a computer and I brought it to work actually ’cause I don’t have wifi here at my house yet. I brought it to work and downloaded FL Studio on it and I was taking drums from a guy on YouTube who he makes drum tracks for free. And I was like just writing riffs to that, recording the vocals, like bam, that’s Veil into Black. That’s the whole thing. It’s just me doing that.
But then my computer died, which is why there’s, there’s only two Veil into Black songs out there. One of ’em is on that, I think it’s the 2025 compilation was the one it got stuck on. And then the other one, there’s actually a Veil into Black BandCamp and there’s another song it, and then right after I made it, it was when the computer took a dive. So that happened and I just quit making music. But I had a friend of mine who he had got into wizard rock, like he heard about me talking about it and he’s like, “that sounds really fun.” But he’s not really a metal guy or anything. Like he, he, he likes, um, likes a lot of Bob Dylan and stuff like that. He’s very much a hippie child, so he likes acoustic instruments. And I’m like, “well luckily for you, most of this happens to be like softer than what I’m doing.”
So we came up with the idea of Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead, which was just a joke is like, oh, this is transgender Lord Voldemort and just a funny way to say Death Eaters, I guess? He was the one who came up with eating dead. And we, we have five songs written, but both of us are busy as hell right now and we had no way to record it. But, um, I cannot remember his real name. I’m pretty sure it’s the Galleon Guy is how you say it? He was the one, like, he mailed me a recording device thingy and that is how I was able to record the Lordess Voldina song that is on BandCamp right now. So like, without him, I wouldn’t even be able to be making any of it like right now. But like the reason why there is two, it isn’t ’cause I, I can’t decide on a genre or anything. It’s just because one of them is me and a friend and the other one was just me and a computer at the time.
You get that a lot in wizard rock. There’s a lot of bands that have side bands where they wanted to do something a little bit different. So you’re hardly alone.
Darbi: There’s so much music, it’s hard to decide like what you, you know, what you wanna do. Like, which in real life it’s like that too because like I’m in, like, I’m in three different bands right now in real life that isn’t wizard rock and I record like some of my friends’ bands in real life. So like, even if I wasn’t doing wizard rock, I’d still be stretched so thin doing music that it’s kind of goofy.
So you mentioned a little bit on uh, Veil into Black, how you create your songs, but you know, if you wanna go deeper into that or the Lordess Voldina music, how do you, where do the ideas come from? Is it music first, lyrics first?
Darbi: I always do. Um, well it’s different for both of them because for, um, Veil into Black, I feel kinda limited in the fact that I don’t have a way to record drums. So whatever drums, this guy on YouTube, his name, his name on YouTube is John Page Contraband and he makes free drum loops. But that’s where my drums come from is that guy. I just feel like I should like plug him or something because you know, it’s his work. But I take the drum track and then I write a riff to it and then I just like listen to it a couple of times and write the lyrics for it. So I feel like with Veil into Black, I’m a little bit more limited in the how I write the riffs and stuff because, but, and that’s the whole process. Just there’s the drums, there’s the riff, I write the lyrics on top of it and it just lands on a compilation or something.
But with Lordess Voldina, me and the friend of mine, we both write poetry. The Lordess Voldina song we got up now, he wrote the chorus to it. And there’s only one verse in it, it’s not a long song, but I wrote the the verse to it. But with, um, both projects, it’s kinda like, like lyrical content wise, like usually what we try to sing about is like the darker things inside of like the Harry Potter universe, I guess? Because… I don’t know, like, and I’m not complaining when I say this, but a lot of the bands I’ve heard, like, like I’m really not, I’m not throwing any shade or nothing, but like a lot of the bands I’ve heard, they um, they sing a a lot about like the Golden Trio and like, ‘oh, we won the Wizarding War’ and like, and that’s great. Like I love all that stuff.
Like I love every wizard rock song I think I’ve ever heard, like they were all beautiful in their own way, but I didn’t really see anybody singing about like the evil things that could happen. So that’s kind of what we try to do. But, and we do that trying to like give more options for what you wanna listen to, I guess. Like some people like the bad guys, you know, like some people dislike that kind of thing. So that’s, that’s kind of what we’re trying to do for Lordess Voldina because like the song we have up now is about, um, a guy who maybe felt like he didn’t have any other option and he joined up and decided to be a death eater. Like not necessarily ’cause he is evil, but he felt like he didn’t have any other choice. Like he was just trying to survive or something. Like that’s kind of the idea for that song.
No, I love that though. It’s kind of magic how there’s no shortage of corners to explore in the wizarding world.
Darbi: Yeah.
And as you say, some people just like the dark side, it’s kind of fun to be evil in a place with no consequences.
Darbi: <laugh>. Yeah. That, that’s, that’s like the best way to say it I think. Yeah.
So you’ve been poking around wizard rock for a little bit and you’ve got two whole bands. Is there anyone you would love to collaborate with?
Darbi: Oh, I don’t even have to think about that. Honest to God, it’s like, if I ever get the opportunity, like Striking Down Diggory. Just because like they’re like the first one I heard and I like, I’ve loved everything that dude’s ever put out. Like I could sit here and, and talk about that guy–because he is doing the, the the other thing right now. Like the wizard rap or the wizzy rap or something. Like, I think that is some of like the funnest, like it’s just so fun to listen to. Like I love that. And then like his, his wrock music Graves under Gringotts is the one, like I have listened to that so many times at this point. It’s just, it’s on my, my playlist like all the time. Like I just, I just just, I can’t sit here and say enough good things about his music, like without a doubt. Him and …she makes a lot of the art for people?
Celia, uh, the Bookish Hufflepuff?
Darbi: Yes, yes. If I ever, um, was able to like have the time or whatever, I would also like to like make a song with her because like, she’s just a sweetheart. Like she made the, um, whenever I didn’t know how to do it, she made the Veil into Black like logo, which I’ve still gotta actually upload that to the BandCamp at some point. But like at the, at the time, like I was going through it, I’m just now getting to where everything’s like leveled back out. So I still need to do that. But them two for a fact, just as far as people and music go, like, I love them.
I love that answer, in part because great choices. Uh, and partly because I’m a hundred percent confident both of them will leap at the chance once they hear this interview, which means we’ll be getting more music any day now, magical friends.
Darbi: I mean, I, I would, I would love to. Like, I wish that I, uh, things weren’t so busy right now ’cause like I have the idea for doing like a whole like, full length of a Lordess Voldina because I’m always writing like lyric-wise, like I’m always like coming up with something. I’ll be at work and I’ll be, “oh man, that’s a good idea” and I’ll write it down. But man, finding the time to like actually record it is… I didn’t realize being an adult was this hard, you know, like
Yeah, that shock comes to us all.
Darbi: Yeah. But all in. All in good time, I suppose.
Here’s our next music block. Potter Ink is kicking it off with “Under the Tree by the Lake.”
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That was “Under the Tree by the Lake” by Potter Ink, Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons with “Chez Fleur,” Erised Night’s “Everyone is on Pottermore (But Me)” [lyrics] and, “All for the Wrock” by Pottorhead, coincidentally from WZRD’s 5th anniversary album “Just Joy.
And now let’s return to the chat with Darbi of Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead!
So before we started this interview, uh, we were talking a little about the magic of the wizarding world. Now if you were to take, uh, Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead or Veil into Black on a tour of the wizarding world, where would you start this tour? What would be the, the jumping off point?
Darbi: Man, that’s a good, wow. That’s a fun question. Like, like inside the actual like, fictional world? Man! Um, you know, if it was Veil into Black, honestly, like, I just think would be really in line with like the, like the image I’ve tried to portray it: the graveyard where Cedric got murked, like just a full black metal show in that graveyard. And like everybody just kind of like in the black hoods, like the Death Eaters, just everything. Like I think that would be like just sick. Lordess Voldina though? Um, you know what, just busking on the street and like Hogsmeade.
You know, who I think would be really into Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead? Fred and George.
Darbi: Oh really?
You can’t tell me that the guys behind, You-Know-Poo wouldn’t adore this band concept.
Darbi: I mean they, you know, like, I mean if they were into it, you know, they could be in the band. Like, you know, they could play a washboard or spoons or something, you know, whatever. I’m fine with anything.
Teach one of them how to, how to be a drummer.
Darbi: Oh, that would be cool. Like, yeah, if we had an actual drummer, like, I mean it’s just two of us right now, but I’m accepting applications.
Yeah. And then you could have the, the first show at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
Darbi: Where, where now?
Fred and George’s shop.
Darbi: Oh. Like I thought I had a, that was so many Ws. I was like, “oh hold on.”
<laugh>. Yeah. And yeah, I, uh, through these interviews I’ve learned that drummers are the most rare and precious wizard rock members. There’s never enough of them to go around.
Darbi: Yeah. Like I play everything. Um, I’m self-taught as far as like guitar, bass, uh, I can play mandolin, banjo, I can play like most things that are stringed. And like I got, I got drums and all that and I play drums. I played drums in a few bands. But in Lordess Voldina I played guitar and sing mostly or mandolin and sing. But yeah, finding somebody else to play drums. Holy cow. Like I, at this point I think I’d pay somebody to like just come and play a snare and a high hat. Like, because you just can’t find anybody to play drums. Which is strange because like drums seem like the funnest thing to play, you know, like you’re just kind of back there doing your thing, just getting after it.
I know we’ve got a drummer on the west coast and a drummer in North Carolina. Those are the only two I can think of right now. I’m sorry if I’m forgetting you, someone!
Darbi: <Laugh>.
So if you don’t mind long distance, you could add some band members.
Darbi: I, that’s like the end goal because I’m trying to get internet. Like I haven’t been able to recently ’cause like we had a whole bunch of like financial stuff come up. But the hope is eventually I’ll get internet put in and then I can do actual, um, like collaborations with people. Like be able to send tracks and get it, you know, and like that that’s the end goal. Like if everything goes the way I want it to.
I look forward to it. So you said you didn’t think you were, like, allowed to do wizard rock.
Darbi: Yeah.
What would you say to someone else who was feeling like that right now? How would you get them to make us some more music? Get them started?
Darbi: Just, just literally do it. Like, even if you’re just like singing into your phone, you know, just, just do it. Like, the reason I felt like that was because of like how scenes I had been part of in real life. Like apart from like the online thing that is wizard rock, like every now and then, not always, but particularly in like metal scenes, you run into a lot of people who just, I think gatekeeping is what the, like gatekeeping is what they call it now. Uh, like a lot of people like that. But like that is so far from what wizard rock is. And, and a lot of it too is ’cause like, man, you gotta have like top of line equipment to record music. There are homeboys in wizard rock that literally are like singing into their phones and like, they got it like taped to a tripod the phone doesn’t fit on and they’re like playing and singing into it. And the thing is, it still comes out sounding like pretty decent. Like I’ve heard, uh, I’ve heard a lot of stuff that just wasn’t recorded on like studio equipment that people have and like… Honestly, yeah, just do it like everybody, everybody has had something good to say about everything I’ve done and I haven’t even been super confident in the Lordess Voldina song we put out because I usually don’t sing. Like, I’m usually like yelling, like the screaming thing with metal. And everybody just, I think more people liked it than they did the Veil into Black stuff, to be honest with you.
My listeners know what’s coming next because you said almost exactly ‘just do it.’ Which is the single most common advice I get.
Darbi: Oh.
Which is why I have a secret second question.
Darbi: Oh.
Which is what’s a really solid, like, technical advice you would have? Like, “here’s my vocal warmups,” “here’s how I learned to play banjo.” “Here’s my favorite button in, in FL Studios .”
Darbi: Technical man, like you’re asking the wrong person for technical advice. Uh…
Not necessarily technical, just practical. You know, “these are my finger warmups so I don’t develop carpal tunnel.” You know, something that that has helped you concretely,
Darbi: Honestly, like, this may not be what anybody’s looking for, but like, if you just want to do it, just learn three chords. Like, and I know that’s not like a, a warmup or anything, but like, I feel like most songs can just be written in three chords. Like, hell, you could probably do it in two. Like if somebody was really wanting to get into it and they just felt like they couldn’t get past that barrier, buy like a ukulele for 40 bucks and learn two chords and just sing to it. Like, just, just send it. Because that’s all you need. Like, I don’t do any finger warmups or anything like that. Like I came up a punk kid and we just, like, sometimes we didn’t even tune our instruments, we just let it go. So like, like I just honestly that that like, ’cause I have a ukulele, that was one of the first instruments I learned.
Darbi: And ukuleles really easy for people because of how small it is. And far as like playing advice or anything goes, just, you can get them bad boys all day for 40 bucks on eBay. Because I, I like giving advice to people who can’t play and really want to. So like that, that’s what I would tell somebody like struggling. It’s like, get you a ukulele, learn a G chord and a D chord and just write some poetry and sing it over it. It doesn’t even have to like flow well, just do it. Just have fun and do it. Because that’s what everybody’s really taught me in wizard rock is just have fun and do it.
I was gonna ask which two chords you would suggest, but, uh, it was D and G?
Darbi: If it, if it was major I would say G and D. If it was minor, I would say A minor and, um, A minor and C like the change from A minor to C like I think is really pretty. That’s, that’s what I would suggest.
What is the difference?
Darbi: What like major and minor? Oh, major is just like, I, it’s happy sounding, minor is sad sounding. So like, I imagine if you learn those four chords, like, you know, you had G and G and D over here and you had A minor and C over here there you’ve got the tools to be writing had, uh, excuse me, happy and sad songs right there. So like that’s, that’s what I would do.
Now I kind of want just a full album in that style. Maybe a comp? Maybe one band?
Darbi: Just like, uh, two chord songs.
Yeah. Ju just the, the–I’ve already forgot–A and A and C and G and D, just those two. See what kind of magic someone can create.
Darbi: You know what the next compilation, I might just do that just like me ukulele and two chords, see what happens.
Oh, I love that. Now we’ve hinted a little bit back and forth, uh, but just so everyone gets really excited, uh, what are you working on now? What should we be looking forward to?
Darbi: It’s, uh, in, in the, uh, near future for, for me is just the Lordess Voldina stuff is what we’re working on because I don’t have the means to even set up. Like I can download drum tracks all day, but I need the interface of like a, like a DAW to be able to play over the drums and record it. I just don’t have the means for doing that right now. So like really all we’re doing is uh, I call it Sad Girl Folk. ’cause what I call it is like that coming from Lordess Voldina. It’s all very sad, sappy sound and stuff. Like we, we’ve got five songs, uh, written. We’ve got two recorded, including the one that’s on BandCamp. So… We were gonna do it as a full length but with the time management, I think what we were gonna do is like stick to compilations and stuff for right now maybe, or just release ’em as one offs because we’re, um, if everything goes well this weekend, actually we were going to, um, we record the second one we got done. I don’t know if we… Did we run out of time for the Halloween thing or like, is that go until…?
So there’s two Halloween things. One, everything is due on the first, the other, everything is due on the 24th.
Darbi: Of October?
Yeah.
Darbi: Okay. So like, we might be able to make both of those. but like that’s like, that’s what we got going on right now. We’re trying to write a spooky Halloween song for, uh, one of the Halloween comps right now because like, we just don’t have time to do the full length right now.
When you said sad girl music, it made me think that you must be following in the footsteps of Grace Kendall, who I think their last album, maybe the penultimate one was Sad Songs for Sad Girls in Hogsmeade.
Darbi: <laugh>. So yes, sort of like, I I knew about that. Like, which is where I got the kind of like–I, I’m not trying to rip anybody off or anything. That’s kind of where like I got the idea for like, and it, and it, it also like whenever we were, whenever we, uh, because a lot of the times we’ll come up with like song ideas, just us sitting there playing and it’s like every song we came up with has been just the saddest, just… If you could imagine like the um, like the Nirvana Unplugged thing where it’s curt just, just oh, like, just, that’s what a lot of our stuff sounded like. And like I’m trans and um, my friend who I played with was like, man, this is just like the most sad girl mumbly like that like, stuff I’ve ever heard. So like, we just started calling it sad girl, sad girl folk is what we calling it or sad girl wrock.
Well it sounds incredibly exciting and I look forward to crying over it once it’s complete.
Darbi: I don’t know if it’s like cry worthy, like, but depressing sounding a little bit.
Quick pause for our last music break! This is Ben Knight’s “I Don’t Wanna Be A Gryffindor.”
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We just listened to Ben Knight’s “I Don’t Wanna Be A Gryffindor” [lyrics], Steve Goodie and “This Dude Ron Ron Ron,” and “Friends Like These” from Gadding With Ghouls [lyrics].
“Friends Like These” was a special request from my dear patron Celia. She dedicated it to Geoff, saying “you make every day seem a little bit brighter. Thank you for being a friend like these.” We love you, Geoff!
Here’s the last bit of my chat with Darbi!
Thank you so much for talking with me today. I know you didn’t believe me when I first said I wanted to interview you, so I’m really glad we made it happen.
Darbi: No, like I, I had a blast. Like I really, I I didn’t believe you at first. I was like, “wait a minute, I’ve got like one song out. What are you talking about?” But I, I had, I had a blast. Thank you for having me. I hope I didn’t like ramble too much or anything, but I had a blast.
Not hardly. Where can WZRD listeners find you and all of your music online?
Darbi: I only do BandCamp right now. Uh, if we get enough out we will do Spotify, but it’s uh Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead on BandCamp. And if you wanna hear the Veil into Black stuff, you’re gonna have to go to uh, like one song’s on the 2025 Sampler. And that’s the, what do they call that? The um,
Just the Wizard Rock Sampler.
Darbi: Yeah, the, I was trying to remember the what BandCamp that’s on? Is it just the wizard…
Oh, Wizard Rock [dot] BandCamp? Yeah.
Darbi: Oh, okay. Yeah, like we have one song on there and then we have the other one on the Veil into Black actual BandCamp.
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If you want to keep up with WZRD between episodes, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at WZRDRadioPod. If you don’t believe in social media, you can also comment on the transcript or email me at WZRDRadioPod@gmail.com.
And now, magical friends, here are Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead!
Darbi: Alright, this is, um, “Death Eater’s Lament” from my sad girl rock project, Lordess Voldina and the Eating Dead. It’s about a person who decided their safest bet in life was to become a death eater.
WZRD Radio Podcast 