Music for muggles

Tapping into the J.K. Rowling craze, Paul and Joe DeGeorges are Harry and the Potters—a lit-rock tribute band dedicated to the U.K.’s fictitious underage enchanter. The duo invades the Harold Washington Library for a free show on Tuesday 17—sweater vests, trademark glasses, studded belts and all—to bring its brand of “wizard rock,” along with a strong proliteracy message. 

The Boston-bred brothers rock the hush-hush halls of libraries and bookstores around the world with garage-band songs about fighting the Basilisk and playing wizard chess. “Harry Potter inspires people to get excited about reading, and that’s the case for millions of people around the world. We’re trying to do the same with music,” says Paul, 28. “Harry has a lot of elements of punk ideology. He’s very ‘stick it to the Man’…. If Harry had a band, this is what it would sound like.”

The group started five years ago when a bunch of bands skipped out on a DIY concert the boys were throwing in their backyard. “It was all on a whim,” he says. “We thought, Let’s try a Harry Potter band, so we wrote, like, eight songs in an hour to play for our friends.” Those ten friends went nuts, and from there the band started playing other illustrious venues, like other people’s backyards. 

“We played a show in a bike shop in Portland, Oregon, once, and after that we went to the doughnut shop down the street,” recounts Joe, 20. “We played a short acoustic set…and rocked Voodoo Doughnut.”

The guitar-keyboard duo now plays for crowds of more than 30,000 and has released three full-length albums, including 2004’s Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock! (featuring “The Missing Arm of Viktor Krum”) and a holiday record featuring eight of at least 11 other Harry Potter tribute bands that have cropped up since the brothers formed their group. “Harry Potter is already a rock star,” Paul says. “We were just the first to add a band.”

Spreading the gospel of Potter punk is only part of their overall mission. “We got into this because the books are so cool,” Paul says. “We love reading and we want our fans to as well.” Bring a book report on any of the works on the band’s summer reading list (available at eskimolabs.com) and you’ll walk away with a free Harry and the Potters toothbrush. Fans can also make a donation to Reach Out and Read at the show or join the Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club, a nationwide conglomerate of HP-themed bands that releases one wizard-rock album a month. Proceeds benefit the nonprofit literacy group First Book.

When will the Potter madness end? “When we meet [J.K.] Rowling herself,” Paul says. “We thought it might be a poetic conclusion. We started the band in our backyard. She should let us play in her backyard.”

Harry and the Potters play a free show at Harold Washington Library Center (400 S State St) Tuesday 17 at 7pm. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hits stores July 21, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenixis in theaters now.