“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”
-Erma Bombeck

Sometimes it can definitely seem like our fandom is a pretty small place. It’s fairly easy to feel like you know someone when you have such important interests in common. Yet within our small little corner of the world, there is an even smaller group. How many musical movements can claim that they have an entire family devoted to it?

Well, okay, I’m sure there are others. This doesn’t diminish the amazing fact that there are six people living in the same Pennsylvania household who, besides family ties, share the common thread of wizard rock. Between the six of them, there are four wizard rock bands and two Muggle bands, plus an orchestra. Considering that the four kids range from 18 months to 9 years old, and comprise four of the bands, this is an impressive feat.

First, we have The Hungarian Horntails, with Darius and Holden, aged 9 and 6. According to their mom, Tina, “Darius manifests creative control, but Holden performs with him.” Aside from their wizard rock project, Darius is currently writing classical music and “is already seeking musicians to be in his muggle orchestra”. Holden has his own Muggle project as well, The Adventurers, where he sings about a superhero groundhog.

Violet is only 18 months old, so she doesn’t have any musical projects quite yet, but it seems it will merely be a matter of time. Her other brother, Oliver, who is 4 years old, has a solo project called Oliver and the Dinosaurs. He also sang backup for Tina on a benefit compilation she participated in.

For the most part, I think we can assume that the kids have been influenced by their parents. There aren’t too many 9 year olds out there writing classical music while also participating in a punk wizard rock band without a fairly extensive introduction to music. Their father, Ian, told me, “Tina was in bands and composed her own music since she was a teenager. I messed around with guitars and playing here and there. I have always been a huge fan of music. We have always had musical equipment in our home and the kids have always been more than welcome to use it. I still remember Darius at 2 screaming ‘Cherry Bomb’ by Joan Jett into a microphone and strumming a guitar.” Tina and Ian actually met through their noise band, The Black Cocks. Between the two of them, they have three wrock bands; DJ Luna Lovegood (just Tina), The Cedric Diggorys (just Ian), and The Greybacks (both of them).

I asked them if they thought their family was closer because of wizard rock, and Tina said, “Our closeness hasn’t changed, but Wizard Rock has definitely influenced our goals as a family and individuals. Three years is a big chunk of childhood and the best part is that these kids are HUGE music fans. Currently Darius is really into classical music, Holden loves Weird Al, Oliver loves various children’s music and Itsy Bitsy is Violet’s favorite.” And despite the huge collection of music projects going on with a limited supply of equipment, there isn’t too much in-fighting going on, “as long as the kid who wants to record gets to go first, then mom or dad”, Tina said.

You would think that organizing shows would be a nightmare with so many people involved, but they do manage. Tina tries to organize shows where only one parent is performing so that the other can focus on babysitting. A family oriented event like Wrockstock works well. Ian told me, “We were all in attendance at Wrockstock [the first], which was an amazing journey and experience. It felt like we were on an the Island of Wizard Rock.”

I wondered how they felt about having the kids being so involved with the internet, but they’ve found it to be a positive thing. Tina said, “It’s actually really cool to have the internet as a large part of this. I mean the convenience of communication is essential, overall it gives anyone the opportunity to listen to something other than what would be forced down your throat on the radio. It gives a musician a better opportunity to have total creative control and be heard without sacrificing the integrity of their message to be more popular.” Without MySpace and iTunes around, I can imagine it would be difficult for a 9 year old and a 6 year old to really get their music out there the way The Hungarian Horntails manage to.

As Tina stated, “Overall we are very fortunate to have had many experiences with Wizard Rock. We are [all] excited… to be a part of the future of Wizard Rock.”