Lauren Fairweather and Nina Jankowicz make up The Moaning Myrtles, a piano-based wizard rock band from Hillsborough, NJ. The idea for the band was sparked in November 2005 when the best friends saw Harry and the Potters play a live show and Lauren brought up how many new wizard rock bands had started. Jokingly, Nina suggested that they start a Moaning Myrtle band. Strangely enough, Myrtle was Lauren’s first choice of a character to base a band off of as well. Myrtle was not a particularly easy choice because she does not appear too often in the books, but the girls decided that the whining bathroom ghost would be exactly what they needed. According to Lauren, “In the books, she makes really random appearances that often take you by surprise. Nobody expected her to be spying on Harry in the bathtub in The Goblet of Fire, and her friendship with Draco in The Half-Blood Prince was absolutely ridiculous. We thought she’d be the most fun to play around with because, while she’s usually pretty emo, she’s unintentionally hilarious and is great comic relief despite how depressed she is. Which, of course, provides lots of room for us to joke around in the lyrics.” The Moaning Myrtles started playing live shows in the summer of 2006 and they were immediately hooked. Even those first local shows attracted a turnout of dressed up and enthusiastic Harry Potter fans. Since then, The Myrtles have played alongside wizard rock bands such as The Remus Lupins, The Whomping Willows, Draco and the Malfoys, The Parselmouths, The Hungarian Horntails, and many others. They are currently scheduling more shows surrounding the upcoming book release and may even tour the United States in the future. They have a homepage at myrtleisnotdead.com and a MySpace page at myspace.com/themoaningmyrtles.
