Let’s be fair, the fictitious Spinal Tap have been the inspiration for many of music’s greatest moments. From the mockumenatry This Is Spinal Tap giving birth to the concept of things going to eleven, to the fact that Aussie legends You Am I are about to perform whole concerts covering the group’s hits, there’s barely a facet of the media that the band haven’t influenced. But we never really expected Harry Potter to be on that list.
As Pedestrian reports, the Twitter account for the English quiz show QI recently shared something which was indeed Quite Interesting, the fact that J.K. Rowling was inspired to incorporate a plot line of Hogwarts needing to constantly replace their Defence Against The Dark Arts teachers after the running gag of Spinal Tap’s drummers frequently dying in unexplained circumstances. (Sadly, no mention was made of the famous Grateful Dead keyboard player curse.)
According to J.K. Rowling, the curse of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers was inspired by the Spinal Tap drummers regularly dying in bizarre circumstances.
— Quite Interesting (@qikipedia) March 14, 2018
Sad but true. https://t.co/qLm9qYyEiM
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 14, 2018
In fact, a little bit of research uncovers the fact that J.K. Rowling first admitted this truth at the White House, of all places, during a Q&A session at their annual Easter Egg Roll in April of 2010.
“Defence Against the Dark Arts was also fun because every year you had a new teacher,” Rowling explained at the time. “For the older members of the audience they will remember the Spinal Tap drummer. […] Well, when I planned the books I thought that every year we’ll have a different Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, because the job was cursed.”
Of course, some fans have been quick to point out some of the other links between Spinal Tap and Harry Potter, with one fan noting the similarities between Spinal Tap drummer ‘”Stumpy” Bateman’, and the pseudonym ‘Stubby Boardman’, used by Harry Potter’s godfather Sirius Black.
https://twitter.com/speakeral/status/973998625306107905
Needless to say, this has made us begin to wonder what other musical references have been inserted into the series? After all, the third movie included a cameo from The Stone Roses’ Ian Brown performing some rare ‘wandless magic’, while the fifth film featured a cameo from the fictional band The Weird Sisters, which happened to include members of Pulp and Radiohead performing the songs after Franz Ferdinand turned down an appearance.
Check out Spinal Tap explaining their long list of drummers:
