Interview with Divine Infamy

Oral history with Divine Infamy, recorded on April 15, 2024, as part of the "Uptown Rumble: Heavy Music in The Bronx" project at The Bronx County Historical Society. Two of the members of Divine Infamy were present: founding member Lord Draconova (guitar) and Gengis Polanco (guitar). The interviewer is Steven Payne, director of The Bronx County Historical Society. In the band's oral history, Gengis talks about how his family ended up in Inwood from the Dominican Republic and what it was like for him to grow up in the neighborhood before it became a predominantly Dominican one, his experience in public schools and attending high school back in the Dominican Republic, food he ate in his household and music he heard from his parents, being inducted into metal through a Suffocation album in the Dominican Republic and falling in love with it, and deciding to pick up guitar more seriously after getting first into the Brooklyn metal scene. Lord Draconova speaks about his family's Italian background and growing up in the Allerton neighborhood, attending public schools and some of the trouble he got into in elementary and intermediate schools, music that he heard from his mom and step-dad as a child (primarily rock and roll), the Italian food he remembers eating growing up, first getting into metal through Iron Maiden and the local record stores he would shop at on Pelham Parkway and in Westchester Square, his experience attending Christopher Columbus High School and befriending other metal heads there, starting Degression with Manny (later of Driven By Hatred and OHR), various other bands including death metal ones he started around this same time, discovering the emergent black metal scene and forming early black metal bands in The Bronx like Vrykolakas, forming the first version of Divine Infamy in the mid-1990s, venues Divine Infamy and his prior bands would play around The Bronx like the Train Depot and the Black Thorn, and why this original version of Divine Infamy broke up. Gengis and Lord Draconova also share their memories of how they met through the scene in The Bronx, playing together with Demized, the influence of Jeo and other pivotal figures in Bronx metal, how the second version of Divine Infamy came about, the unique sound of this version of Divine Infamy, their decision to bring on board a female singer and the rarity of this in metal at the time, some of the shows they played with the band and their experience recording a 3-track demo, the circumstances that led to this version of the band falling apart, later attempts to reform Divine Infamy and why these attempts never took off, other bands they played in together, and what was distinctively "Bronx" about the sound of Divine Infamy and the loyalty and acceptance of the heavy music scene in The Bronx in general.