Divine Sinners

If anyone ever deserved the term DIY – it’s without doubt the Gozitan rock band, Divine Sinners. Consisting of songwriters Charles J. Attard and Frank Buhagiar along with percussionist Eugene Bajada and bass player Marvic Vella. Divine Sinners always did it themselves – writing, playing, singing and producing their own material. Never really caring for the rules of the game, they recorded three CDs of original songs in a studio before even playing their first live gig.

Interestingly enough, Divine Sinners came into being when Charles was at a loss after having penned a stage comedy (which he was also directing at the time) he realized that he hadn’t thought out what music to use. He had asked a friend of his to order an Anton Karas’ soundtrack CD of Carol Reed’s masterpiece, “The Third Man”. When four days before the play’s performance, it was discovered that his friend had actually forgotten to order the CD, Charles simply took matters into his own hands and wrote a funny little ditty himself. Deciding he didn’t care to sing the damned thing; he called on his friend Frank Buhagiar and asked him to do the honours (or dishonours, whichever way you look at it).

As it happened, the song was better received than the play itself, thus Charles and Frank decided to keep meeting up, co-writing and playing their songs from there on. It was round this time that they started going into a local Gozitan studio where they ended up recording their original material. These CDs have never been put on sale, just given away to some close friends, relatives and anyone bonkers enough to ask for one – since with Charles and Frank, it was always just about two friends meeting and sharing their passion for music.

Divine Sinners (the name is inspired by Dante’s La Divina Commedia which neither Charles nor Frank have actually read) started doing live gigs during the summer of 2009, playing the obligatory cover versions along with their original compositions. The Divine Sinners sound is something which they like to describe as “folk-punk” blending the charming soothing sounds of traditional folk blues music along with the raw aggressive DIY simplicity of punk rock and grunge channeling it through pop thus creating their own unique sound.

In December 2009, they launched their youtube channel on the internet. Done on a whim, they uploaded their original Christmas tune “Another Lonely Christmas” set to a funny video, which to date has had over four thousand views. This is quite impressive when one considers the fact that the group has no managers or agents. Filmed during a December evening of wine drinking with friends at Frank’s own garage (the wine drunk was actually made by Frank himself), “Another Lonely Christmas” is a hilarious cheap little music video set in a bar where a mad bouncer seems intent on kicking everyone out of the bar, most of the time for no reason at all! While the video might be funny, the song described (not without a pinch of salt) the pain of spending a Christmas all depressed and alone. A surreal moment in Divine Sinners’ gigs is when sometimes this song is requested and played no matter what time of year it is. A Rock Night in August 2010 ended with a whole nightclub singing “Yeah, Hooray, it’s Christmas time” - proof of lunatics taking over the asylum! Since then, other songs have been uploaded on their youtube channel which can easily be accessed by simply typing Divine Sinners on the youtube search engine.

2010 saw the addition of Eugene Bajada on percussion while Marvic Vella joined them on bass guitar in 2011. Eugene (aka The Cajon of Chaos) is well known around Gozo for his unique playing on a cajon built by himself. With his mop-top hair and left-handed bass playing, Marvic is the “Paul McCartney” of the band. Now a quartet, the Divine Sinners sound is finally full. Filmed in a barn and starring special guest, Crescent the Goat, "Cactus Rose" is the first video of Divine Sinners as a foursome.

It seems like we might hear more in the future from the group named after an Italian epic poem none of them has never read.