Frank Infante Biography

Frank Infante (born November 15, 1951) is an American guitarist and bassist best known as a former member of the new wave band Blondie.

Early life and Blondie

Born in New York, and prior to Blondie, Infante established himself playing guitar in heavy, electric blues groups such as The Elegant End and World War III. In 1975, he joined Sniper. Infante joined Blondie in 1977 as a session player. The group had been formed three years earlier by singer Deborah Harry and guitar player Chris Stein, out of the remnants of Harry's previous group, The Stilettos. Gary Valentine was the band's bassist that August but was replaced by Infante in July 1977.

Chrysalis Records took over Blondie's contract from Private Stock Records, and in February 1978, the band released their second album, Plastic Letters. Infante played on the record but was not pictured on the album cover. He continued to play bass for Blondie until Nigel Harrison joined the group later that year, at which point Harrison took over the role of bass player and Infante switched to guitar. Record producer Mike Chapman has said that he considered Infante to be an "amazing guitarist" and the most technically proficient member of Blondie when the began producing Parallel Lines. Both Infante and Harrison stayed with the band until it broke up in 1982, but neither were included when Blondie reformed in the late 1990s. Infante and Harrison sued the other members of the band for reforming the band without them, but the lawsuits were unsuccessful.

Throughout his time with the band, Infante contributed to writing a handful of Blondie's songs, including "Victor", "I Know But I Don't Know", and "Underground Girl" which was a demo from the band's Parallel Lines sessions in 1978.

Post Blondie

During Blondie's hiatus in 1981, Infante went on to work on Joan Jett's album Bad Reputation. He also worked on albums by Stiv Bators and Sylvain Sylvain. Shortly afterwards, he toured and recorded with groups including Iggy Pop and Divinyls. 1999 saw the release of Iggy Pop's album Nuggets and later, in 2008, Where The Faces Shine, on both of which he played guitar.

In March 2006, Blondie were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Seven members were invited to the ceremony, which resulted in an on-stage spat between the extant group and their former bandmates, Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante, who asked during the live broadcast of the ceremony to be allowed to perform with the group. Their request was refused by Deborah Harry, who stated that the band's current line-up were already prepared for the performance.

In 2010, Infante toured and performed with The New York Dolls in shows at The Cluny, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He also played guitar on their album Dancing Backward in High Heels, released in March 2011.

Infante currently lives in Los Angeles, California. He continues to record and perform with Infante's Inferno with Infante on guitar, Clem Burke (drums) and Steve Fishman (bass). The trio performed at the Rhino Records Pop Up Store, Los Angeles in 2011.