Dan Avidan

Leigh Daniel “Dan” Avidan was born on March 14, 1979 in Springfield, New Jersey. His father, Avigdor Avidan, was born and brought up in Israel. He met his future wife, Debra Schwartz when he immigrated to America. Before that, Avidan’s father served in the Yom Kippur War. Dan has a younger sister, Dana Avidan, who is as talented as her brother. She is a bench jeweller and also the executive style correspondent of the popular ‘InStyle’ magazine. Dan went to high school at Jonathan Dayton High school. After graduation, he decided to pursue advertising at Boston University. Soon afterwards, he dropped out due to disinterest. He then entered a student exchange program to study Botany in the French Alps, at a Tufts University satellite campus in France.

Daniel Avidan’s career as a musician took off when he first came across an indie rock band called ‘Northern Hues, a Philadelphia based group created in early 2002 by Aron Brand, Jeff Rains, and others. In late 2003, Avidan joined their band as the lead singer and songwriter. Before splitting up in mid-2005, the band released one self-titled EP and one live track at World Café Live in Philadelphia. Daniel Avidan teamed up with Peter Lennox in the winter of 2006, to bring together a Brooklyn based alternative pop duo named, ‘Skyhill.’ Avidan took over the role of lead singer and songwriter once again. The duo released one full album, ‘Run with the Hunted, on May 16, 2007 and later, toured New York in 2008 before eventually separating due to creative differences.

After the failure of both the bands, ’The Northern Hues’ and ‘Skyhill’, Avidan left no stone unturned to make his next band a success. He started searching for a producer and was introduced to Brian Wecht, who was the musical director of a comedy troupe in New York. The introduction took place at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. In early 2009, the band, ‘Ninja Sex Party’ was formed with Avidan’s character being called Danny Sexbang and Wecht’s character as Brian Ninja. The band was about “a Jewish superhero who wears a unitard, with his best friend who’s a ninja” in Avidan’s own words. The band has released three original albums, ‘NSFW’ (2011), ‘Strawberries and Cream’ (2013) and ‘Attitude City’ (2015). They also released one cover album, ‘Under the Covers’ in the year 2016. They are said to be working on a new album and have named the first single ‘Eating food in the Shower.’

In July 2012, Arin Hanson, animator/voice actor, and Jon Jafari, a comedic media critic, created a show, ‘Game Grumps,’ which is a ‘Let’s Play’ webseries. Following Jafari’s departure from the show in June 2013, Hanson brought in Avidan as the co-host of the show. Dan Avidan also became a part of the ‘Game Grumps’ spinoff show ‘Steam Train’ as a co-host, joining Ross O’ Donovan where both would play PC games. Avidan, Wecht and Hanson started a new side band called, ‘Starbomb’ in late 2013. The band focuses on parodies of songs about video games with Avidan as the lead singer/songwriter. They released two albums, ‘Starbomb’ and ‘Player Select.’