Leigh Daniel Avidan (born March 14, 1979), known professionally as Dan Avidan and by his stage name Danny Sexbang, is an American musician, Internet personality, singer-songwriter, comedian, and actor. He is one half of the musical comedy duo Ninja Sex Party with Brian Wecht, as well as the co-host of the Let's Play webseries Game Grumps with Arin Hanson. He is also part of the video game-based comedy music trio Starbomb, alongside both Wecht and Hanson.
Video Dan Avidan
Early life
Avidan was born and raised in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey the elder of two children of Debra Schwartz and Avigdor Avidan. His father was born and raised in Israel, and served in the Yom Kippur War before immigrating to America where he met Avidan's mother. His younger sister, Dana Avidan Cohn, is a bench jeweler, the executive style correspondent of InStyle magazine, and the executive style director of PopSugar. His maternal grandfather Bernard Schwartz assisted in inventing the body electrode.
After graduating from Jonathan Dayton High School in 1997, Avidan pursued advertising at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. After dropping out due to disinterest in the course, Avidan entered a student exchange program, attending a Tufts University satellite campus in Talloires, France to study botany.
Maps Dan Avidan
Career
2003-08: The Northern Hues and Skyhill
In response to a Craigslist ad in late 2003, Avidan joined the indie rock band The Northern Hues, a Philadelphia-based group created in early 2002, composed of Aron Brand, Jeff Rains, Alex Yaker, Justin Earley, and Ian Creech. Avidan acted as the group's lead singer and songwriter, and provided most of the band's lyrics while staying in northern New Jersey. They released one self-titled EP and one live track recorded in early 2005, at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. In mid-2005, the band split up; Avidan attributes the separation to spending "years in [a band] that went nowhere due to lack of planning and focus."
In the winter of 2006, Avidan teamed up with Peter Lennox to form a Brooklyn-based alternative pop duo named Skyhill. Again, Avidan acted as lead singer and songwriter, and the group released one full album, Run With The Hunted, on May 16, 2007. They toured New York in 2008, before eventually separating due to creative differences. On October 7, 2015, Avidan and Lennox returned to release the single Firefly, acclaimed for the band's "maturing in both lyrics and sound" over their previous album.
2009-2012: Ninja Sex Party formation
In 2008, Avidan began studying storytelling and improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, under the guidance of Margot Leitman, and had conceptualized the possibility of a new musical project. In need of a producer, Avidan was introduced to Brian Wecht, the musical director of another troupe, by mutual friends at the theatre in early 2009.
Avidan had already chosen the name "Ninja Sex Party," after "everybody's three favorite things," and worked together with Wecht to create characters to represent the band. They eventually settled with "Danny Sexbang" as Avidan's character, and "Ninja Brian" as Wecht's. The duo first gained popularity by performing as a musical guest on Leitman's improvisational comedy show Stripped Stories. Inspired by The Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords, the band is about "a Jewish superhero who wears a unitard, with his best friend who's a ninja, and together they sing songs about dicks, and try to hit unsuccessfully on women."
The group has released several studio albums and singles, many of the latter of which have charted on Billboard. As of 2018, they have released three studio albums, two cover albums, and are producing a fourth studio album called Cool Patrol.
The band has also appeared in various film festivals, including SXSW, Dragon Con, and the LACS.
2013-present: Game Grumps, Starbomb, and Good Game
In mid-2013, Jon Jafari left his position as co-host of the Let's Play webseries Game Grumps. Arin Hanson, co-creator of Game Grumps, brought Avidan on to replace Jafari as co-host, after being introduced to Ninja Sex Party's content by fellow animator Ross O'Donovan. Avidan would also join O'Donovan as co-host of the Game Grumps spin-off show Steam Train, where both hosts play PC games, as opposed to console. Avidan has remained a part-time co-host of the show since, though it has been put on hiatus. In addition to this, Avidan has acted as a co-host of other shows from the Game Grumps platform, including Grumpcade, Table Flip, and Steam Rolled, as well as providing narration for Hunting Monsters.
In late 2013, Avidan teamed up with Wecht and Hanson to create a side project band named Starbomb, with Avidan as the lead singer-songwriter. The band writes parody songs about video games, bringing together the sexually provocative music stylings of Avidan's Ninja Sex Party and the video game-based humor of Hanson. As of 2018, the group has released two albums, both of which have placed on various Billboard charts.
In 2015, Internet personalities Jesse Cox and Michele Morrow began developing an untitled comedy webseries starring the Game Grumps for YouTube Red, casting Avidan in a lead acting role as eSports coach Alex Taylor. After Dan Harmon joined as an executive producer in 2016, the project gained media traction, and was formally announced at VidCon 2017 with the title Good Game. Six serialized episodes were uploaded to the Game Grumps YouTube channel, with the first episode being free-to-view, and concurrent episodes requiring a YouTube Red subscription. Avidan's performance was well-received by critics, cited as "truly fun, believable," and "[shining] a light on the potential of other projects."
Other collaborations
In 2009, Avidan composed and pitched the theme song for the children's television series Power Rangers RPM alongside producer William J. Sullivan. However, due to the tone of the show's plot clashing with Avidan's demo, the song was scrapped.
In 2012, Avidan briefly partnered with Mondo Media to host a sketch comedy miniseries written by Lena Dunham called Dirty Shorts, in which Avidan portrayed an exaggerated version of himself, similar to that of Danny Sexbang. The series was not received well, and was dropped after the first 12-episode season. Avidan has commented that the Mondo Media staff experience was welcoming, although he was not confident that the way his character was written would appeal to audiences. Avidan also created, wrote, and provided voice acting for the studio's short-lived animated comedy miniseries DJs in PJs. Avidan returned to Mondo in September 2013 to compose "Dick Figures: The Movie: The Song" for the Dick Figures: The Movie soundtrack with Ninja Sex Party.
Avidan has appeared on various YouTube webseries as a guest, including Did You Know Gaming?, a webseries dedicated to video game trivia, Good Mythical Morning, a variety show hosted by Rhett and Link, and Nacho Punch, a sketch comedy webseries.
On August 3, 2015, Avidan performed with Steel Panther at their House of Blues venue, singing "Party All Day." The two have collaborated on multiple occasions, with Steel Panther making a cameo in Ninja Sex Party's "Road Trip" music video, and providing vocals for "6969."
Avidan is the co-creator and co-host of the football-centric podcast Balls In Your Ear, along with Josh Sprague.
Avidan, alongside co-creator Kyle A. Carrozza, performed the theme song for the Cartoon Network series Mighty Magiswords.
In September 2017, the band Night Runner released an album entitled Thunderbird, which featured Avidan on the fourth track, called "Magnum Bullets".
Discography
The Northern Hues
- The Northern Hues EP (2004)
- World Cafe Live 2005 (2005)
Skyhill
- Run With The Hunted (2007)
- Firefly (2015)
Ninja Sex Party
- NSFW (2011)
- Strawberries and Cream (2013)
- Attitude City (2015)
- Under the Covers (2016)
- Under the Covers, Vol. II (2017)
- Cool Patrol (2018)
Starbomb
- Starbomb (2013)
- Player Select (2014)
Filmography
Film
Web series
As writer
Video games
Awards
See also
- List of YouTube personalities
References
External links
- Official website
- Dan Avidan on IMDb
- Ninja Sex Party on YouTube
Source of article : Wikipedia
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