Leigh Daniel Avidan Biography
Introduction
Leigh Daniel Avidan is a Jewish American, who was born in 1979 on march 14 in Springfield, New Jersey. He is a musician and comedian who has had to work hard to do what he loves, all while having to pull himself out of terrible times, and those efforts are what make him inspirational.
The Avidan Family
His father was Avigdor Avidan, he born and raised in Israel and also fought in the Yom Kippur War as a tank commander, before immigrating to America where he met his future wife, Debra Schwartz. Dan’s maternal grandfather was named Bernard Schwartz, Bernard and Richard M. Berman invented the body electrode, a medical device responsible for saving billions of lives worldwide. Dan has one younger sister named Dana Avidan who is currently a bench jeweler.
Early Life
As a child Dan was well behaved and was very peaceful, and he had also taught himself to talk at a young age by imitating others, this causes him to confusingly, call his mother Debbie and his grandma, mom. Dan had once lost his favorite hat when sticking his head outside the car window, Dan had cried about, and so his dad decided to pull over and go into oncoming traffic to get it back for him.
When Dan was around the age of four his mother refused to buy him, some chap stick that he had wanted, so he stole it and acted as if he found it in the next airport, his mother’s obvious disappointment stopped him from stealing ever again. A similar situation happened when Dan complained to his dad after getting frustrated about how often Dana would hit him, his father simply told him “hit back”, but Dan misinterpreted his advice and decided to hit her first, Dana cried and Dan felt horrible.
School Life - Dan’s 20s
Dan attended Jonathan Dayton High School and moved onto advertising at Boston University but dropped out because he didn’t enjoy the class, but he had also explained “sometimes you are not in the right place in your life to be in a certain area”(Avidan, Super Mario Sunshine: Danger Pudding - PART 27 - Game Grumps). That place in his life he was in was possibly the toughest part in his life, Danny had gotten sick with Infectious mononucleosis, better known as “Mono”, it is transmitted through saliva and causes Fatigue, fevers, rashes, and swollen glands. For about 8 months Dan was stuck in bed, due to the sickness, Dan claims this was his first experience of real sadness over a long period of time, and that it was a huge change of pace within his life. The sickness eventually left him, but it still heavily affected his life he started to notice that he was consistently depressed and was really having a lot of trouble just getting out of the bed in the morning.
Around that time Dan had left for college, and that didn’t help, “I think that is a tough age just cause you know who you are when you are a kid, but you’re not a kid anymore and you don’t know how to be an adult yet and you don’t know where you fit into the world.”(Avidan, Wind Waker HD: Fresh Air - PART 19 - Game Grumps) Dan soon found out that he had OCD, this almost caused Dan to fail in school, because he couldn’t get to his classes and he didn’t leave his apartment for about 5 months.
Once Dan knew what it was he felt that he had a focal point to attack it from, to him it was much more intimidating when he did not know what was wrong with him, because of that experience Dan always recommends therapy and seeking help. Dan had received a letter from Tufts University, inviting him to study botany in the French Alps, and because of the hardships he had been facing at the time Dan accepted, and he claims that seeing that the world had more to offer helped him move on.
Dan has stated several times that within his 20s he was an avid smoker of marijuana, and he has had several unique experiences because of this addiction. Dan has claimed that he had once baked a tray of 40 weed brownies, and ate 39 of them within 3 days. Dan has also stated that when he was 24 he was suffering from long term unemployment and that he had mostly smoked weed and played The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and he claims that it got so bad that it got to the point to where he would imagine the Morrowind user interface in the real world. Dan eventually quit, and he claims that he does not regret it, and he advises against it.
The Northern Hues and Skyhill: 2003-2008
In late 2003 Dan Avidan joined an indie rock band called The Northern Hues. The Northern Hues was a Philadelphia based group that started in early 2002, Aron Brand and Jeff Rains, Alex Yaker, Justin Earley, and Ian Creech were all guitarist and once Dan joined he took the role of lead singer and songwriter and provided much of the lyrics while staying in New Jersey. The Band released one self-titled EP and one live album in early 2005 at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. In mid-2005 the band split up, according to Dan the split up was heavily caused by lack of focus and poor planning.
In 2006 of winter Dan and Peter Lennox created Skyhill, a Brooklyn based alternative pop band. Dan continued his role as singer and songwriter, while Peter did keyboard and guitar. In 2007 on May 16th their first and last album was released “Run with the Hunted”, They toured New York in 2008 and soon after split up due to creative differences. On October 7th 2015 Skyhill came together once more to create one last song titled “Firefly", and it is praised for maturing in both lyrics and sound.
Ninja Sex Party: 2009-Current
After spending 10 years in bands that went nowhere due to lack of planning and focus, Dan was determined to make things change. This led Dan to Brian Wecht, a former theoretical physicist (he has a PhD), who he met via their mutual friends at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and later on in early 2009 they created Ninja Sex Party (NSP). According to Dan himself NSP is about "a Jewish superhero who wears a unitard, with his best friend who's a ninja” (Avidan, Ninja Sex Party Interview on Lydia Wants to Know) together they make music often relying on crude humor. Dan and Brian worked together to design characters for their band, eventually settling on the characters “Danny Sexbang” and “Ninja Brian”.
Their original inspiration for the band came from other comedy bands like The Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords. Their first exposure to a larger audience was when they performed as a musical guest on Leitman's improvisational comedy show Stripped Stories. As of now the band has released three original albums and one cover album. Their albums are NSFW, Strawberries and Cream, and Attitude City, and Under the Covers. They claim to be currently working on their latest album, with only the title of the first song announced, that title being “Eating Food in the Shower”. Although it is questionable if they are still working on the new album considering recently they released a hit single called “Cool Patrol”.
Game Grumps 2013-Current
In mid-2013 Dan took the title of “Not So Grump” (Co-host) on the internet let’s play show “Game Grumps” in place of the previous co-host who had suddenly left. Around this time Dan had decided to stop cutting his hair, and once he has enough he is going to donate it to wigs for kids. Arin Hanson was a self-employed animator and was the host of Game Grumps, and he had been a fan of NSP before he personally knew Dan. So Arin decided to reach out to the band and offer to help create a NSP music video using his animation skills, Dan took up on his offer and together they created NSP’s most popular video to date, “Dinosaur Laser Fight” reaching almost 6 million views and 70 thousand likes. They continued to work together, and eventually Arin was in need of a new co-host, so he invited Dan onto Game Grumps. Initially some fans were unhappy with Dan, they preferred his predecessor, but regardless Dan continued to be on Game Grumps, and eventually those who couldn’t handle the change left. As of now Dan and Arin still post two episodes of Game Grumps every day, and they have over 4000 videos with 2.6 billion views total on their videos.
Starbomb 2013-Current
Once Dan had officially become a part of Game Grumps Dan, Brian, and Arin teamed up to create a new band called “Starbomb”. Starbomb focuses on parodies of popular video games, and much like NSP crude humor is used, but Starbomb lacks some of the goofiness that NSP has. Starbomb is relatively new, but their songs have been received well by their fans, with their most popular video being “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone” with 29.8 million views. As of now there are two albums, “Starbomb” and “Player Select” and they have announced that they plan to create a third album.
Conclusion
Throughout Dan’s life it is clear as day that he worked hard in every aspect to get where he is today. His hard work to both fix his personal problems all while chasing his dreams is inspirational and should motivate people to do the same. Dan’s growth from depression to being consistently joyful and positive is admirable and something that people will hopefully learn to do as well.
Sources (warning explicit language)
Avidan, Leigh Daniel; Hanson, Arin. “Super Mario Sunshine: Danger Pudding - PART 27 - Game Grumps.” YouTube. Game Grumps. Let’s-play Video. Accessed on September 4th, 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHHsoQWL6Kw
Avidan, Leigh Daniel; Hanson, Arin. “Wind Waker HD: Fresh Air - PART 19 - Game Grumps.” YouTube. Game Grumps. Let’s-play Video. Accessed on November 19th, 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfTNZLssib4
Avidan, Leigh Daniel; Nelson, Lydia. “Ninja Sex Party Interview on Lydia Wants to Know.” YouTube. Third String Kicker. Video Interview. Accessed on May 24th, 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhABEEqSEuM
Jonathan Dayton High School. “Regionalogue.” Published in 1994.
https://archive.org/stream/regional94jona#page/68/mode/2up
Avidan, Leigh Daniel; Hanson, Arin; Jafari, Jonathan Aryan. “Game Grumps” YouTube. Last updated: October 28th, 2016. YouTube Channel. Originally Uploaded July 10th, 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/user/GameGrumps
"I have a PhD" (this one was a joke anyways, it was an inside joke on their channel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McXVysQZ0N8