Ninja Sex Party
An interview with Dan Avidan and Brian Wecht of comedy rock band, Ninja Sex Party
by Mike Huberty
October 2018
Ninja Sex Party on Conan
photo by #teamcoco
Dan Avidan and Brian Wecht dial up the ridiculousness with their comedy rock band, NINJA SEX PARTY. Influenced by other musical humor acts like Jack Black’s TENACIOUS D and Andy Samberg’s THE LONELY ISLAND, their personas of a Teller-eqsue silent ninja musician and nebbish-y horny unitard-sporting wannabe rockstar Danny Sexbang form a comedy duo that takes inspiration from 80s rock and synth pop classics and sings songs with titles like “If We Were Gay” and “Heart Boner”. Their latest single, “Danny Don’t You Know” is a straight up “Sister Christian”-style ballad where young Danny Sexbang is portrayed by Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard as he is visited by the older version of himself that regales him with tales of the rock stardom that awaits if he just makes it through his awkward teenage years.
It’s all completely ludicrous and these guys have come a long way from their origins. Brian is a former theoretical physicist (not a typo, he even came to the University of Wisconsin - Madison to speak at a conference once) and Dan is a former indie musician who started studying improv comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City. Originally they were a YouTube act where Brian played all the instruments on a keyboard as Danny sang.
“We had very loose ideas of who the characters were.”, Avidan says. “We knew Brian was going to be a silent ninja that murders everyone and we knew that I was going to be an idiot, a sex crazed moron, basically… but with a good heart. He’s harmless but he’s stupid. Those were kind of templates but as we played more and more and did more songs, the characters kind of fleshed out by finding the funniest thing to do. “
Since starting in 2009, they’ve released six studio albums, have played everywhere from Conan O’Brien to San Diego Comic Con, and have collaborated with the fellow over-the-top rockers of STEEL PANTHER. If you like funny songs about penises, you’re going to love this band. And a lot of people do, they’ve sold out most of the dates on their latest tour, including a show at the brand new Sylvee in Madison on October 17th. And they’re definitely not afraid to embrace their cult status. As Dan says, “We’ve tried our best to make something fun to look at and something fun to listen to. And become it’s been building up for ten years in this sort of Internet underground fashion, it’s built up a fanbase that is intimately familiar. It’s kind of like when you go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time and everyone knows when to throw toast at the screen and you’re like ‘What the Hell, who got the memo?’. It’s a fun experience all around.”
For their live shows now, they’re backed up by the band Tupper Ware Remix Party, an anonymous costume-wearing synthwave act with names like Atomicawk Startrotter and Lord Phobos and it’s added a lot to their live performances, “In our most recent album we have more solos than ever before.” Brian says, “Most of the songs are a get in get out kinda thing. For a long time we didn’t have a real band and I just did all the instruments digitally, so we had hardly any solos at all. But now that we’ve got a real band behind us and they’re total shredders, we want to give them the opportunity to go for it.”
And if you’re coming to the Sylvee show, Brian says to get ready for a real concert, with plenty of jokes, of course. “If you just squinted at this, it would look like any 80s style kinda rock band show, but there’s just a lot of comedic bullshit that happens onstage.”
This is where Dan interrupts, “Way to sell it Brian”
Brian laughs and continues, “The backing band is dressed up like robots, one guy is a space lion, I’m in a ninja costume, Danny is in his unitard and the songs are themselves funny… and then there’s comedy bits in between and during the songs, there’s animated segments, dinosaurs… well, they’re not real dinosaurs. It’s basically a music show but we heighten it up to make everything stupid.”
And Dan continues, excited and grateful sounding that their aptly named “Tour De Force” has been so successful. “It’s exciting to be one of the first bands to be at this venue. I’m just stoked that we can play a place like Madison for the first time and the place sells out, it’s gratifying to know that we have a fanbase in a place we’ve never played before and we’re just going to do our best for them. “
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