Danny Dalah is an LA-based musical comedian, who has performed at The Comedy Store, The Ice House, and even some dude’s garage. He has released three comedy singles and matching music videos. Mr. Self-Sabotage is his first comedy album that will be released on Valentine’s Day (2/14/22).

In this interview spotlight, I chat with Danny about the upcoming album release, adapting during a pandemic, technology and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and how do You describe your style of music?

I’m one of those strange Angelenos who was born and raised in Los Angeles and never left. Growing up in a Jewish Israeli household, I spoke both Hebrew and English; this dynamic confused me a bit to the point where I was accidentally placed in ESL for a few years despite being a native English speaker.

My father always loved playing the Beatles and Israeli music in my house, and my mom always listened to Earth, Wind, and Fire. However, they both really enjoyed Adam Sandler movies. This concoction of media somehow turned me into a comedy singer of all things.

My songwriting style borrows heavily from the premise-based humor of musical comedians like Rachel Bloom, Weird Al, The Lonely Island, and Bo Burnham, but it also draws inspiration from Jason Mraz, Jack Johnson and other live acoustic guitar singer-songwriter artists. I love taking comedic premises to absurd places, while still keeping them emotionally grounded.

Through comedy, I also love to parody elements of different musical genres. These genres include sourcing Beatles pop structure, my flamenco guitar training, and even Middle-Eastern influences.

How did you get here? As in, what inspired or motivated you to take on this journey through music and the music biz?

When I was in 6th grade, my parents took me on a trip to Las Vegas. At the Circus Circus, I kept asking my dad for more money, so I could play this dart game that had this acoustic guitar as a prize. After the fifth try, I landed a dart in a star and won a terrible guitar that had the bridge poorly glued on, so that the strings were slowly pulling it off.

At this point, I started learning how to play the guitar. My teacher introduced me to flamenco guitar, which I enjoy playing today and have even used in comedy songs occasionally. In high school, I used my teenage angst to write these whiny comedy song bits about having to take exams, and I was also that kid, who frequently played “Wonderwall” on the guitar at parties. Just thinking about those days, I facepalm. Partnering with two friends, we formed a band named “Single, Yet Taken” for a while, and I even performed live acoustic music at a restaurant.

In college at USC, I took a stand-up comedy class taught by Judith Shelton, where I actually choked my first time onstage. Ultimately, through this class, I got better and better at performing and mixed comedy with music. I started doing the open mic scene in Los Angeles as well as taking improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade. I even wrote musical comedy for a sketch comedy podcast titled This Week’s Peep Show. One of those songs was called “Adulting”.

After many open mics including one, where the host introduced me on stage by saying “musical comedy gives me hemorrhoids, so here’s Danny Dalah”,  I ultimately released my first single and comedy song video titled “How to Pick A College Major”. Channeling the sense of hopelessness that a lot of college students including me felt at the time, I went through all the negatives of majoring in each subject in the verses and ended with a happy, pop-ish chorus that said “Study What You Love, Because We’re All F*cked Anyway”.

As someone who has worked in the film industry, I was incredibly frustrated with the way college students were being exploited under the guise of unpaid internships. I remember that during one such internship, they had me wash dishes, clean windows, and build Ikea furniture. I had also heard numerous stories from peers about how terrible the industry was for your mental health and just tons of workplace abuse scenarios. These experiences and frustrations led me to releasing my second comedy song single titled “Internsh*t”.

In a post-college world, I found myself frustrated with how difficult it was to get a job, a thing that everyone needs to do or else, they will starve and not have housing, so I channeled these frustrations into a third comedy single and music video titled “Job Interviews Suck”.

At this point, I had built up a huge amount of material from my live performances at The Comedy Store, The Ice House, and even some dude’s garage, so I wanted to record an album and put it out.

For me, inspiration comes from a variety of different things. Sometimes, some societal issue angers me beyond belief, and I feel emotionally compelled to take to the guitar about it. On my upcoming album, “Song for the Anti-Semite” comes from several personal experience with Anti-Semitism that drove me crazy. In other instances, I have a funny concept for a sketch or song, and I expand out logically from there. For instance, “I Peaked in the Third Grade” started as a kernel of an idea on how much easier life was back then.

How does your latest project compare/contrast with your previous release(s)? Were you setting out to accomplish anything specific, follow a specific theme, or explore different styles of creation?

In terms of music production, my previous singles were more minimalistic. My first two tracks featured my vocals and the guitar as the focus of the piece; this dynamic lends itself well to live performance, which had been my background at that point.

With my upcoming album Mr. Self-Sabotage, I wanted to push the boundaries of what we could do using musical parody. Collaborating with a fantastic music producer and sound engineer named Jake Richter, we included a lot of other instruments to create a variety of different sounds under the umbrella of comedy. With his musical ingenuity, Jake really took this album to a whole new level that emphasized my comedy.

For example, the comedy song titled “Song for the Anti-Semite” features a Greek Bouzouki, an Egyptian Goblet Drum called a “Dumbok”, a melodica, and hand claps, to emphasize Jewish and Middle-Eastern influences. These musical additions punctuated the comedy that came from the lyrics and my nylon guitar.

Mr. Self-Sabotage even features a parody rap track along the lines of The Lonely Island. “I Peaked in the Third Grade” uses the epicness of rap music to explain how life was so much better with Runescape and Beyblades.

The titular track, “Mr. Self-Sabotage” borrows heavily from Weezer in a parodic way too. Jake had the idea of bending guitar strings to emulate their sound around my story of a boyfriend, who tries his best to be romantic, but just comes across looking terrible.

Overall, with Mr. Self-Sabotage, I wanted to push the bounds of what we could musically accomplish, and Jake and I definitely did.

Name the biggest challenge you faced as a creative during these unprecedented? How did you adapt? How have you kept the creative fires burning during all this?

Being stuck at home for months during the Covid-19 pandemic has been incredibly difficult for everyone including me. Living with this constant fear that you could get a life-threatening disease or getting that very disease is incredibly hard on everyone.

On another level, it was creatively challenging, because a lot of my comedy songs come from experiences that I would have with friends out in the world, and since I was unable to experience life for a while, it was difficult to draw inspiration and write anything. Also, every time you would check the news, the world is basically burning, and you feel like you cannot do anything about it and that your comedy writing is insignificant compared to the serious problems that are happening around us.

However, playing and writing musical comedy allowed me to cope during these difficult times. If things were looking very bleak, I would get out the guitar and vent my frustrations out on it. I also utilized my comedy to talk about deeper issues as is the case with “Song for the Anti-Semite”. During these terrible times, people need moments of levity and laughter, and I wanted to be able to at least try to provide them with that.

What was the last song you listened to?

This is going to be a strange one, but Alestorm’s pirate metal cover of Taio Cruze’s “Hangover”. It’s a really fun song with a lot of comedy and parody elements.

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? 8-tracks? Cassettes? CDs? MP3s? Streaming platforms?

Personally, I prefer streaming platforms, because they have made music and comedy accessible to everyone with an internet connection. While I do have an appreciation and nostalgia for CDs, there is a benefit to being able to put your music out there for the world to see and not having to deal with gatekeepers.

Where is the best place to connect with you and follow your journey?

You can check out my website https://www.dannydalah.com/ for all things related to my musical comedy including upcoming shows. You can also follow me on Instagram @dannydalah and subscribe to me on YouTube, where I do funny things sometimes.

I really appreciate Your time. Anything else before we sign off?

My album Mr. Self-Sabotage comes out on Valentine’s Day (2/14/22) and will be available on all major streaming platforms. Upon the album release, the puppet music video for one of the songs titled “Everybody Wants to Date My Sister” will also be available to watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRr84btCj_g

Also, I just want to say thank you Joshua and Indie Music Discovery for taking the time to interview me. I really appreciate it!