Female Impersonators: The Dan Band

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ON THANKSGIVING, THE DAN BAND released a new "We Are the World"-style parody video on Crackle.com, "Please Don't Bomb Nobody This Holiday."

While the piece was being filmed, of course, frontman Dan Finnerty had no idea what would happen on that day in Mumbai, India.

The video features Finnerty and his band asking for a worldwide truce, at least during the holidays. An all-star ensemble accompanies him, including Christina Applegate, Meg Ryan, Neil Patrick Harris, Macy Gray, Sheryl Crow and more.

"It's a parody of all those voting public service announcements from this fall," Finnerty said.

Finnerty even got Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls on the track. Which is appropriate, considering The Dan Band's purpose and beginning. The group is known for its parody-like covers of female pop songs, which are peppered with as much cursing as possible.

"I was an altar boy and I couldn't swear when I was growing up — it seemed like I had Tourette's when I got to college, now it's kind of the way I talk," he said.

The Dan Band got its start playing weekly shows at The Viper Room, the same place comedy groups Tenacious D and The Naked Trucker and T-Bone started. But when The Dan Band was there, they had some scantly-clad and, for them, inspirational openers: the Pussycat Dolls.

"Pussycat Dolls had just started and we'd go on after them and there'd be all these naked girls getting changed and we'd be grabbing our stuff to leave," he said.

"Charlie's Angels" director McG was dating PCD creator and choreographer Robin Antin and took a liking to Finnerty's takes on female pop songs. He even directed an ill-fated pilot loosely based around Finnerty's act and the band's popular Bravo TV special.

Through McG came The Dan Band's big break. Remember the wedding scene from 2003's "Old School?" Does the tacky wedding band doing an expletive-laden rendition of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" ring a bell?

Finnerty met "Old School" director Todd Phillips at a McG birthday party. His band played the party and Phillips loved it, asking him to perform in "Old School."

For Finnerty, it seems, it's all a matter of chance, even going back to how the band started.

"I moved to Los Angeles to play a stupid neighbor in some sitcom — I didn't want to be in a band," Finnerty said.

But one night Finnerty unleashed his inner female.

"I was drunk enough to get up and sing 'I Am Woman,'" he said.

And when a friend needed someone to open for her band, she asked Finnerty to rehearse a few more songs and take the stage. So, he added "Flashdance" and a few more, but it was only supposed to be a one-night thing.

"Someone came up and asked, 'When is your next show?' And I was like, 'Never,'" Finnerty said.

Or so he thought.

Then, The Dan Band started playing The Viper room every week. The band still does a show each week in Los Angeles and will bring its standard set of Pussycat Dolls, Shakira and Britney Spears covers to Washington on Dec. 3 as part of a holiday tour. The show will also feature selections from the group's all-original Christmas album, "Ho: A Dan Band Christmas."

While the band isn't working on a new album, Finnerty does have plans for an Internet-based show that will premiere in January. He's developing 13 Webisodes for Crackle.com, which he then hopes to turn into a real TV show.

"It's loosely based on me and the backup dances doing singing telegrams," he said.

But he'll leave holiday PSA songs alone — for now.

Written by Express contributor Rudi Greenberg.

Photos courtesy Solid Music