Danny was born in Queens, New York to Dov, frontman of the indie rock band Much Bigger Than You Think, and Margaret "Midge" Renfield, a nurse at Mount Sinai Queens moderately preterm.

His childhood was characterized by illness as he suffered with a very weak immune system, causing him to get sick often and severely, as well as a mysterious illness that left him fatigued and often in pain. When he was 4, his father was imprisoned for drug charges, and from this time he lived with his mother and paternal grandmother.

During this time, his best friend was Dana Kauffmann, a boy he was friends with mostly due to his convenient positioning in his life, as he had difficulty making friends, being prone to fighting and not able to play many games other kids wanted to play due to his health. Dana sat next to him in class in elementary school, seating being alphabetical by first name, and lived close enough that he would often ask if he could "call Dana," then open up the window, and shout to his neighbor in the building nextdoor. He would also come to inherit the friends Dana would make, including "Pepper" Rice and Eli Baruch-Rivera.

Danny had an interest in music from an early age, inspired by his father, and took up piano lessons. He also found interest in the violin and guitar. When he was 16, he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and had to have a series of operations, including a small bowel resection later. From age 16 to sophomore year of college he sometimes used a wheelchair, due to intense fatigue, but stopped altogether at the urging of his then-girlfriend, Olivia Wallace.

He met Wallace at the age of 19 while at a party in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and she invited him back to her apartment to listen to trautonium music and talk for 4 hours before he headed home. They dated throughout the rest of college, but broke up after they graduated. Wallace moved way to pursue postgraduate education for a career in law.

Danny graduated with a degree in literature and education. He worked as an English teacher at a K-12 school, teaching middle school and high school classes. Throughout this time, he was struggling with alcoholism, which significantly affected his ability to perform his job, often being drunk while at work. Despite this, he was a student favourite, being an engaging and fun teacher known to stand on his desk to discuss literature with his classes, and a lenient grader. While in this job, he gained a reputation for being incredibly caring to students, so much so that when he was fired due to increasing concerns regarding his alcoholism, students rallied for him to be reinstated.

After he was fired, he moved back in with his mother and grandmother. He continued drinking heavily, and did very little but sit on the couch and watch tv. It was during this time that his grandmother died. Dana Kauffmann, who he remained friends with since childhood, was a great support to him at this time.

Later that year, Dana was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, which he developed from working in the basement of a building with asbestos insulation. As he was in the late stages, he opted to forgo treatment and died 6 months later.

Time as a Missing Person

Dana's death was the last straw in an already horrible period of Danny's life, and he suffered a full psychotic break, culminating in a manic episode which, with some maintenance time, lasted a year and a half. During this time, Danny traveled the country, taking on the identities of different people in hopes of escaping the death which, he thought, was so surely meant for him instead.

His lives while traveling included a department store employee, a porter at a casino hotel, a farmhand, his own father, a husband, and a worker on a factory fishing vessel.

Alaska

After traveling for a year and half, having lost his car, Danny effectively reached the end of the line after running out of money for train fare, after being dropped of temporarily in Bristol Bay while the boat he was on, which developed a leak and quickly sunk, was being replaced. He resolved to hitch-hike, or go on foot from there, but the winter weather quickly proved too harsh, luckily, he was picked up by a young man named Q Brewster, who took him, first to the diner his cousin owned to ask for her advice, then home, as by this point Danny was delirious with hypothermia.

At Q's house, Danny recovered from both his hypothermia and his manic state, planning to stay the winter there, before deciding what to do next. He and Q became very good friends, and eventually excuse to stay after excuse to stay, they had become permanent and important fixtures in each other's lives. He now works playing piano at a bar owned by Vera Yudin. He has since reconnected with his friends and family back home