Dan Donovan is a composer, keyboard player, remixer and at various times, a photographer. He began his musical journey growing up in Notting Hill, west London. He learned classical, jazz, blues and ragtime piano from the age of six. He became the lead trombonist in three orchestras and a jazz band at school. At sixteen he left home and began working as a full-time / freelance assistant to photographers such as Irving Penn, Oliviero Toscani, David Bailey, Albert Watson, Bill King and Lord Snowdon, as well as his father, Terence Donovan. He lived in Paris, Milan and for four years, in New York. At 22, he was commissioned to take the pictures and create the artwork for the first album by Big Audio Dynamite, the band started by Clash founder Mick Jones, signed to Columbia Records. One thing led to another and Mick asked him to join the band as their keyboard player. He did so, writing, recording and performing on all the albums and live tours. He continued to take photographs and create artwork for B.A.D. (using a cable release or assistant so that he could appear in the shots with the other members.) In 1991, he joined the Sisters Of Mercy for one year as a drum programmer and onstage performer – he was the first human ‘Doktor Avalanche’ (the name previously given to each drum machine the band used) that was allowed in the band by its founder, Andrew Eldritch, who, famously hated real drummers, preferring to use machines. Afterwards, he rejoined his B.A.D. colleague, Don Letts, in his new band, Screaming Target, which had signed to Island Records. It was in the 1990s that he started writing music for TV shows, fashion shows and commercials. In 1993, he joined Dreadzone, the band created by B.A.D. drummer, Greg Roberts, as a keyboardist, writer and performer and in the subsequent years, remixed the band's tracks. Don Letts and he, during the noughties, had a reggae DJ partnership by the name of Dub Cartel, playing many gigs, festivals and doing remixes. He has remixed tracks by artists such as Grace Jones, Adamski, Carl Douglas, Scientist, Selah Sue, Pablo Moses, Seal, the Ruts and the Supernovas. He has also worked as a programmer and keyboard player for DJs such as Paul Oakenfold, Mark Moore, Kevin Saunderson, Tony Humphries and Judge Jules. For the best part of 22 years, he has produced and mixed the catwalk music for the fashion shows of milliner Philip Treacy. He also collaborates with Turkish-born video artist, Haluk Akakçe, writing the soundscapes for his abstract video installations. In 2014 he played additional keyboards a new dub album by Sly & Robbie called Dubrising, released on the Tabou1 label, it garnered much critical acclaim. In 2015 he again played keyboards on an album featuring Brinsley Forde with Sly & Robbie. These were produced and mixed by Paul ‘Groucho’ Smykle. Currently he is in a DJ and writing partnership with Paul Simonon, bass player from The Clash, playing out under the name of Simonon & Donovan. They have done DJ gigs for Prada in Paris, Stella McCartney at Abbey Road Studios, Calvin Klein in London, Neighbourhood in Tokyo, Iconoclast Productions for the Cannes Lions and many others. Dan has DJ’d solo for many film wrap parties including ‘The Mummy’ with Tom Cruise in Namibia, Ron Howards ‘In The Heart Of The Sea’, Emma Thompson’s ‘Last Christmas’ Marvel/Sony’s ‘Morbious’ and Disney’s ‘Christopher Robin’. Recently in 2019, he DJ’d at The Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall, The Peaky Blinders festival in Birmingham and at a private party given by Angelina Jolie during the filming of Marvel’s ‘The Eternals’ in the The Canary Islands. He lives in Notting Hill with his partner in crime, Jo.