Dan Reilly

Freelance Journalist, Researcher, and Editor

United States

Portfolio
Rolling Stone
Mike Piazza: Hall of Fame Catcher and Huge Van Halen Fan

It's been a busy couple weekends for Mike Piazza. The 47-year-old was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in July and the weekend after had his number 31 retired by the Mets, the club whose cap graces his plaque in Cooperstown.

Rolling Stone
Mick Foley: Family Man, Hardcore Legend and Reality Show Star

It's been a busy year for former WWE champ Mick Foley. After retiring in the ring, the Hardcore Legend recently returned to the company as the general manager of Raw, providing a steady presence alongside Stephanie McMahon on the flagship show.

Vulture
10/21/2015
Tony Bennett on His Next Album With Lady Gaga, Staying Young Forever, and His Problem With...

"I've never been more successful than I am now," Tony Bennett says with wonderment, sitting in his art studio overlooking Central Park. The 89-year-old crooner is here to talk about his new album, , a covers collection dedicated to the early 20th-century composer who wrote such classics as "The Way You Look Tonight," "All the Things You Are," and "I'm Old Fashioned."

Mensjournal
10/18/2014
Chipper Jones Leads the Hunt at his Family's South Texas Ranch

Atlanta Braves third baseman and future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones retired from baseball in 2012 after 20 seasons and 468 home runs. Off the field, he's kept busy raising his four boys and hitting the golf course two to three days a week, satisfying his competitive urges by shaving five or six strokes off his handicap, and devoting as much time as he can to another life-long love: deer hunting.

Vulture
05/04/2016
Tilda Swinton on Her Bowie-Influenced Role in A Bigger Splash

In Luca Guadagnino's new film A Bigger Splash , Tilda Swinton plays Marianne Lane, a rock star recovering from vocal-cord surgery on the remote Italian island Pantelleria with her younger filmmaker boyfriend, Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts).

Spin
08/22/2014
Q&A: Run the Jewels on the Tragedy in Ferguson and Racist Idiots

It's been a hectic week for Run the Jewels. In the span of a few days, the duo of Killer Mike and El-P played a New York show, announced their second album ( RTJ2), and released the single "Blockbuster Night Part 1," all while keeping close watch on the horrific events taking place in Ferguson, Missouri after the killing of Michael Brown.

Vulture
02/11/2016
What It's Like to Win an Oscar

Aron Warner Best Animated Feature, Shrek (2001) To prepare for the ceremony, I tried to find the most effective pair of man-Spanx I could, but failing that, I found a good tuxedo. As for the speech - this was a very unique award because I was accepting a collective award on behalf of 250 people, so it wasn't an individual achievement by any means.

Vulture
12/31/2015
How Leonardo DiCaprio Should've Handled That Bear Attack

Early in Alejandro González Iñárritu's frontier endurance test The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio comes between a mama grizzly and her cubs, resulting in a vicious attack (which was misidentified by some viewers as a rape) that sets the film's plot in motion.

Archive
07/14/2012
In House With Jimmy Cliff: Reggae Star Plots World Domination

Gino DePinto One of the all-time great reggae artists and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Jimmy Cliff carries himself like a younger musician on the rise. Graceful and polite he gives off no sense of ego when he stops by Spinner's office.

Esquire
09/25/2014
Jeff Tweedy Is Sick of Being Called 'Dad Rock'

With Wilco taking a break to work on other projects, frontman Jeff Tweedy decided it was finally time to record his debut solo album. The 47-year-old intended to play every instrument on every song, until he hit one big obstacle: "I'm a terrible drummer."

Tumblr
@miguel and @danielsannwald Break Down t...

@miguel and @danielsannwald Break Down the Spacey, Neon Album Art of “Wildheart” To see more of Miguel and Daniel Sannwald's photos, check out @miguel and @danielsannwald on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music. "In the Bible, it says we're created in God's image and we are gods ourselves.

Spin
05/09/2016
Changes: Charles Bradley's Life of Love and Loss | SPIN

Charles Bradley doesn't want your pity. Not for the years he spent homeless in New York City, or hitchhiking across the country looking for a cooking job and the occasional singing gig. Not for the 30 days he spent in a California jail, held for assault with a deadly weapon after he used a knife in self-defense against a white attacker.

Esquire
08/18/2014
Matt Weiner Bets on Mixed Reviews for Mad Men End

In the summer of 2012, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner used his downtime to direct his first movie, Are You Here, a sort-of comedy, mostly bleak drama about the complexities of male friendship.

Instagram
Finding the American Dream Abroad with Rapper Astronautalis

When Astronautalis (@astronautalis) traveled to Dubai in late 2015 for a gig, he expected a “temple of decadence” –– a modern Babylon that catered to rich tourists and businessmen. Instead, he found a passionate group of music-loving expats who, in his view, are realizing the romanticized American Dream like Ellis Island immigrants and Oklahoma homesteaders.

Instagram
Why Dum Dum Girls’ Kristin Kontrol Turned to Pop

Growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Kristin Welchez (@kristinkontrol) — best known as Dee Dee, the founder and frontwoman of garage rock band Dum Dum Girls — wasn’t allowed to watch MTV. “I was getting my pop culture in dance classes,” she says.

Vulture
06/12/2015
3 Saturday Night Live Writers on Their Toughest Sketches

For a comedy writer, having even one sketch make it to air on Saturday Night Live is a dream come true. On the other hand, trying to get a scene to go from page to screen can be a living nightmare for the staff scribes.

Vulture
04/15/2015
Robert Durst Biographer Matt Birkbeck on What The Jinx Got Wrong

Fifteen years before Robert Durst became a celebrity of sorts thanks to HBO's The Jinx , People reporter Matt Birkbeck began following the case, interviewing friends, family, investigators, and others about the strange real-estate tycoon and the disappearance of his wife Kathie.

Billboard
Meet Lizzo, the Body-Positive Rapper Opening for Sleater-Kinney

"I always say that there's this magnet for weird people." That's how 26-year-old rapper Lizzo describes Minneapolis, the adopted city that helped propel her from relative unknown to the opener on Sleater-Kinney's much-hyped reunion tour in just a couple years.

Menshealth
12/03/2014
Conor McGregor, Ireland's 'Barbaric Gentleman,' Isn't Done Talking Trash

Conor McGregor might be the most charming fella who'll gladly make it his mission to punch your head clean off, as long as the price is right. In the UFC octagon, the brash 26-year-old from Dublin is as vicious as they come, but over a light breakfast in the Men's Health New York office, he's making friends left and right, gladly posing for pictures, cracking jokes, and showing off his giant gold watch.

Vulture
RZA on Brick Mansions, Working With Paul Walker, and Why Wu-Tang's Secret One-Off Is Like a Trip...

The hip-hop icon RZA has been popping up in the news quite frequently of late, having helped prep a secret Wu-Tang Clan project called Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for auction to one (and only one) buyer, finding himself caught up in a war of words with Wu colleague Raekwon over the crew's upcoming A Better Tomorrow, and promoting his role alongside the late Paul Walker as a drug lord in the new action film Brick Mansions.

Archive
05/13/2013
Charles Bradley Finds the Light After Years in the 'Darkness' With 'Victim of Love'

Gino DePinto, AOL "The first album was the darkness and now this is bringing the light out of me." That's how 64-year-old Charles Bradley, the Screaming Eagle of Soul, sums up his recently released second album, Victim of Love. If you don't know Charles' backstory, you're missing out on one of the most heartwarming, inspiring stories in music.

Theglenlivet
The Burns Supper - The Cask

To the Scottish, Robert Burns is a national treasure, and if the 18th-century poet and lyricist's name doesn't ring a bell, some of his most iconic works surely will. For instance, if you've ever found yourself singing "Auld Lang Syne" as the clock crept past midnight on New Year's Eve, you're already familiar with Rabbie's best-known song, which he composed in 1788 by combining traditional folk lyrics with his own.

The Huffington Post
02/27/2010
The Slackers Keep It Simple for the 'Great Rocksteady Swindle'

As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. For Vic Ruggiero, the singer and keyboard player of longtime New York City ska act the Slackers, that statement certainly holds true about his band.

Popularmechanics
05/09/2014
The Results of Our Bear-Proof Cooler Test Are In

Certified bear-resistant. Virtually indestructible. Toughest cases on earth. These are the claims of some of the high-end coolers on the market today. To which we say: Challenge accepted. We threw three of these ice chests off a cliff and out of a moving car to see if the claims were true-and then had a live bear try his own paws at it.

Rollingstone
Hurray for the Riff Raff Follow Trayvon Martin Tribute With Video to Aid Abused Mother

On the same 2012 day Alynda Lee Segarra, the singer-songwriter behind Hurray for the Riff Raff, celebrated her 25th birthday, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. Inspired by a recent visit to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Segarra released a video for "Everybody Knows (for Trayvon Martin)" on her next birthday, paying tribute to the slain teenager.

Vulture
Toast Parks and Recreation's 100th Episode With Its Best Drinking Moments

Let us all raise a glass to Parks and Recreation, which returns from a long slumber tonight to celebrate its 100th episode. Who knows, the Pawnee parks department may drink along with us; booze has played a role in more than a fifth of the plots, thanks to the Snakehole Lounge, occasions to sip oversize margaritas, and epic Scotch-related quests.

Maxim
Is MotoGP Champion Marc Marquez the Next Valentino Rossi? | Maxim

The This is harder to answer and nearly impossible to ask. If Marquez is the best racer on Earth, what is assured his place in the MotoGP pantheon along the likes of the dominant Marquez might blush when hears his idol compliment him, but when the upstart straddles his bike, he's all ice.

Maxim
Jadaveon Clowney Is Exactly Who We Thought He Was

Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images For a number one NFL draft pick - a 6'5", 266-pound man who can run a 4.53-second forty - Jadeveon Clowney is a relaxed guy. The defensive end, linebacker hybrid is expected to spend this season co-starring in a defensive highlight reel with Pro Bowlers J.J.

Spinner.com
09/13/2011
Slash -- A Day in the Life

It's an overcast but not unpleasant morning when we meet Slash in midtown New York City.

Myspace
FREE LUNCH-Crispy Eggs and Cheddar Grits With Talib Kweli | Myspace

Sitting near the front window at Maggie Brown, a comfort food spot in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Clinton Hill, Talib Kweli is explaining how much the area has transformed since he was a student at the nearby technical high school. "This used to be called Murder Ave.," he says about the now-posh Myrtle Ave.

Details
01/23/2015
John Legend on Selma, Kanye West, and Dressing With Confidence: The Daily Details

John Legend has plenty of reasons to be happy right now. The R&B crooner recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of his debut album, Get Lifted, which coincided with his 36th birthday, and a couple of weeks later, he won his first Golden Globe for "Glory," his powerful duet with rapper Common from the Martin Luther King Jr.

Deadspin
Unfairly Slimed: It's Time To Forgive Ghostbusters II

In the weeks leading up to June 16, 1989, I can only imagine how incessantly my seven-year-old self pestered my parents to go see Ghostbusters II. I spent years obsessed with the 1984 original, once watching it on repeat from the moment I woke up to the moment I got sent to bed, wearing my plastic proton pack and reciting all the lines, most importantly those of Bill Murray's Dr. Peter Venkman.

Mensjournal
10/18/2014
Tracking Scotch to Its Source

It is one thing to read the blurb on the back of your favorite scotch and another to ferry out to the Hebrides. It is a third and far, far better thing to actually track the precious liquid back to its original source, especially when that source happens to be a peat-darkened loch on the famed island of Islay.

Archive
The Slackers Are Content to Stay in the 'Underground'

In the '90s, ska became one of many "next big genres," hyped by record labels and trendspotters as the music that the kids were into. Third-wave ska, preceded by its Jamaican roots and the 2 Tone genre popularized by the Specials and Madness, added sped-up punk influences, creating a hybrid that would bring acts like No Doubt, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Reel Big Fish to the mainstream.

Mensjournal
05/19/2014
The Exile Trying to Save the Russian Environment

Suren Gazaryan didn't intend to be an activist. The Russian zoologist's goal was to study wild bats, but chiropterology brought him to the Black Sea coast, an area flush with oligarchs' money, and in front of the bulldozers.

Archive
03/27/2012
Doomtree Live on The Interface: Fire, Family and a Four-Song 'No Kings' Set

Gino DePinto, AOL Though their individual members have found varying degrees of success in their solo careers, Minneapolis based hip-hop collective Doomtree are blowing up on the strength of their third album, "No Kings." Touring behind their ambitious effort, the group -- Cecil Otter, Dessa, Lazerbeak, Mike Mictlan, Paper Tiger, P.O.S.

Esquire
05/14/2014
10 Places You Must Visit in New Orleans

Before last month's release of Do to the Beast, it had been 16 years since the Afghan Whigs released a studio album. For much of that time, frontman Greg Dulli has divided his time between Los Angeles and New Orleans, where he now owns a house and the neighborhood watering hole and inn R Bar.

Rollingstone
09/25/2014
Bad B.J.'s and Kazoo Parades: Garfunkel and Oates Bring the Raunch

While the alter egos of stand-up duo Garfunkel and Oates pay homage to two of rock & roll's top "second bananas," musicians/comedians Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci are more likely to sing about blowjobs and pompous pregnant women than, say, troubled waters or dreams coming true.

Esquire
07/17/2014
14 Awesome Quotes from #MightyKacy After Her American Ninja Warrior Win

You can watch American Ninja Warrior on the Esquire Network on Tuesdays at 8|7c Not only is Kacy Catanzaro the first woman to reach the American Ninja Warrior finals, she's a bona fide viral sensation, with millions having seen her become the first woman to climb the infamous Warped Wall and then reach the show's Las Vegas finals.

Thefader
How Neymar's World Cup Homecoming Could Make Him a Legend

Brazil's number 10 jersey might as well weigh a hundred pounds. Famously worn by Pelé, the legendary forward who is arguably the best soccer player of all time and a three-time World Cup winner, that uniform is reserved for the national team's star, one whose play-making talents transcend those of his teammates and opponents alike.

Rollingstone
100 Greatest U.S. Olympians

At every Olympics, America's top athletes compete for national pride and personal glory. These are the best of the best.

Vulture
Jay Pharoah on SNL, Meeting Obama, and Getting Called Out at the Kimye Wedding

Throughout his four seasons on Saturday Night Live, Jay Pharoah has been a fixture thanks to his dead-on impressions of Kanye West, Will Smith, and President Obama. But the 26-year-old's skills go beyond imitating celebrities; he's a stand-up comedian with a broader range than just imitations and a particular fondness for hip-hop songs.

Esquire
02/11/2014
Timothy Olyphant on the End of Justified

If Timothy Olyphant is nervous about life after Justified, he certainly doesn't let it show. FX recently announced that the show (airing Tuesdays) would end next year after its sixth season, but to hear him talk about it makes it seem like business as usual. Olyphant shares the quiet cool of his character, U.S.

Mensjournal
10/18/2014
The World's Most Dangerous Motorcycle Race

For William Dunlop, motorcycle racing is a family business. If it wasn't, the 28-year-old from Ballymoney, Northern Ireland might have more family. Dunlop's legendary uncle Joey died on the Pirita-Kose-Kloostrimetsa Circuit in Estonia in 2000 and his father, Robert, lost his life after being thrown over the handlebars while going 160 mph during a trial run before the 2008 North West 200 in Northern Ireland.

Mensjournal
10/19/2014
Taran Killam's Other Comic Career

Facebook just added to your Activity: This Article If you've ever wondered how James Bond somehow went through his entire career without ever having a child, you're not alone. Saturday Night Live star Taran Killam turned that idea into the origin of his new six-issue comic book series The Illegitimates, in which the children of a famous spy are recruited to battle his arch nemesis.