In high school, he enrolled in broadcasting classes and pursued all his dreams. He spent 4 years on the air at his high school radio station, WMWA. Roger went to school at Southern Illinois University to studio radio/TV. He worked at the campus alternative radio station, WIDB. In the early 90's Roger left college and moved out west to Arizona and worked for rock station Lucky 108 FM and Killer Country 98 FM in Bullhead City. He moved back to Illinois and continued in country radio at B-104 in Bloomington/Normal. Roger moved to southern Illinois in the late 90's where he once went to school and joined the team at Southern Illinois's Hit Music Station CIL-FM where he was also a part of their morning show. He later found himself back in Bullhead City, AZ working all day parts at K-Flag Country.
Roger took a break from radio in 2000 to focus on family. After over 20 years, he decided he wanted to get back on the air again and realized radio has changed and it wasn't the same radio back in the 90's. Roger started listening to podcasts and realized this is what he wanted to do. So that's what he did. He gathered some friends together in March of 2021 and started producing his own show. After a few episodes in, he realized he needed guests. So that's what he did. He found relationship experts, financial advisors and others. Roger landed an interview with former Playboy Playmate, Deborah Driggs, who became #1 in the insurance industry! The interview and chemistry clicked between the two and the next week she became Roger's newest co-host. Roger was also approached by Jimmy Star of World Star PR about booking celebs onto his show. After that, the show was forced to make some internal changes to adjust to the quickly evolving celebrity interview show. Two weeks after the show interviewed long-time lead vocalist of Supergroup Chicago, Jason Scheff, Roger was approached by Jason's brother Darin. He told Roger that he had a great show and after a few hours on the phone, Darin was introduced to the co-hosting team.
Since 2009, he has performed at many venues around the U.S.: Las Vegas, NV; NYC; Atlantic City, NJ; Windsor, CT; Philadelphia, PA; Hollywood, FL to name a few. He is a supporter of the LGBT Community and has performed for LIFEbeat (lifebeat.org), The Imperial Court of NY (ICNY.org), and Gay Men's Health Crisis (gmhc.org). He has appeared on many talk/radio shows in the U.S and Internationally. Ike also Co-hosted on the #1 Show on Wildfire Radio, "The Idiots" and has appeared in the LGBT publications of GET OUT and NEXT Magazine. Since 2013, Ike Wrote, Produced and Starred in 11 original shows "I've Slept My Way To The Top....Twice"(2013) , "Ike Avelli Is Coming To Town" (2014) , "50 Shades of Gay" (2015), "Love On A DEAD END Street" (2016) , "I Thought I Would Be Dead By Now" (2016), "You're A Mean One, Ike Avelli" (2016) , "The Book Of Ike" (2017), "Ike Avelli's Day Off" (2018) , "Dear Santa, Define Good. Love, Ike" (2018) and "Lube: A Gay-sical" (2019) in different cities and all shows were PACKED HOUSES! He co-hosted "Un-Talented Tuesday's" with Viki Villainess for a 4 week limited engagement in the spring of 2018. Created "LIVE! In Bed With Ike Avelli on Zoom during the 2020 Pandemic. "50 Shades of Gay" was a hit in NYC during PRIDE and SOLD OUT Bally's in Atlantic City in 2019. It was also part of the 2017-2019 Rochester Fringe Festival and SOLD OUT all four nights. The Huffington Post called it "the performance of the summer", while hailing Ike Avelli as the "mastermind of creativity". Ike wrote his first book entitled, 'A Year In The Life Of Ike Avelli...And It Ain't Pretty", a diary of the year 2017 and was listed in the Top 20 new releases on Amazon.com. He was nominated for the 2013/2015 Glam Award for Best Comedy Performer. Winner of the Get Out Magazine LGBT 2014 Comedian of the Year. Winner of the 2018 Providence Fringe Award for 50 Shades of Gay
