Top 10 Songs of 2013 #10: Sean Nelson - Kicking Me Out of the Band 

Sean Nelson - “Kicking Me Out of the Band”

Singer, actor, writer, tweeter, frontman of (the currently on hiatus) Harvey Danger, Sean Nelson is a lot of things. He’s a supremely talented songwriter, bringing in rhyming and phrasing that you don’t typically hear on pop songs. He also brings to the table a tremendous gift of storytelling, and “Kicking Me Out of the Band” is a wonderful example, telling a sly story of a wasted youth in England, starting a band with his pal, getting bigger, getting into drugs, having the press proclaim you “the next big thing”, and eventually get kicked out of the band.

It’s very simple song, with a pretty, quiet intro, that flows into sort of a New Wavey-synth beat, with Nelson’s vocals sitting on top telling the story. And it’s such a smart, cutting story.

The NME said we were “quintessential
power pop meets rock meets folk
meets punk meets alt-country,
but with a healthy sense of metal”