Tom Kenny is the man behind many voices. Known mainly for bringing Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants to life, Kenny has voiced a wide array of characters on The Powerpuff Girls, CatDog and Rocko’s Modern Life, to name a few.
One of the ultimate perks of being a voice actor is being unrecognizable to the public while pushing your craft to millions of viewers. For the past decade, Kenny has been using his voice differently as the leader of Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas, a 12-piece rock and soul band.
“We don’t lean too heavily on the SpongeBob thing because we are an R&B band but it is a weird crossroads thing,” says Kenny. “People trust me and then they come and see me and they’re like, ‘We didn’t know what to expect but wow!’ and we didn’t know what to expect but wow is my favorite reaction.”
Kenny will be in Houston as part of The Nostalgia Con taking place at The George R. Brown Convention Center this weekend from Friday, October 2 to Sunday, October 4. Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas will kick off the weekend with a performance on Friday, October 2 at the Continental Club.
Kenny will be joined by the New Duncan Imperials, whose live performances bring their own brand of comedy to the night. “I’ve been wanting to play the Continental Club for a while,” says Kenny, sharing his admiration for the openers as well as the venue. “I’ve been to Houston a few times and it’s a great music town.”
Growing up in Syracuse, New York, Kenny was always drawn to music, seeking out live music with an unquenchable thirst. “It was the perfect place to be a bored kid in a blue-collar town just going, there’s got to be something more than Journey and REO Speedwagon.”
Kenny gravitated toward oldies, drawn to the distinctive vitality those classic songs pump out.
“It was the Ramones, Fleshtones and Deadboys and suddenly there was all this stuff that we loved, and we loved a lot of the old stuff, but here was new stuff with the energy of the old stuff. They were all tapping into the same thing and we intuited that Little Richard, the Ramones and The Beach Boys are all related and we can play the Ramones stuff, we never will be able to play the guitar solo on a Boston record.”
He and his lifelong friend Bobcat Goldthwait sought out opportunities to perform stand-up, using their comedy as a way to open for bands.
“It was a long path of being in bands, being in stand-up, starting a sketch group in our hometown sometimes opening for local bands that were cool and then professional stand up then surprise, writing and then voice over and then suddenly before I know it’s 2026 and pages flying off the calendar! How does that happen?”
For Kenny, forming the Hi-Seas came through a deep friendship with Andy Paley, one of the many important connections he has made throughout his life. He teases that Kevin Bacon’s got nothing on him when discussing the many directions his energy has flowed.
In the ‘80s, Kenny reached out to one of his favorite bands, NRBQ, cold calling the manager and asking if he could open up some of their concerts doing stand up. He figured it was a good way to get his comedy routine in front of audiences and get to go see NRBQ shows he couldn’t afford at the time.
After opening some shows for the band, he became friends with them. Their drummer, Tommy Ardolino, introduced him to Paley. “He was kind of this savantish personality,” says Kenny of Ardolino. “He saw things. He was hooked into a vibration of the universe that the rest of us are not. He just said, ‘You guys need to meet each other’ and then we met,” he says of his initial meeting of Paley.
Kenny was well aware of Paley’s wide range of work producing albums with Brian Wilson, Jerry Lee Lewis, NRBQ, John Wesley Harding and many more. “Then he got that spiral look in his eyes and he said, ‘You two need to write songs together’ I had not written songs since I was living in Syracuse,” says Kenny of Ardolino’s second premonition.
“I hadn’t written a song or even thought about songwriting or music that much since I was 20 years old and why would he say that? He doesn’t know I write songs. Me and Tommy never talked about that. I said I’m not a songwriter and Andy said, ‘If Tommy said it, you must be. He sees things.’ So we started doing it.”
Kenny brought Paley into his writing for SpongeBob and other animated projects and the two wrote many songs together including SpongeBob’s most well-known song, “Best Day Ever,” which Kenny says was “An encapsulation of SpongeBob’s life philosophy and if SpongeBob was gonna write a song about how he feels about life, what would he write about? These were the semantics Andy and I would have about stuff.”
Using SpongeBob as a jumping off point for writing, Kenny, Paley and a band formed to perform at fundraisers and schools. One day Paley asked Kenny a thoughtful question: If he could have any kind of band, what would it be?
Although Kenny initially insisted he didn’t have time to be in a band, the hypothetical conversation continued, and he began describing his ideal lineup.
“Nobody’s doing like a big, blue-eyed soul show band like Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels or something like that,” Kenny said to his friend emphasizing the importance of backup singers and a three horn section would be in his pretend band.
Paley could see his vision right away, and the two quickly agreed on the importance of three horns, which Kenny calls ‘the Little Richard Effect. “So we just got excited about that and then next thing we knew, it was kind of happening. We started playing gigs here and there maybe 10 years ago.”
Kenny, Paley and their large band eventually moved beyond school fundraisers. They found a way to keep the party going after comic conventions ended, encouraging convention audiences to get out and experience the music in their own cities.
Sadly, Paley passed away in 2024 after a battle with cancer. “He was the greatest,” says Kenny. “I can’t even begin to describe him and of the whole band, he was the father figure. He formed this thing, this unwieldy, many-headed beast. He put it together and said we could do this. We can figure it out, it was like a crazy quest.”
Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas made the difficult decision to continue on without Paley, keeping his legacy and love for the music alive with each performance. Much like the songs Kenny and Paley created for SpongeBob, joy for life remains a main ingredient.
“It’s fun and Andy was such a big part of that,” says Kenny. “He and I were so simpatico when it came to that. Shout out to him telling the world about this music we love, these songs we love and now this guy we love.”
Kenny sees each show as an opportunity to share joy, build the band’s reputation and gain new fans. Audience members often approach him after shows to tell him how much they needed to cut loose and dance — something the band strongly encourages.
“I understand that line from the Blues Brothers now, ‘We are on a mission from God.’ We are on a mission from Wilson Pickett, Howlin’ Wolf and Freddy Cannon, not God.”
Kenny pushes back on the notion that they are a cover band, explaining that they dive so deep into cuts that most people aren’t even familiar with the songs to begin with. The band also has originals much in the same style as their selected covers. All in all, he describes their show as an “experience.”
“I always say to the audience, we are the soundtrack for your movie so you guys make an interesting movie out there and we will be the soundtrack for it. This is a collaborative thing, rock and roll is not a spectator sport. You’re not watching television, let’s feed off each other and let’s have fun, that’s what this is all about. It’s all positivity, there’s no negative or anger,” he says.
“It’s just celebrating all the good stuff; music, companionship, letting your freak flag fly, party and then best day ever. Then tomorrow you’re back to doing whatever you do and we’re back to doing what we do the next day but in the meantime every night we play is like New Year’s Eve.”
Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas will perform on Friday, October 2, 7 p.m. at the Continental Club, 3700 Main. For more information visit tomkennyandthehiseas.com. $33-53, VIP includes signed poster and photo with Tom Kenny.
