7Seconds ranked among the main forerunners of pop-punk, the style that, ten years later, would make Green Day's fortune.

Kevin "Seconds" Marvelli formed the band in Reno (Nevada) in 1980 together with his bassist brother Steve Youth. The first self-produced cassettes, Socially Fucked Up (Vicious Scam, 1981) and 3 Chord Politics (Vicious Scam, 1981), the first singles, collected on Old School (Cargo, 1991), and the first EPs Skin Brains And Guts (Alternative Tentacles, 1982), Committed For Life (Squirtdown, 1983), and Blasts From The Past (Positive Force, 1985), reissued on alt.music.hardcore (Cargo, 1995), present a trio of sarcastic and violent punks modeled on the beach-punk Dead Kennedys, performing very short and barely melodic songs. Youth is the true hero: his bass playing is one of the most imaginative in hardcore history.

The band was verbose and scattershot, and thus deserved to live in anonymity. The albums Crew (Better Youth Organization, 1984), Walk Together Rock Together (Positive Force, 1985), New Mind (Positive Force, 1986), Ourselves (Restless, 1988) and Soulforce Revolution (Restless, 1989) sped by as fast and indistinguishable as the songs that feature on them. Nonetheless, Crew remains a cult classic because it broke with the stereotypes of the genre, but it would be difficult, perhaps even for them, to tell one track from another.

If possible, Drop Acid, Seconds’ next project, did even worse with Making God Smile (Restless, 1991). Equally excessive was Rodney Reggie Emily (Cargo, 1994), credited to Seconds himself.

Out The Shizzy (Cargo, 1993), The Music The Message (Epic, 1995) and Good To Go (Side One Dummy, 1998) marked the band’s progressive commercialization, in a desperate search for a slice of Green Day’s success.

Scream Real Loud (Merge, 2000) is instead an excellent live album

With Heaven's Near Wherever You Are (Cargo, 2001) Kevin Seconds turned into an acoustic singer songwriter.

7 Seconds returned with Take It Back (Side One, 2004).