Banners

Banners is the artistic pseudonym of Michael Joseph Nelson (born 12 July 1986), a British singer and songwriter from Liverpool. Banners got his start in the world of music performing with the Liverpool Cathedral Choir, touring with the group around Europe. In 2015 he moved to Toronto, Canada, where he worked with producer Stephen Kozmeniuk. In March 2015, he released his debut single “Ghost” under the stage name Raines. Later that same year, his second single “Shine a Light” was the first released under his new moniker of Banners. “Shine a Light” peaked at Number 5 on the Billboard Canada Rock chart. In 2016, Banners signed a record deal with Island Records, through which he released his debut self-titled EP. He made his television debut that year performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live. After much touring, Banners released his second EP Empires on Fire in November 2017. In 2019, his debut album Where the Shadow Ends was released. In 2020, Banners’s 2017 song “Someone to You” gained sudden popularity when it started being used on social media, quickly becoming his most streamed song and hitting Number 11 on Billboard’s US Adult Top 40 chart. In 2021, Banners released a new EP titled It’s Gonna Be OK followed by the I Wish I Was Flawless, I'm Not EP in January 2023, which was nominated for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2024. In April 2024, five years after the release of his debut, Banners dropped his sophomore effort, All Back to Mine, which alludes to his return to Liverpool after spending seven years in Canada.