Charity Kiss
The Good, The Bad, and Ben Stiller
Exclusive Free the Youth Interview By Emma Speicher
Charity Kiss: From Left to Right: Pat Hansen, Cooper Conway, Nate Drum, Cole Hendriks
Genre: Scrappy Desert Rock with a bit o’ twang
There’s something about Reno powerhouse Charity Kiss that’s unmistakably admirable. Whether it’s their bona fide tenacity producing music, their dedication to supporting the music scene, or their genuine ingenuity, it’s clear that Charity Kiss deserves a spot in the music world. Fresh off of their impressive fifteen-city-five-state victory tour, Charity Kiss gives Free the Youth an insider look of the tour life and the behind the scenes of their latest EP, Victor Riley’s a Coward.
Charity Kiss are not rookies when it comes to navigating the music and touring world, self-booking their tour and driving the band’s vintage camper van over 1500 miles for the sake of good ol’ rock n’ roll. Commendably, Charity Kiss is decisively canon about the reality and difficulties that come with touring and pursuing a music career, especially when it comes to jobs, finances, and personal life. From having to busk for gas money, commuting from tour stops to personal jobs, and leaving loved ones for weeks at a time, touring is a weighted sacrifice. To Charity Kiss, it’s more than worth it:
Pat Hansen: "It's impossible to fully pursue music without sacrifice, balance only comes with true sacrifice. So you have to cut out a lot of personal time to make it all work, it's a toll for sure, but it's worth it, We believe in our music and our careers. What helps is that we carry with us a higher cause. We believe in rock and we want to push it forward. Every night that we spend in the van sacrificing helps keep rock music alive somewhere."
Charity Kiss at Station Nine, Photo by Trevor Castillo
Accompanied on their pilgrimage were bands by the likes of San Francisco’s Uncle Chris and The MoonDrops, Eugene’s Mothra, Santa Cruz’s Ladders, and Seattle’s The Maya Experience, to name a few. The band has fond memories from their favorite stops along the tour including Subrosa Space in Santa Cruz and the Oracle Lounge in Seattle, performing for new and familiar faces along the way. Here’s a story from one of their stops…
Nate Drum: Right across the street from The Fixin’ To in Portland, there was a…gentlemen…with a machete hanging from the pocket of his jean cut off shorts, sticking out three feet. There was - not an exaggeration - 300 pairs of cowboy boots in every size imaginable —
Cooper Conway: — by the way, the one pair out of hundreds of pairs of boots that I wanted were the ones that Nate bought, I bought the next best ones and I make Nate let me wear them.
Cole Hendriks: That night, without coordinating it, us and the other bands that played that night, each bought a pair of boots from the boot man and wore them at the show. So basically it was fifteen guys clackin’ around the venue and showing off our brand new boots.
Last time I sat down with Charity Kiss in May 2023, they shared with me a rather…interesting...story from their last tour which you can read about here. Now, on the tail end of their latest tour, they granted me another insight into the group’s complicated indigestion that reflects certain terrors of tour life:
Hansen: Here’s how it goes down. We’re in Davis, our van breaks down and we’re getting brutally rejected from every auto-body transmission shop. While driving to the nearest shop, the worst shit smell starts filling the cabin.
Drum: Keep in mind on tour, we’ve been eating trash, like homemade teriyaki fish jerky and honey mustard turkey sammies. Mommy and daddy ain’t buying us no Olive Garden, we’re on our own dime. Pat was aiming to get some “gas” in his tank —
Hansen: — and that “gas” sat in the tank for quite a few days. When it eventually came out a while later in the van bathroom, there was an issue with the fans and it blew the septic tank smell into our van. We couldn’t empty the tank because our van was broken and so we had to let it marinate in the shop for a few days and then continue on with the rest of the tour.
It should be noted that both Hendriks and Conway looked on in a shell-shocked remembrance of the smell following the incident, while Hansen and Drum begrudgingly admitted the deadly combo of weak stomachs, poor tour food, and band van troubles. All in the name of rock n’ roll.
Released in October 2023, the band’ EP Victor Riley’s a Coward is one for the books. With new bangers like Roll Over Ben Stiller and Destination Double Bridge quickly becoming fan favorites, and the remastered version of Charity Kiss classic, Cellars, on the rise, the band shared how they constructed their EP:
Hansen: The writing process for this EP was different for all of the songs. For example, I think “Destination Double Bridge” started with a tempo I wanted and then I made a voice memo of me singing the opening and tapping the steering wheel. Then some of the other songs like “Mind of a Criminal” started with bass and drums.
Hendriks: Pat's really good at writing lyrics, he can compact all these ideas I have and make a whole two day long story into one lyric. We re-recorded “Cellars” with Cooper, who was a new addition to the band, and it was definitely nostalgic but also refreshing. I think it was really interesting to see what the song was always meant to be, you know?
Conway: It was pretty badass to re-record “Cellars” and a write my own bass lines. When was waiting for half the band to get to practice, I was just playing the riff for “Mind of a Criminal” on this continuous loop and all those little licks started coming.
Drum: In terms of names for the EP, we thought it would be funny to create a weirdly aggressive album cover or an ironic random celebrity call out, but we landed on a random name with a ring to it, so we went with Victor Riley. Who, at the time, we thought wasn’t a real person. Turns out he is…that one’s on me…
Victor Riley’s a Coward is a masterpiece, plain and simple. Hansen’s voice is truly outstanding, bringing a western twang to rock and roll that hasn’t been seen before, accompanied with Hendriks’ expert guitar trills and background vocals that are thoughtfully constructed and complimentary to Hansen’s lead. The crisp bass lines from Conway perfectly balance and extenuate the upbeat bridges, and mellow the calmer tunes on the EP, and Drum brings everything together, offering a complex and impressive variation on the drums. Their latest EP perfectly personifies high desert wave and presents a never before seen idiosyncratic style. Here’s an exclusive look at behind the scenes of “Destination Double Bridge” and “Roll Over Ben Stiller.”
Drum: The title, “Destination Double Bridge,“ is based off a challenge on the spillway in the video game, Skate 3, where there's two bridges at the end and you have to hit this perfect line the entire way in order to clear both bridges, and so we called originally called our song “Double Bridge Death Gap.”
Hansen: The song is about a drive home from work, you know. I had all these thoughts in my head, I was sick of my job and I wanted passion, sex, you know the whole thing that's apart of rock and roll. I try to write where it's like a almost an outlet for somebody that feels the same way because we're all human, we're all weird and icky and gross. So it's nice to have a song that’s like “I hate my boss,” like “I want to just do whatever and I want to have sex,” and “I just be like passionate,” it’s about being human.
Hendriks: "Roll Over Ben Stiller is kind of a Walter Mitty reference, the chorus “roll over Ben Stiller” is a joke about the Chuck Berry song, “Roll Over Beethoven,” but since it's rock n’ roll, it’s Ben Stiller.
Hansen: It’s kind of like a collection of thoughts from somebody losing their mind, that's kind of how I wrote it. There's definitely a lot of personal journal entry kind of shit going on. The “dog’s barking” phrase we throw around a lot in Ben Stiller is kind of our code for like “is this a real fight/like a real spat, or are we just like kind of hungry?” We use that one especially on tour.
Photo by Trevor Castillo
After concluding their Victor Riley’s a Coward tour, Charity Kiss has played several notable shows including a jam packed show at the brand new venue in Reno, Station Nine, and a sold out show at The Holland Project (also in Reno) with local favorite, Bug Bath, and continues to play up and down the coast in various locations (so keep your eyes and ears peeled.) Charity Kiss offers this advice to upcoming bands and people in the scene:
“Support rock and roll! go to a live show and don't be dumb! love one another, baby! dude, if you want to start a band, start a band, The only thing stopping you is just calling it a band. start a band, be dope!”
As for what is coming up next for the band, here’s what they had to say:
Hansen: The Charity Kiss soup is always getting ingredients added. It's always on a boil, low heat at all times.
Hendriks: It's always ready for us when we come home from work, keeping it in the Crock Pot.
Conway: It's like a sourdough starter that’s like three centuries old. It's like that thousand year old soup that never stops cooking.
Drum: And it's just the culture, the farts, the gas, everything cooks together. Everything's all connected.
Check Out their Latest Movements, Shows and Music Here:
Read more about Charity Kiss hereSpecial Thanks to Station Nine and Trevor Castillo
All photos by Trevor Castillo