While that central Texas college town off I-35 has long laid claim to being (and marketed itself as) “The Live Music Capital of the World,” Houston has always had at least a fighting chance at the same designation for the state.

However, many Houston bands seem to have shorter life spans. Think of the paucity of local acts that got their start in 2008 that are still active today. Much less 1998 or 1988. Still, one band which hit their first chords in 1978 has managed to outlast them all: punk rockers The Hates.

While founding member/singer/guitarist Christian Kidd has been the only constant in the lineup, the Hates have consistently torn up stages in and out of the city and released a steady stream of fierce albums, EPs, and singles.

Their latest effort, the seven-song Life in the Upside Down, will be celebrated at Cactus Music on January 20 with a release party and planned hour-long live set from the group.

Kidd notes that all the record’s songs were written in the past six months and show other musical and thematic sides of the group which has always experimented outside of straight punk rock.
“When I did my first record, people said ‘Wow, that’s hardcore.’ But then there were songs like ‘Science’s Fiction.’ I wasn’t going for everything at breakneck speed,” Kidd says via FaceTime.

His hair on the call is in a more relaxed fashion that the trademark straight up-and-spiky mohawk that many a Montrose resident has seen zipping by on a Vespa over the decades. “If just song is sped up, it’s not going to breathe. It’s not going to sound good.”

Tracks on Life in the Upside Down include “Quiet,” “Keep Them on Their Heels,” “Don’t Cross Me,” and the infectious “Loud Party Music.” The current Hates lineup includes Kidd, Chi Chi Rodriguez (bass) and Colin Wooten (drums).

The title in indeed a nod to the alternate dimension on the sci-fi/horror/drama TV show Stranger Things, of which Kidd is a fan (he also namechecks Red Dwarf during the conversation).

“Do you know who Eddie on the show is?” Kidd—who says he identifies with awkward adolescent characters—asks. When I confess I’ve never seen an episode, he notes that Eddie is a fledgling heavy metal guitarist in a band called Corroded Coffin.

Kidd’s wife, Alexis, got him a T-shirt with the band’s name as a Christmas gift. “I’ve worn it for a year! I’m really waiting for someone to say ‘Oh man, I love those guys! I saw them open for so-and-so!” he laughs.

“But as far as writing, I wanted to wipe the slate clean. It was ground zero for the material on this record,” Kidd offers.

“I buy a lot of biographies of rock musicians, and I read one time how Roger Waters went to a producer and wanted to make a new album. Waters told him it was going to be all songs he wrote 20 years ago and the producer said ‘Forget it. Go write some new material, come back, and we’ll think about doing something.’”

Kidd thinks it’s a bit lazy for musicians to put out older-written material they just never got around to recording. If it wasn’t good enough for release then, he thinks, why would it be different now?

As for having Rodriguez and Wooten in the band, Kidd says there’s one important thing about his relationship with them.

“I’m not trying to turn them into punk musicians. They are there and I don’t want to come to them with half an idea. I can strum a song, do verse-chorus-verse, sing it to them, and then they jump in,” he says. “I don’t say ‘You have to dress like a punk rocker and your musical library can only be punk rock.’”
The now 68-year-old Kidd followed that mantra in how own life growing up. His mother worked in a record store and would bring home 45s for him and his sisters. Kidd ended up with many ‘50s records by the likes of Fats Domino and Ritchie Valens. He eventually graduated to the Beatles, Stones, Joplin and Hendrix.

But when he had questions about some of the subject matter he was hearing—as he was still a bit on the young side—his mother bought him a subscription to Time magazine. So, young Christian quickly learned about the Vietnam war, birth control pills and free love. Musically, he next encountered the prog stylings of groups like Pink Floyd and Yes.
But in the simplicity and aggression of punk rock, he felt that this was a music that he would actually be able to play, form a band around, and eventually book live gigs. And while your average music fan might not know the punk genre any deeper than the Holy Trinity of the Ramones, Clash and Sex Pistols, Kidd says he definitely won’t be the guy who tells you want you’re "supposed" to listen to.

“But I am always questioning myself: Where do I stand at? As a punk rock musician in Houston? You’re kind of in a vacuum, and you have to do things you might not in another city,” Kidd says.
Though he loves H-Town so much he’s written two songs with the city as its title. In the second from 2013’s Shank album, he professes loudly “I’m not talkin’ ‘bout New York/London, Paris or Rome/The greatest city in the world/Is Houston, home sweet home.” He’s also got a tune called “Goin’ Back to Houston.” Spotify subscribers can hear both and a surprisingly large portion of the band’s entire discography.

So, over the hundreds of dates the Hates have played over the decades and scores of local clubs, we pose the question: Which now-defunct venue would he bring back, intact, in 2024, for a one-time-only Hates gig?

“Wow. That…I did not expect that question!” Kidd says, pondering a bit. “Can we go to another question? No wait, I’ve got it! It was a club off Waugh Drive. And Diego Cortez, who helped develop the New York No Wave scene, came to see us. I can’t remember the name. I’ll email it to you when we get off the phone!” [Note: It was the High Noon Saloon].

What he doesn’t need to think about is the fact that the Hates have played at least one gig in every year since their 1978 founding, even around six years ago when Kidd got a cancer diagnosis.

Today, his squamous cell carcinoma is in remission. It was first diagnosed when the left side of Kidd’s neck became inflamed, and a scope uncovered a tumor on his tongue.

Through it all, his beloved wife Alexis was steadfast by his side in love and support. Though she herself is living with mesothelioma, a condition she’ll be fighting for the rest of her life. In 2013, the couple collaborated on Christian's autobiography, Just a Houston Punk (still available on Amazon).

Finally, the past few years have seen a slew of bands celebrate the 50th anniversary of their founding, first album, or first hit. Just four years from now the Hates will mark their own golden anniversary. Is it too late to start thinking about that or planning the party?

“I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it!” Kidd laughs. “We’ll see if I make it four more years. I’m gonna try!”

The Hates CD release party and performance is 3 p.m. on Saturday, January 20 at Cactus Music, 2110 Portsmouth. For more information, call 713-526-9272 or visit CactusMusicTx.com. Free.