Make Believe drummer Nate Kinsella probably wishes he’d kept his pants on. According to a police affidavit, at a Christian rock venue in Oklahoma in June he dropped his shorts in front of the crowd, then wrung the sweat from them over the heads of audience members. He’s now facing a charge of indecent exposure, a felony that carries penalties of up to $20,000 in fines and ten years in prison. If convicted, Kinsella would also have to register as a sex offender in Oklahoma.
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On the advice of his attorney, Kinsella declined to comment for this story; Make Believe front man Tim Kinsella, Nate’s cousin, agreed to talk but would not address the specifics of the case. In late spring, he says, the group signed on for a 14-city tour with a pair of Christian rock bands, Veda and MewithoutYou. “We thought it would be fun to do a Christian tour because we wanted to play in front of people who had no idea who we were or what to expect,” Tim says. “The audiences were definitely not that into us, but there was only the one show where it got really weird.”
According to witnesses, outraged club promoters hustled the band offstage and flagged down deputy Danny McDonald of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, who was handling security for the show. McDonald held Kinsella until two officers from the Bartlesville Police Department arrived. As the crowd of approximately 200 spilled outside to watch, headliners MewithoutYou threatened not to go on unless the club refused to press charges against Kinsella. The club owner acquiesced, and MewithoutYou eventually played its set, but more officers had arrived on the scene and were interviewing witnesses. According to the affidavit, “after asking a mass of people if they had been disturbed by what they had seen, approximately half of the crowd raised their hands.”
Kinsella’s legal situation threatens to overshadow the release of Make Believe’s upcoming Shock of Being, and the band’s had more bad luck since then. It had scheduled an extensive tour leading up to the release of the album, including a series of east-coast dates in late August and early September. But last month Nate Kinsella broke his wrist when he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle in Wicker Park, forcing Make Believe to cancel those shows.
