kinks

The Kinks

The first time I met founder and lead guitarist Dave Davies of the Kinks was a very relaxed situation. He and I, along with his companion Kate, casually sipped coffee in his dressing room before a gig. He is a true gentleman, a brilliant guitarist, and an underrated songwriter. His fabulous autobiography, Kink, had just gone into paperback and he had just started going out on the road as a solo artist with his own band, something that he is still enjoying today. The Kinks hadn't made a record together in some time, and he hadn't even spoken to his brother Ray in a while. Funny, now that a few years have gone by you might think that things had changed, but really they haven't. Both Ray and Dave are out there doing their solo stuff and a Kinks reunion is pending, pending, pending....

I have met Dave several times since and he always greets his friends and fans with warmth and enthusiasm. I recall when I told him that I was writing Joey Molland's (of Badfinger fame) biography he wished me luck and gave me a few words of advise as well a great quote to use in the book. He even said that my efforts hadn't been wasted and he actually reads Cottage Views when he is in town and picks up his mail at the office.

I have had only one opportunity to speak to Ray Davies and he, unlike his brother, off stage is a little more reserved. His press conference was for a small group but there would be no one-on-one interviews. He would call on you for a question if you politely raised your hand, and promised to keep the subject matter to the issue at large. His sense of humor was certainly intact and I discovered that he can be silly, sly, and witty. Luckily, he actually called on me twice. I sincerely say 'thanks, Ray,' because some people didn't even get a chance. Hopefully, I will get that one-on-one interview someday. Ray Davies is a true artist in every sense of the word.

The following articles and interviews have been previously published in Cottage Views Classic Rock News and are owned by Michael A. Cimino. As are the interviews, the photos on the Dave Davies Photo Gallery Page are ©, so please don't reproduce them without permission, but do tell your friends to surf on in, check it out, and leave some input somewhere. Throughout my web-site there are several links where you may e mail me, vote for your favorite song of the moment, post your desert island discs, ask/play music trivia, and create your ultimate fantasy band.

THE KONTINUING STORY OF THE BROTHERS KINK

(reproduced from Cottage Views 5 year anniversary issue)

"It was very important to me to get the facts right," says Dave Davies of the newly released paperback edition of his autobiography. Davies, of course, is the founder, lead guitarist, and one half of the brotherhood of the legendary British Invasion group collectively known as the Kinks. "I've read so many books, so called biographies, about the Kinks," he says, "and reading some I think it's about somebody else."

In Kink (Hyperion) Davies rivals his brother Ray for telling compelling and fascinating stories. Their sibling rivalry is legendary in the music business and what Ray has been able to translate so brilliantly in song Dave has now put down in words. His straight forward writing is easily digestible and never fails to excite or amaze.

"I had a distinct idea about the style," he says. "I wanted it to be like a conversation. I wanted to keep it funny, keep it readable, and not get boring. At first it was a daunting prospect but once I got down to it I found it was very therapeutic."

Coinciding with the release of the book are the newly re-mastered editions of the Kinks catalog, courtesy of Velvel Records.* Starting with 1971's Muswell Hillbillies and continuing through their eighties output for the Arista label, Velvel will re-issue every Kinks album, complete with bonus tracks. As an additional extra, they are in the process of assembling a double CD anthology of Dave Davies work in and outside of the Kinks.

* Velvel Records has since gone out of business, while the Kinks recordings are still widely available.

"It will be my songs and my contributions to the Kinks," says Dave. "There's a couple of demos in there that haven't been released, stuff from my solo albums, and a couple of surprises. It goes back to "You Really Got Me" and "Death of a Clown" and goes right up to today, which will be [the new song] "Unfinished Business."

With Ray on the road promoting his solo album, Storyteller (Capitol) and Dave traveling in support of Unfinished Business (now re-titled Kinks Kronikles) one has to wonder when the brothers will get back together for a new Kinks record.

"I don't know when we'll do it," says Dave, a little ambiguously. "As we've grown older we've grown kind of apart, but not, because we're still very connected in our own ways. If Ray and me can hook up, it's there. He seems to be enjoying what he's doing. I'm enjoying my thing. It's going to be an exciting year."

Cottage Views: What is the current status of the Kinks?

Dave Davies: Well, um... good question. (laughs) I think Ray is busy doing his thing and I'm excited about doing my projects, but we are contracted to do another studio album. I don't know when we'll do it. It won't be this year, but there's an album there for us to make if we want to make it.

C. V.: What was the most satisfying Kinks record you've made?

D. D.: The albums - I like Arthur. I like Muswell Hillbillies. I thought Phobia was a really good album. I really enjoyed making that. It got a lot of airplay. It did okay, it didn't do great. I don't think we had very much record company support on that album.

It's difficult to pick out the singles because they're all so different from each other. They've all got their own little place in the scheme of things. There's so many songs. "Dead End Street" has always been a special song. I think it's got something about it. It's the recording, the time, and everything about the sound of it. Of course, "You Really Got Me." It was our first thing that we ever had success with. It was quite a heavy record for it's time. Sonically, and the aggression of the thing. It was very different for the time.

C. V.: In your book you say that you cut up the speaker in your amp to get that rough sound. Is that true?

D. D.: Yeah, I did that. (laughs) I had this little 10 Watt green amplifier that I bought from the radio store up the road. I was fed up with the sound and in a moment of madness - or inspiration - I cut the speaker up, not even believing for a minute it would work, but when I plugged it in it sounded amazing. Really raucous, distorted. Then I perfected it. I ran a lead from the speaker into my other amp, which was a Vox AC30, and that's how that sound was born.

We'd go to clubs and people used to go, 'He's crazy,' and they'd talk behind your back, but when the record became a hit everybody was congratulating me on what an amazing sound it was.

C. V.: As the sixties progressed and Pop music became more psychedelic the Kinks music became more introspective. Why did you chose that route?

D. D.: When everybody was experimenting with psychedelia we were still searching and gathering information through our roots and our family - British tradition and history. It's interesting because no one else was doing that. Our route through music was very different to a lot of our contemporaries and I'm glad because I think it made our music a lot more unique. A lot more reflective, and more distinctive and varied. Which was a bit of a problem commercially. Record companies didn't know what to do with us half the time.

We were always experimenting. In a lot of ways the Kinks came from a Folk background - like a lot of the Irish Folk bands. All the family members used to get together and play instruments in a bar or around a piano in the living room. It kind of started like that because my sisters played piano, my dad played banjo, Ray and I played guitar and harmonica. I integrated the influences I was getting from the Blues guys in America into our culture. Then there Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran as well. It was a very rich time, musically.

C. V.: Was your rivalry with Ray always a problem?

D. D.: When we worked really well together it wasn't even noticeable. I think it was one of those thing that grew out of all the pressures of being in the music business. Looking at it as an overview I think the tensions between Ray and I helped make the music what it is, was, and still hopefully is.

C. V.: As a band, how did you survive all these years?

D. D.: I think humor is very important to the longevity of a band. I think that's one element that's always helped sustain the Kinks and our music. I think that saved us many times.

* * * * *

In 1971 Ray Davies, main singer/songwriter of the legendary British Invasion group the Kinks, believed that video would play an important role in the future promotion of Rock records. Little did he know how correct he was, as several years later the conceptual music-videos "Come Dancing" and "Don't forget to Dance" buoyed the Kinks' record sales and provided the group with their first American hit singles in over ten years.

When the Kinks signed with RCA Records at the beginning of the seventies, and toured America for the first time in many years, Davies wanted to film the group in action and use the footage to re-establish the Kinks' fan base on US soil. Unfortunately, RCA didn't share his vision and refused to finance the project.

So strong was his belief, Davies used his own capital to produce a film based around Muswell Hillbillies, the groups latest release, and the Kinks began a long had trek building a rabid cult following that by the end of the decade would pay off in gold album sales.

The film had long since remained in limbo until Davies was offered the opportunity to personally supervise the re-issuance of the Kinks back catalog. In July of 1998, to coincide with the issuance of the re-mastered Muswell Hillbillies CD, Davies took the stage of the Tribeca Film Center in New York City and offered a rare glimpse into the Kinks inner sanctum via an excerpt from his twenty-six year old flick. Full of quick MTV styled edits of concert footage, backstage antics, and plenty of crowd reaction to the return of the Kinks (they had been banned in America for the majority of the latter half of the sixties) the film is a tantalizing mish-mosh of docudrama and surreal revitalization.

Finally utilizing the film for its initial purpose, Davies was proud to field questions from an invited audience of press with grace, honesty, and a large dose of humor. Having been asked to keep the question geared towards the work that the Kinks had done during the seventies the enthusiastic crowd complied until, inevitably, someone asked about the current status of the Kinks.

With a hearty laugh, Davies responded, "I've sent them all on holiday," and pointed out that both he and his brother were currently working on their solo careers. As always, the question of a Kinks reunion is complicated, and Davies added, "Who knows, I could say now that I see no future for the band and then we'll get a phone call in a week or two and [Kinks' drummer] Mick [Avory] will say 'I'm really hard up. Can we go on tour?', and we'll think about it."

When pursued on the question by a certain journalist (that would be me) who had spoken to his brother, Kinks' guitarist Dave Davies, just a few weeks earlier, Ray, still the art school dodger, looked nervously around the room dismissing the question, and then, with a sly smile gestured for another question while the entire audience burst into unanimous laughter.

Cottage Views: Of all the albums that you made in the seventies which one was the most satisfying for you personally?

Ray Davies: I'm really fond of an album called Misfits. Simply because it was a time when the band truly nearly broke up. We just agreed that we wouldn't make any more records together and the whole writing of the song "A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy" turned it around for me. I was living in New York and I started writing the song about my brother and I breaking up the band. The next day the television comes on an Elvis Presley has died. It was like having a film, or a story, with no ending. I was writing the ending and the impetus was to 'keep going.'

I don't like to think that one record is better than another. [Misfits] is not the best Kinks album. There is something about a few of the tracks, like "Misfits" and "A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy" that really sums up the way I felt about the band, so it has a place in my heart.

Go to Dave Davies Photo Gallery

Go to Cottage Views Directory