The Kinks (Dave Davies)

wanted to break away from the rip-off so they did it again with a more An interview with light pop music that was on keyboard-oriented feel. I’d love to be the radio at the time and I able to get a hold of that recording! DAVE DAVIES searched to try and get a of the unique sound, which luckily I After the Kinks’ early heavy records found when I cut up the the band completely changed speakers of my amplifier! personality with singles like ‘Sunny Afternoon’ and albums like ‘Village When we first started we Green Preservation Society’. Since would do the odd Sonny Boy you were identified with the heavy Williamson song and Bo guitar sound of those earlier singles KINKS Diddley, like ‘Who Do You were you happy about the new Love’, and then we might direction and all the concept albums inks guitarist Dave throw in a couple of Buddy Holly that continued through the 70s? Davies had the coolest songs - it was just a very experimental and the longest hair of mix. And we used to do ‘Smokestack Obviously I wasn’t happy with all of any mid-60s pop hero - Lightnin’. It just had more soul, more them but as a musician I found that and that includes your grit, more expression. playing with a band you can KMick Jaggers and your John Lennons. contribute other things than heavy But even more importantly, his guitar The persistent rumour that Jimmy guitar parts. The whole recording playing on the band’s 1964 number Page played lead guitar on ‘You process is give and take and one ‘You Really Got Me’ remains Really Got Me’ must really annoy exchanging of ideas. There’s an awful among the most distinctive and you. lot of collaboration that goes on that influential in all of rock history. isn’t immediately noticeable so I was I think it’s very unfortunate that he getting into arrangements and With the Kinks now inactive Davies should make that claim. Because it’s working out guitar lines, rather than lives and works in Los Angeles, but the so obvious - I had that guitar sound. I dominating the records. I think in a 1998 double CD ‘Unfinished think it cost £200 to record ‘You band there has to be give and take and Business’ (Castle ESSCD 584), which Really Got Me’, which seemed like a not everybody can be a front man. comprises a mixture of Kinks and solo lot of money then, and we recorded it And I felt my collaboration was very material, some previously unissued, is pretty much how we wanted to, which important through all that period. I a useful reminder of the scale and was a very dry kind of sound, very think the only album I didn’t like quality of his work, over four decades. different to what the engineers and making that much was ‘Soap Opera’ producers of the time were doing. We and some of ‘Preservation’ - although I PT: In the CD booklet you call the were the only ones who knew how we enjoyed helping to engineer that. Kinks the greatest rock’n’roll band in wanted it to sound. I think that record Because we had a new studio and I was the world. How would you justify influenced a lot of guitar players and the only one knew how to use the that claim? the music that came after it. equipment! Apart from all the obvious hits we’ve What does it do to someone’s mental Was your 1967 solo hit ‘Death Of A had over many years, I think the Kinks health to become as incredibly Clown’ autobiographical? were a very diverse band. And I think famous at the age of 16 as you did? also because of the endurance value of Yeah. It was after those early years of the band, because in rock’n’roll you’ve It doesn’t do it a lot of good! But I raving, with all the entourage and got to have a lot of bravado and a lot didn’t realise that for about five years. constant partying and realising that I of energy. Those are some of the I had an absolute ball, enjoyed myself was getting to be a bit of a tired party elements that make the Kinks, I feel, to the full and it took about five years animal and it was reflective, feeling the greatest rock’n’roll band in the for me to realise it was messing around that I was like in a circus and there was world and I think the Kinks’ music with my brain a bit. But, you know, we something quite sad about the whole has helped stimulate and inspire a lot got through it. thing. It was a song that expressed how of musicians over various decades, I felt about what was happening to me. even up to modern bands now like ‘All Day And All Of The Night’ was Kula Shaker and Radiohead. later copied by the Doors, as ‘Hello I Ray Davies gets a co-writing credit for love You’. Why didn’t you sue? ‘Death Of A Clown’. What was his The Kinks started as a blues band... contribution?” It was so outrageously obvious and our My main influences as a kid learning music publishers wanted to sue them Well, you know that lyric that goes “La to play guitar were Eddie Cochran, and we saw lawyers, but Ray and I la la la la la la la la la ...” He wrote that who was a big idol of mine. I think he decided it was a silly idea. Funny, I lyric. He’s shrewd, my brother. Very was the first real white rock blues met someone in L.A. who has access shrewd guy. And I’m a very giving musician that I knew of - and Big Bill to some early Doors tapes and he says person. Giving to a fault! Broonzy and later John Lee Hooker they did a version of ‘Hello I love You’ and Muddy Waters. It was because the with heavy guitar in it and they must You released another couple of great music had such grit and Ray and I have realised it was too blatant a singles but you never seemed to push your solo career. Do you ever feel great you’ve underachieved a bit? body of work it Yeah, I think so. But I was very happy would be doing what I was doing. I thought the negative band was the important thing. The to paint it record company wanted me to go into with any the studio to make a solo album in the kind of late 60s and we messed around with a personal few songs but I decided I didn’t really want to do it. I liked the role of being in a band - it suited me. Is it true you wrote the music for ‘Lola’ but weren’t given the credit? The main instrumental part of the resentment. That’s life. Limited), in which you were very song was my idea. A lot of songs grow open about your bisexual experiences out of situations where you get Do you have a favourite Kinks track? and your abuse of women and so on. together and you rehearse and Why did you want all that sort of someone will come up with a riff, like Obviously ‘You Really Got Me’ is a stuff out? the ‘Lola’ riff. Obviously Ray had a very special record although I thought lyrical idea in his mind and he’d play ‘All Day And All Of The Night’ was I didn’t at first. But when I started about with it for a few days then we’d better. It was so much more aggressive. writing it, actually it was quite a get together again and take the song a Listening to it on the radio for the first therapeutic exercise to get rid of all little bit further. I would say 75% of time it was actually scary. It’s a very, these feelings and get them all out. It the songs grow out of situations like very powerful record. Then there are was really helpful. I tried to keep it that. But in the end it’s like if you’re songs like ‘Dead End Street’ which amusing and easy to read. I wanted it walking down the road and you’re reminds me of my family and growing to be like a conversation with the trying to write a poem and you see a up in a working class family in North reader. beautiful woman cross the street and London. Oh, there’s too many to you write, “I saw a beautiful woman name! Are the Kinks now totally defunct? cross the street”, do you give the woman a songwriting credit? But also I You resurrected your solo career with Not really. It would be nice for us to was a bit naive about the thing. The three albums in the 80s (‘Dave get back in the studio and make whole excitement and joy of playing Davies’; ‘Glamour’; ‘Chosen People’). another album. I’d like that, but I was enough for me. I didn’t How satisfied were you with them? don’t know what Ray’s got in his mind. contemplate the thought of worrying I’m planning on doing some solo about things like that. The first album was like I thought I touring and I’ve got web sites that I’m had wings! It was wonderful! it was a running (www.davedavies.com).

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