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By Jeb Wright
When I was thirteen-years-old
the Kinks released a phenomenal live album titled One for the Road. I had never heard of the band when my older
sister bought me the record for my birthday. I spun the disc
and was hooked for life. From the live version of “Lola” to
“Hardway” to “Celluloid Heroes” to “Catch Me Now I’m Falling”
the music spoke to me. I went out the next day and bought
Low Budget and was blown away by the title track, “National
Health,” “Gallon of Gas” and “Superman.” I went backwards and
bought as many Kinks albums as I could find and followed the
band’s success into the 80’s with songs like “Come Dancing,”
“Living On a Thin Line” and “Do It Again.”
I quickly realized that Ray and
Dave Davies were more than brothers. They were a team. Ray
brought the creative lyrics and songwriting while Dave brought
the punch. I continued to follow the band and read all the
interviews I could. In short, Ray and Dave became musical
heroes of mine. You can imagine the thrill it was for me to
speak with Dave Davies from his home in England. What follows
is an interview that sees Dave releasing his first solo album
since suffering a stroke. We also discuss his turbulent
relationship with his brother Ray and some of the Kinks most
famous songs.
Sit back and enjoy an interview
with a member of the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame and one of the
most looked up to guitarists in the history of rock n’ roll.
Jeb: Let’s talk about
Fractured Mindz. I have been listening to this and really
enjoying it. One thing I noticed right off the bat was that you
are experimenting with different guitar tones.
Dave: You get fed up with the
same sounds. You get to messing around with different effects
and you try to get new tones. If I just play different versions
of “You Really Got Me” then I get really fed up with it. You
can only turn the chords back to front and call it “Me Really
Got You” so many times [laughter]. I like to experiment and I
think the Kinks were a very experimental band, musically. I
like to see what is going on and I like to stretch myself a
bit.
Jeb: The title track is a
trip. You have dozens of sounds going on at the same time. How
do you structure a song like that?
Dave: I wrote it down like a
poem – like a piece of prose. When I made it into a song, I
thought the beginning was really strong and I really liked it.
I decided to build the rest of the song up around that riff and
just see where it goes. I sang the words over it and then I
edited it and cut it and shortened it and then put more guitars
on it. It was a fun process but it is a really serious song.
The process is much different than what I usually do. It was
not written to be a song but it became one.
Jeb: Do you find that when you
give into the creative process and let it guide you that you are
more satisfied with what you come up with?
Dave: That is what I prefer but
it can take a long time. Sometimes you end up with nothing and
sometimes you end up with something you hate. It is really just
rolling the dice. Sometimes you end up with something really
good and sometimes you crap out.
Jeb: Was this album harder for
you to make considering the problems you have had with your
health?
Dave: Emotionally, it was hard
because I was dealing with subjects that were painful.
Fractured Mind is about me having a stroke and that is
something that really affects you.
Jeb: A lot of people would have
just given up but you didn’t. You are still pushing ahead and
creating new music. That says a lot about you.
Dave: It is not over till it’s
over. I am not the type of person that can sit around and mope
and not work. The creative process has been such a big part of
my life that I couldn’t stop it just because I got ill.
Mentally and emotionally, I am about 200% better but physically
I am probably 99.9% better and I still have a ways to go.
Jeb: We did this interview
because I got a press release from Laura Kaufman where you were
denying a Kinks reunion. I wanted to learn more about why there
was not going to be one from your point of view. Are you
surprised these reunions keep popping up all the time?
Dave: When Ray doesn’t work I
think he gets bored and that is why I think these things
happen. The funny thing is that three days after I sent out
that press release Ray phoned me up and mentioned a Kinks
reunion. We are still talking but we are both doing things and
we are doing shows and I want to promote Fractured Mindz.
I also have a new DVD that I am finishing off. It is called
Mystical Journey and it is about my spiritual life and also
about my work with the Kinks. I am using music from the Kinks
as well as my solo albums. There will also be music in it from
Fractured Mindz. It is quite a busy time.
Jeb: Can you expand what you
mean by saying it is about your spiritual life?
Dave: I first got interested in
astrology and spiritualism in my early twenties but it goes back
to when I was a child and my sister died. I was eleven years
old then. It affected me as I really wondered where people go
when they die. The film traces that journey as well as my
parallel work with Ray and the band. It might be released in
six parts as we filmed a hell of a lot of stuff.
Jeb: Later in life are you now
ready to tell the story?
Dave: I think it is a story
that needs to be told, really. I was reading about a famous
writer named William Butler Yeats from the last century. He
was more involved with Spiritualism than he was with his own
work. I think it is amazing that people don’t talk about their
spirituality.
Jeb: You have never been afraid
to show different sides of your personality in a very public
manner.
Dave: I am one of those people
who likes to express himself. If you express yourself then
people see and hear about it but I can’t hold it in. If I was a
shopkeeper then I would probably put all me shop items in the
window. I wouldn’t have anything in the store at all because I
would want people to see everything I have right up front.
It is therapeutic to show
people who you really are. If you are shy and not showing parts
of yourself then you may think that if you show who you are then
you will be empty. The funny thing is that the more you share
about your life and your thoughts and feelings then the more
there is to see. It really is a therapeutic process. It is my
nature. It has got me in some trouble, though. Some people
have said that I am a bit crazy because of my spiritual
beliefs. The have said, “It has to be drugs; those silly Rock
n’ Roll people.” What do they know about spirituality? I am in
a perfect position to know about it because the creative mind is
very much linked to the spiritual process. The creative
imagination is linked to spiritual works; it makes sense to me.
Jeb: I can see how you would
not be in love with the business side of music. That must
really be a block to the freedom of creativity.
Dave: Oh sure, that is one of
the hurdles and the stumbling blocks.
Jeb: I want to talk about some
of the songs on the new album. The first is “Free Me.” If I
had to pick a song from the album that could be a Kinks song
then I would choose this one.
Dave: I could see that. It is
the angry side of me. I think that is what has always driven
me. When I get angry or annoyed about something that I know
should be different then I write about it. It is a confusing
world and it is a tough place to live in. Sometimes it is good
to get things off your chest rather than brood about them. It
makes you sick, man. You get more sick worrying about them then
you do by doing something about them or at least talking about
them.
Jeb: Was the first song, “This
is the Time,” because this was the time for you to come back and
make a new album?
Dave: I’ve never thought of
that. It was just the feeling that this is the time for all of
us to check out what is going on in the world as well as what is
going on inside of us. It is time for us to come out of the
closet and reveal ourselves and share our feelings.
Jeb: Speaking of coming out of
the closet, there is a photo of you in drag inside the CD
cover. I laughed my ass off.
Dave: One of the first songs I
ever wrote for the album was “It’s All About Me.” We were going
to make a video for it. We took some pictures and stuff. I was
also doing a lot of research for the six-part film I am making
about narcissism. I thought it would be great to write a song
about it since we live in such a narcissistic society. I
thought it was funny playing the character. Kinks fans love
that kind of weird shit; they are all crazy.
Jeb: Is some of the problem
with Ray and you due to Ray’s narcissism?
Dave: I think he has more than
his fair share of it. We all have egos and we like to express
ourselves and think we are right. I think Ray’s got a bit too
much ego. I think it is good to have a strong ego but when it
gets to the point where it hurts people then that is when it is
unhealthy. We need to be all things we are in balance way. It
can be fun and enlightening and wonderful but when it gets
unhealthy it is not good.
Jeb: You will never be able to
get away from the fact that you guys are brothers and you
started the band. The Kinks fans like reading about bad blood
between Ray and yourself. Is it as bad as the media portrays it
to be?
Dave: There is an old saying
that says, “You can choose your friends but you can’t choose
your family.” Ray and I have always had both a good and bad
relationship. When the chips are down we have always pulled
together. We made an album called Misfits in the
mid-70's during a time that could have easily been the end of
the band. Instead of giving up we made Misfits and it
gave us a new lease on life; it was Kinks Part II.
Jeb: It really was. I would
not think that people who hated each other could create the body
of work both Ray and you have created – both collectively and
apart.
Dave: It is important to
explore your own creative expression and it is important to do
that with someone else as well. A lot of the problems Ray and I
had early on was that we had too many ideas. We would clash and
the arguments started over our ideas. You can’t do everything
and someone is going to get left out. I find it taxing
sometimes just being with Ray. Sitting in the same room with
him, sometimes, watching TV together I find myself wanting to
leave after about a half an hour.
Jeb: Did you produce your new
album?
Dave: I did everything on it.
I have had more input on some albums than others. Ray and I
collaborated on all the major Kinks albums. I remember back as
far as when we did “Lola,” I would play the instrumental part
and Ray would go away and come back with words in a few days.
Other times Ray would come in with a song and I would just put a
few riffs on it but it always was a collaboration.
I like my new solo album
because I am able to express myself and not hold back. It is
different than working with a team. When you are working on
your own, you are interacting with so many more ideas as you are
not limited by the people that you’re with. It is interesting,
the older you get then I think the ability to concentrate gets
better. I have become more creative the older I get. I think
one of the reasons I had the stroke in the first place is
because I was trying to do too many things. It made me realize
that I was not sixteen anymore. The ideas just don’t go away,
though. I was touring and flying everywhere – it was a
combination of everything.
Jeb: Tell me about the day you
had your stroke.
Dave: I was doing an interview
with the BBC. Luckily, it didn’t happen when I was on the air.
It happened when I got into the elevator. Luckily, my son was
with me. I just semi-collapsed. It was a very surreal
experience. There was not any pain but the whole world just
turned upside down.
Jeb: When did you realize what
had happened?
Dave: I wasn’t scared; l was
just confused. When I collapsed my son got the ambulance. I
couldn’t stand up and I tried to speak but I couldn’t speak. My
thinking was perfectly clear but I couldn’t do anything. The
first two days were spooky because I couldn’t walk at all and it
was very difficult for me to speak. My thought process was
really clear and that really made it a bit spooky.
Jeb: You obviously couldn’t
play guitar.
Dave: I couldn’t play guitar.
The whole right side of my body was virtually numb for the first
few days. It took six months of rehab and exercise to try and
get it back. While I was in the hospital, I had my guitar. I
used to take it to bed with me. I would touch it and smell it
and press my fingers on it. Your body knows that it is not
connecting all the messages properly but your muscles have
memory. You have to teach your body again to function.
Jeb: I imagine you were
inspired to get better so you could start playing again.
Dave: I was not going to give
up – that would be stupid. There were people in the hospital
that had MS and that had really bad brain tumors. I found that
those people were very positive. I knew I had no right to
complain. I was the healthiest person in that rehab and I had
no right to feel sorry for myself at all. It was curious but I
really felt akin to these people who had such a positive
outlook. They really astonished me.
Jeb: I know you have talked
about this a hundred times but please tell me about getting the
sound from your amp for “You Really Got Me.” Did you really use
a razor blade on your speaker cone?
Dave: It was definitely a razor
blade. It was a Gillette single sided razor blade; I think they
still make them. I have no idea why I did it. I was very
frustrated and angry at my stupid amplifier because it only made
one or two sounds. I tried kicking it but I hurt me foot. I
decided that I would slowly torture it. I thought, “I will get
a razorblade; that will teach it.” I gradually sliced the cone
but the tone was too intact. I put loads of scratch marks
around it and then I pushed it in hoping it would blow up. It
came out with that blasting sound. I thought, “That’s it.”
Jeb: Nobody played power chords
back in 1963. You were blasting heavy power chords on “You
Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” that no one
had heard before.
Dave: The rhythm guitar player
for The Ventures sounded like he only used the bottom strings when
he played. I am sure he was playing barre chords. You don’t
have to be a technical musical when you play barre chords. You
don’t need to know about fifths and sevenths and ninths as you
are only playing three notes. You don’t have to worry about all
the complicated stuff. I owe a lot to the rhythm guitar player
of The Ventures as I used to copy a lot of his stuff; I thought
they were fantastic when I was growing up learning guitar.
Jeb: You invented heavy metal
and punk.
Dave: That was way before there
was punk. A lot of people like the Clash and the Jam do admit
that the Kinks were a big inspiration on the sound as well as
the material.
Jeb: You went from playing in
your house with Ray playing “You Really Got Me” on piano and you
slicing your amp up and adding the power chords to being rock
stars in a very short period of time.
Dave: It was that song, wasn’t
it? It was like a platform. We had tried to record it and it
was okay but it was very sparse. We always got a good vibe
live. When we recorded “You Really Got Me” with that guitar
sound we knew we had something very unique.
Jeb: In 1970 it was another
song that took you to another level. I am talking about
“Lola.”
Dave: My instrumental part
inspired Ray to write the words. It was about our Manager
meeting a transvestite in a club. It was many ideas all put
together. Songs just don’t appear on a record one day. If you
really think about it there is a lot of back story to some
songs.
Jeb: “Celluloid Heroes” is that
way.
Dave: I don’t think that song
was ever really finished and I think that is what gave the song
a really special charm on stage. It really worked live.
Jeb: The live version of
“Celluloid Heroes” on One for the Road is the best
version you ever did. Your solo on that song is amazing.
Dave: It is my favorite version
as well and it is one of my favorite pieces of music.
Jeb: As the early 70's went on
The Kinks kind of got into arsty-fartsy themes. I am taking
Preservation Society. I don’t think everyone quite got what
was going on.
Dave: I explain that in my new
film. I went through a lot of psychiatric problems in the early
70's. Ray also had a lot of problems. He wife left him and he
tried to commit suicide. I brought him back from the brink of
death, really. I picked up this shell of a man from the
casualty ward of the hospital. Ray spent a lot time just
thinking about things at that time and it became Preservation
Society. At the same time I decided that we should have our
own studio so we didn’t have to worry about going into different
places and having pressure put on us. The period after “Lola”
was really an introverted period for both Ray and I but for
totally different reasons. I was checking out my inner life and
Ray was exploring other ways of exploring his creativity and his
writing. It was a very different time.
Jeb: At that time were you guys
fighting less or more?
Dave: We were not fighting that
much – only every day [laughter].
Jeb: I do have to back up and
ask why the lyric in “Lola” was changed to cherry cola?
Dave: It was originally
Coca-Cola. Nowadays it would have made a fortune in the press.
Back then they didn’t like advertising on the radio. We could
have cleaned up if we had done it now.
Jeb: I discovered the Kinks in
the late 1970's and then went back and discovered the rest of
the catalog. My favorite album, however, was Low Budget.
Dave: I love that album. We
made that record in the States; it was the only record we
recorded in American studios.
Jeb: I think that album has
some of your dirtiest and grittiest guitar work on it.
Dave: I was feeling good as
well. You can still play good if you feel bad but it was a good
time for the band. We wanted to trim it down and get back to
basics and get back to what it was like in the beginning. We
were a much better band by that time. We started out not
knowing what we were doing and we learned as we went along.
None of us were accomplished musicians. We are still trying.
Low Budget had great songs and they were great to play
live.
Jeb: You then had “Destroyer”
and “Around the Dial” from Give the People What They Want
and then you had “Come Dancing” from State of
Confusion.
Dave: In England we couldn’t
get our records on the radio. No one would play our records.
They would say, “The Kinks? Oh, no.” In America we became
bigger in the 80's then we had ever been in the 60's.
Jeb: You got some bad press for
Word of Mouth but I loved that album. “Do It Again” was
a huge hit.
Dave: The tours were fantastic
around the release of that album.
Jeb: You penned “Living On a
Thin Line” which was on that album.
Dave: I wrote that song and it
was very much about the feelings and memories I had around the
Misfits period. I thought I would write the song for Ray
to sing because I thought it was the only way that I could get
the song on the bloody album. I made a demo of it and I told
Ray that he should sing it and he said, “No, I like it. Leave
it as it is.” Sometimes we worked really well together – not
much though.
Jeb: What is the best thing
about Ray and Dave being together and what is the worst thing
about it?
Dave: The proper way for me to
answer that question is to say that over the years it has been
different. In the early years we used to hang out together and
work together and it was all good. The bad times happened later
on when Ray became more self-absorbed and demanding. The best
times were when we would sit down and Ray would play the piano
and I would play a riff on the guitar and there was a spark. We
would look at each other and we both new that something really,
really good was happening. You can’t manufacture those
moments. They don’t occur a lot but the do occur.
Jeb: What are your thoughts of
Van Halen’s version of “You Really Got Me.”
Dave: I like the record but it
is not really true to its form, which is a bit sad because they
didn’t get the genre and culture behind the track, but it was
kind of fun. I am glad they did it. It was a respectful
version but it was a little big boutique sounding.
Jeb: Last one: Was Rod Stewart
a member in the early Kinks?
Dave: In the early days Ray,
Pete Quaife and I had a band and Rod Stewart would play in the
same clubs as we did. We all went to the same school; I think
Ray was in the same class as Rod. We all came from the same
area and we knew each other. We all played on the same football
team. It would have been fun to see what he could have done
with our stuff.
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