The Kinks and I
Dave Davies revisits his ‘70s solo recordings – and reveals the latest on the kinks reunion
LAst month, Ray Davies caused a stir by appearing to divulge during a Channel 4 interview that the Kinks had reformed and were “making a new album” together. His brother Dave is keen to clarify the situation. “It’s great that people are so excited, but I don’t want them getting excited for the wrong reason,” he says. “We’ve had three or four songs that we’ve been working on for a while now and Ray was talking about getting some kind of a record together, but we’ve talked about that for years, on and off. Doing some recordings would be great but we’ve nothing planned – no shows. It would be nice to do something with Mick [Avory], but it’s been in discussion for a few years, it’s not really new news. We talk about it, but we need to actually do it.”
that dealt with, Dave can focus on the upcoming release of Decade, an album of 13 previously unreleased tracks he recorded in the 1970s. It’s something like a follow-up to 2011’s
Hidden Treasures, featuring songs written by Dave that for one reason or another fell by the wayside. there’s a bluesy, West Coast singersongwriter atmosphere to most of the songs, and a sense of urgency that comes from them often having been recorded at Konk in snatched gaps in the Kinks’ hectic schedule. For Davies, finally putting them out has been akin to a psychological unblocking. “It had to be done,” he says. “some songs on the album have haunted me for years. When I was confronted with doing the record, it was quite daunting, all those memories – the badness, the madness, the excitement.”
Even 40 years later, Davies struggled to revisit songs such as “Midnight sun”, written about a childhood friend who died of drug abuse. He decided to entrust the tapes to his son simon, a producer and engineer, who brought them back to life at Abbey Road. “I thought, ‘I can’t possibly do anything with this, it’s too close to the bone,’” says Dave. “I was so glad having simon take it on for me. He’s emotionally attached to it, but it’s not right in his face. When simon played the final mixes I broke down. We both did.”
there were musical issues too. Every song came with “a different bundle of problems”, Davies explains. the track “Mystic Woman” required new vocals, while others had to be assembled from the few takes that existed. Davies originally recorded them with a shifting groups of musicians including his nephew Phil Palmer and drummer Neil McBain, Mick Avory and Kinks bassist Andy Pyle.
One figure conspicuous by his absence is Ray Davies. “At the time, I didn’t ask him to be involved because I never knew where the songs were at,” explains Dave. “I didn’t want them on Kinks albums, they were done between sessions and it was trial and error. You didn’t know what you were going to get, and then something Kinks-related would come up and you’d put it back in the box. there’s a song called “Island”, and I remember Ray sticking his head round the door, but he never said too much.”
With Decade finally completed, Davies is ready to take on new challenges. “I’d carried around the weight of these weird and wonderful songs for a long time,” he says. “Now it’s out there I can move on.” Maybe even towards that elusive Kinks reunion. Decade is out on Green Amp Records in September
“Ray was talking about getting a record together, but we’ve talked about that for years” DAVE DAVIES