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SHARING BIRTHDAY CAKE WITH DAVE DAVIES

Stubble Interview by Ken Zebbyn

I met Dave shortly before the interview and shared some rather unusual cake concoction in honor of his birthday, here it is….

Ken: Just a little history on the band I’d like to start with. When you, your brother and the rest of the original band was put together how did it all come about to a) start a band and then b) as you grew to become known as the KINKS?

Dave: Well, I met the guys at school and there was three of us. There was me and Pete and the drummer who was... he was sort of in and out of the band and then we still had school concerts. Then Ray got a band and he was playing with a blues band outside of our band and then we kind of formed at school. We got together. We did stuff like VENTURE’s stuff and SHADOWS and we did a lot of instrumentals and played at like, We played at ballroom dances and local Carnival Queen things. We were doing mainly instrumentals... SHADOWS, VENTURES, some CHET ATKINS, DWAINE EDDY. Then I started to listen to blues more. I was very influenced by BEEBLE BRUNSIE??? So I kind of really just grew out of school and just tryin’ things out. I think an important period for me as a growing musician was listening to Chuck Berry. I think he was a... Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry I think were my main... turning point kind of influences. Then we just sort of grew from there. We started doing more blues stuff, Sonny Boy Williams, and playin’ local clubs and just grew out of there. We did add our bassist and we got an agent but we didn’t really start to do anything until we got a big agent... When we were the RAVENS in ‘63. We had an agent called... Arthur House and he was the BEATLES first agent. He fell in love with the band so he got us on our first tour, which was with..., and he changed our name to the KINKS. I used to wear like kinky leather,… and then he changed the set. He said “You know, by the way you dress you should call yourselves the KINKS.” so I said OK. I thought it was a bit of a silly name at first but you know... tried it out. I didn’t think it’d catch on at all. I think there’s a lot of elements along the way. I think the most important thing for us was to get a record deal in the first place. Pie records and “You Really Got Me” was our biggest hit...our first hit. So, that was a big stepping stone. I never imagined it to be a career. I was havin’ a great time partying the first two or three or four years. I was just out havin’ a good time checkin’ out all the clubs and the chicks. It wasn’t too long after we started to... get into more like making albums and we started to expand musically. I think Arthur... Village Green and Arthur are important albums for us musically as well as direction.

Ken: How did your songs come about?

Dave: I think that part of being in a band is... is always... in those days particularly, everybody would kind of chip in ideas. Obviously Ray wrote most of the songs but the ideas were formed out of like guitar riffs... mainly, just talking over things. I feel I would sit around with Ray and I would sit at the piano and ching through you know... a thing like “Waterloo Sunset”. He played out the chords and sang a verse and I suggested a guitar bit to go with that. It’s really much like that, very much a collaborative thing. We’d all kind of try and suggest elements to make the song work. Sometimes you have arguments doing it... “I don’t like that.” or “That bit works better than that.” I think that in the early days, because we had a producer of sorts but he was more like a referee than a producer... so we would listen and our management was helpful in that... but I think in the end, I think we kind of... Brian and I worked very closely but Ray mixed... it’s like he ended up taking control over the mix. I would sit with him and we would discuss things and then we’d have another argument and so...

Ken: What was that like in terms of the relationship between you and your brother?

Dave: Obviously it was very tough, you know? It’s very tough working with your family anyway. I think what made it even more difficult for Ray and I, because we’re both very very different personalities with a lot of ideas and I think we sort of bumped heads a lot, very much so with ideas and sometimes it’s almost like we had too many ideas rather than not enough. That was almost like a problem in itself, trying to decide on what to do. It was like, I mean, obviously Ray’s such a prolific writer and always has been. That’s why it was so nice to get, ummm... I’ve got a lot of material that I haven’t used. That’s what was so nice in 1979 when I went into the studio and made my solo album because I had so much material I just didn’t know what to do with it. That was a big release of energy for me to do that. Then I made another two solo albums so it was difficult, yeah... and some of the songs didn’t suit. I mean, there was this song that was on the Unfinished Business Anthology, “Come Cry Me A Wall” which had been sitting on a tape that I made in my front room all those years ago and everybody’s been writing to me and saying how much they like it. I never even dreamt of using it. We might do it tonight.

Ken: What do you think was like the classic or the peak of what you liked as far as the KINKS sound. Was there a particular album? Albums?

Dave: I’d say I’ve got a special feeling for all the albums... I thought Phobia was a good album. I think Sleep Walker was a very pivotal record and…

Ken: When you got into the rock opera stage with School Boys In Disgrace, Preservation and the like how much input... because almost everything there is written by Ray, how much input did you really have in terms of the sound?

Dave: With the first... What was it... Preservation? It was just really when I got the studio together so I was kind of engineering and producing which I kind of liked cause I... cause we started to get the album together... we started to get Cult Label together, I mean. I wanted to get into production. We just had the studios working so I was kind of.... I was engineering a lot of that first Preservation album. If you look on the credits it’s got me as.. I was interested in the concept and I enjoyed... I think the only real... I think Soap Opera I didn’t like that much. I felt it was a little bit too self-indulgent and I felt the band weren’t gelling as a band. Everyone was getting a little bit disheartened about it and there was generally like a bit of a bad feeling. That could easily have spelled the end for the KINKS. In a way though I think that it was all good experimentation for Ray as a writer but I think musically we were getting a bit fed up. When we got on the road again and we started doing Soap Opera and Live Show and realizing how funny it was... We’d do two sets. We’d do a KINKS and then we’d do this other pop and it started to get fun again. So, you know... It happened for a reason.

Ken: With all the time you’ve spent on the road doing shows and stuff can you give us just one story that might be humorous or interesting?

Dave: Gosh... I think one of my favorite things... there’s so many I can’t think of them all but one that comes to mind... I remember once we were playing the Philamonic Hall in New York and it was a fabulous place. I don’t know if you’ve ever been? Beautiful place. In the dressing room we had this grand piano and we were rehearsing and I think we all kind of drank a little bit too much before we went on stage. By the time we got on stage I think we were really a little bit too far gone. We got up and we did like 15 or 20 minutes of this sloppy set and then Ray turns around and walks backwards losing his balance. I think he’s going to fall on me and I think ahhh... I moved out of the way and he fell on my amplifier, knocked down the amplifier and he couldn’t get up ‘cause he was so out of it. Then the drums got smashed and then the audience started getting up on stage and singing. It was like someone tried to steal the cymbals and Mick was holding the cymbals down and ummm... There’s more people up on stage than there was in the audience. Catastrophe really. We thought it was gonna be... it was a catastrophe... Fans really liked it.

Ken: With this tour, is this the beginning of maybe doing even more stuff for yourself?

Dave: Well, yeah. I’m doing an album... I’m hoping to do a studio album this year and this is kind of a leg in, you know, a step in to that switch over. I’ve got so many songs I’ve been writing over the last three or four years so that’s sort of like what my next...

Ken: So this is like a teaser for what’s coming out.

Dave: Well, yeah, in a way. I want it to claim or to make it a statement about the history of my involvement with the KINKS and what I’m doing now. It’s got some live stuff on it so that’s... quite then and now.

Ken: Sure because you’ve got a whole new generation of fans really. Final Comments

Dave: I think that it’s an exciting time mate. The generations, they don’t seem to be as important as they were years ago in the 80’s. It’s great...It’s nice to see young people at the shows as well as all the familiar faces.