KINKS: INTERVIEW, GRIST, CUTTING, RECORDS, MEMORABILIA, PIX, FAX, INFORMATION & USELESS TRIVIA. Ever since that incredible run of hits in the mid sixties, the Kinks have been one of my favourite bands-so when Pete rang up and told me that Ray Davies had agreed to speak to us, I was pretty excited. When the day arrived, however, old Frame got sick (too much exotic .... ) and so I had to go on my own. Now Ray Davies is reputed to be a very difficult person to talk to; said to be reluctant to discuss his songs and to adopt a generally incommunicative attitude. Well, fortified by a few pints, I ventured into the Kinks new office at Highgate, and when he turned up, we went to the local pub and started chatting. He was an absolute delight to talk to... relaxed and charming -none of the moody stuff that everyone predicted. He tends to distrust tape recorders, however, so I didn't use one, but scribbled frantic notes throughout the conversation. Here are the parts I salvaged from my memory and jottings. ZZ: I've just been into that pub over the road, which is full of Arsenal photos .... I've been going to their matches in recent years -a fair weather supporter ... Ray: There are plenty of them around. I once played in that pub -Leslie Compton (once upon a time Arsenal's centre half) used to be the guvner .... that was a few years ago. ZZ: When you first started you played under about ten names, didn't you? Like the Ravens and the Ramrods? Ray: Yes, after a while, but before that it was just me and whoever I could get to play with me -this was when I was at art school. Really there was just one another guy, Geoff Prowse, who I'd dearly like to see again; we used to play with just me on piano, and do all sorts of songs and skits ZZ: What about this rare Australian guitar you swore by in those days? Ray: (Thinks very hard) It was called a Maton- there wasn't really anything very special about it .... I haven't go it any more. ZZ: So you got a regular gig with Robert Wace? Ray: Yes; he just wanted a backing group and so he used us, then he stopped singing and became our manager ... ZZ: With these other guys - Larry Page and Grenville Collins? Ray: (Grins) It's all very complicated but it's in the song (begins to recite the words of 'Moneyground' from 'Lola' lp). ZZ: So you got dressed up in those pink hunting coats and got a new name -who thought of that? Ray: The velvet thing and the hunting jackets just sort of happened - it wasn't a gimmick idea or anything .... we went into this shop and those were the kind of clothes I liked. The name was Larry's idea -it was during the start of that fad for kinky boots, you know, Millicent Martin on That Was The Week That Was. I never really liked the name, but we got stuck with it, and over the years I've got used to it, I suppose. ZZ: Indian music influenced quite a few people in the sixties-the Yardbirds and Canned Heat, for instance -but you used an Indian drone on 'See my friend' back in '65. I've got a press cutting which says you were into Indian music at least a year earlier .... you used to eat in Indian Restaurants purely to hear the music - is that right? Ray: Well, I listened to people like Ravi Shankar, but he never represented Indian music to me - I used to prefer that sort of wailing sound. I mean, I really adore some of those Indian films-the stories aren't much, but the music's fabulous. We heard some fantastic music when we were in the Lebanon in 1968; it had such a full bodied sound, but at the same time it was clear and piercing. ZZ: There have always been rumours that when Shel Talmy came in to produce 'You really got me', he brought in Jimmy Page and various other session men and used them rather than the bona-fide Kinks. Ray: No. The take of 'You really got me' that was actually issued was the third ... there was a demo.thing with Dave playing lead, a second cut which may have had Jimmy Page (and which Pye still have), and a third which definitely had Dave on it -I know, I was standing right next to him when he played it -and that's the one which was released. ZZ: How long did you continue with Shel Talmy producing? Ray: Up until 'Sunny Afternoon'. ZZ: In those early days, the Kinks were notorious for the fights that used to break out at their gigs-both in the audience and on stage. What about this one-Dave got hauled off stage and punched by the bouncers at a 1964 gig at Basildon. Ray: Well, you've got to remember that times have changed since then-I mean, that was 8 years ago, and in those days you arrived at the ballroom, the promoter and his bouncers grabbed you and locked you away in the dressing room, which was usually no more than a big cupboard, and then they'd come and unlock you when it was time to go on. It was terrible, but you had to put up with it, and it led to a few strange scenes-like one time, Dave fell off the stage but managed to scramble up in time for his solo, I remember. ZZ: Dave seemed to be at the centre of a lot of those fights. Ray: Well, he was so young -he was only 16, and the strain was incredible. It was like throwing a boy into the army and then sending him straight to the war. ZZ: Look at these other cuttings I've got: this one about a fight at Cardiff, where Mick Avory explains a dramatic stage fight. "It was part of a new routine we'd worked out; the idea was that Dave should wave his guitar at my drums and that I should pretend to hit him with the cymbal. Well, last night I did actually hit him, accidentally-when he fell and everybody rushed onstage I felt such a fool, especially when I realised that I'd injured him". Ray: Well, you had to have explanations ready for the papers. In actual fact, Dave had got annoyed about something and went over and booted the drums about. Mick's drums, of course, were his treasured possession, so he retaliated by belting Dave with a cymbal .... it was during 'Beautiful Delilah' I remember! He was almost done for grievous bodily harm; the police down there (Cardiff) wanted to charge him. ZZ: What about this rumpus at Copenhagen? Ray: That was really funny. It was at the Tivoli and there was a riot .... total chaos. The only thing that didn't get smashed was a big picture of Jim Reeves! That led to us being banned over there, and Dave got carried away-about forty policemen had arrived to arrest him. It was a bit of a desperate situation because we were supposed to fly to London for the NME pollwinners concert the next day, so we had to bail him out fast and pay off a huge damage bill. ZZ: You're a very prolific writer and usually when it comes time to record a new album there are songs left over .... what happens to them? Ray: Most of them just get forgotten .... some only get as far as a few chords and some words, but others are complete. A few have been recorded by other people, like Peggy Lee and Sonny & Cher have done songs of mine, and Herman recorded 'Dandy' (off 'Face to Face') which I wanted to put out as the follow up to 'Sunny Afternoon. ZZ: A lot of people rate you as one of their greatest influences-Townshend and Kevin Ayers and even the Dead, who used to play a lot of your songs. How do you feel about that? Ray: Well, it's very flattering .... I can't really say much more than that. ZZ: You've been through a few upheavals with the administrative aspects of the Kinks; Grenville Collins disappeared from the scene, then Larry Page-was that pretty grim at the time? Ray: What, the lawsuits against us and so on? I wrote 'Powerman' about that whole episode, all about lawyers and things. It was ok .... the judge called us things like jealous and spoilt adolescents, but, you know .... I had to leave the courtroom when Mick got up -I would have exploded, he was so funny. ZZ. The BBC have given you a few rough passages too, haven't they? Like that body-snatchers film you used to promote 'Dead End Street'-they wouldn't show that, and they banned 'Plastic Man' over the word "bum". Ray: Yes, wasn't that absurd? The other night I saw Lou Reed on tv talking and singing about drugs-something that can be really evil. I don't know .... ZZ: What was that film Dave was going to star in? Ray: Don't know .... must've been some kind of horror film. ZZ: It was a bit of a lean time, wasn't it, during this period ('68-'69); sales were down, gigs were thin and the story was out that you were thinking of leaving. Ray: Well, I was working incredibly hard on Arthur at the time, but there are so many other things that I want to do-like plays and musicals, and I really do want to take up painting again. I suppose that's how that story of me and the Kinks being like Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys came about. ZZ: In the end, Granada decided not to do the play (Arthur). Why was that? Ray: It just went over budget and they pulled out. It was awful; I'd put so much work into it and they just turned round and said forget it. ZZ: You sued them, didn't you? Ray: Yes, but nothing came of it. ZZ: And then the album did very little when it came out. Ray: Yes. We came in for a lot of criticism from people who said we were imitating 'Tommy', but I'd had the idea for ages and had been working on it for the most part of 1968. ZZ: Pye didn't seem to put everything into the promotion of that album-and they hadn't on the previous one 'Village Green Preservation Society' either. (In fact, I had never even heard of that album until Pete Townshend, in an interview he did with me and John Tobler, mentioned that it was one of his favourite albums ever. Good old Tobler subsequently unearthed and bought about a dozen copies in a Woolworth's deletion rack in Richmond or some such place, and, as Townshend says, it's just incredible. All the strengths of the Kinks are here, and Ray Davies' songs are full of those very simple economical melodies and his incomparably incisive lyrics. It is, I suppose, an album with a central theme, a motif that links all the songs - one of nostalgia for the dying bits of Britain, and alarm at the indifference displayed by most people.) Weren't your record company behind you? Ray: It was strange; they hardly spent a penny promoting those albums. You see, we had, in their terms, been a singles band only; we enjoyed tremendous success with hit singles and it was hard for Pye to think of us as a group who actually made albums as opposed to albums made up from a bunch of singles, shoved together for Christmas or something like that. On 'Village Green', there was no obvious hit track that they could take and exploit-and I would've been offended if they'd taken a single off, because it was an album. Pye wouldn't give us any money to do our cabaret version of the album either; they said we could have the money if we gave them a single, which we didn't. 'Village Green' was in some ways an album of repentence, if you like; we'd been a bunch of incredibly big-time young guys, and it suddenly occurred to me when I got home after some tour or another. I thought about how I'd been interested in getting whatever I could and that I'd been turning my back on the things I grew up from .... it was sort of like the prodigal son suddenly discovering the world he'd been ignoring for so long, these things that were really valuable. Mind you, the decision to do the album like that wasn't unanimous-Dave's reaction was very adverse. ZZ: Your fortunes changed for the better with 'Lola'-how did that come about? Bay: I wrote that during the play I was doing-it's all about the music business and the people who work in it. ZZ: A lot of people think you slag people off in your songs. Do you think you do? Ray: Not really; it's more like just seeing them as they are .... I don't think there's any malice. ZZ: That tv play you were in, 'The Long distance piano player'-was that role close to you, something you felt ..... being manipulated. Ray: Sure, it was very much a mirror, as all acting is. I used to do a bit of acting at college I use it as a sort of therapy. ZZ: Why did you leave Pye in the end-was it down to the "101 different ways to repackage old Kinks hits" way of life that they seem to adhere to? Ray: Yes, it was the situation I told you about a moment ago; they-greeted everything with "give us a single"-and, yes, it was a drag to find tracks coming out on Marble Arch things before they'd even appeared on a proper album. ZZ: What went wrong with that Rainbow tv thing? Ray: Everything; it was a total waste .... it wasn't about the band, and it wasn't about the music either. ZZ: That cover photo on 'Muswell Hillbillies' shows a shop called Cats on holiday -what on earth does than mean? Ray: Just what it says. It was a place to leave your cats while you went on holiday .... it's been pulled down now. ZZ: Rolling Stone said the new album is all about America-is it? Ray: No. Some of it is-like 'Maximum consumption' is about American food, but 'Morway' was written as I was going up to see Arsenal against Stoke in the cup semi-final last year . . . . .and then they lost the final! That was the night we played the Bickershaw Festival-we were, pretty depressed that night. ZZ: Last time I saw you, at Watford, you were doing all these Led Zeppelin send ups-why was that? Ray: Because Dave plays lead guitar on all their records. Connor McKnight YOU REALLY GOT ME The Kinks Reprise October 24th, 1964 The fierce, machine-gun-like stutter of Dave Davies's fuzzed-up guitar in "You Really Got Me" is arguably the most influential and imitated riff of rock's last quarter century. It has echoed through dozens of rock classics, as well as many of the Kinks' own greatest hits, including "All Day and All of the Night" and "Tired of Waiting for You." Ray Davies, one of British rock's most gifted lyricists and melodists, launched the Kinks with this enduring blast of teen carnality. "It was written in my mum and dad's front room on the piano," he says. "I'd just had shepherd's pie to eat." The Kinks recorded "You Really Got Me" for the princely cost of 200 pounds (about $600) in July of 1964. It quickly zipped to Number One in England and Number Seven in America, eventually selling a million copies worldwide. Ray, younger brother Dave, bassist Pete Quaife and drummer Mick Avory suddenly found themselves on top of the pop world. Ironically, according to Ray, "You Really Got Me" almost didn't get recorded. "It was the last demo on a reel of five songs," he says. "The others were all kind of conventional pop songs of the time, Beatle-type things. As soon as the record company, publishers and managers heard 'You Really Got Me,' they stopped the tape and wound back to the other stuff. They didn't think it had a chance." One person who disagreed was a critic for New Musical Express who caught the Kinks at the bottom of the bill on a Dave Clark Five tour in early '64. "He gave us a dreadful review," Davies says with a laugh, "but he said, "The one ray of hope for this group is a song called "You Really Got Me."' He was the first person to pick up on it." "It was an extremely powerful musical riff," says Shel Talmy, the producer of "You Really Got Me" and many other Kinks classics. "It got to you the moment you heard it." Indirectly inspired by the core riff of "Train and the River," by jazzman Jimmy Giuffre, "You Really Got Me" was originally conceived by Davies as a blues number. The song took on its proto-hard-rock sound when he brought in Dave to play the guitar part. "I'd written it on the piano with a choppy sound," says Ray. "He gave it the sliding effect." The distortion Dave got from his amp was the crowning touch. "We had an old record player," Ray says. "We didn't know the speaker was distorted, so we'd just play these records - Chuck Berry and all that - and think, 'Oh, what a great sound.' When we found out what it was, we doctored our speakers to sound like that." It took two sessions in different studios to get the song right. "The first version," says Talmv. "was slower and bluesier. It was much more American, because we thought that was the market we were aiming for. I liked it." Ray was less certain. "I think Shel overproduced it to a certain extent, with every good intention," he says. "He gave it this big sound, and it lost the character of the group." When the Kinks insisted on re-recording the song, Pye Records (their U.K. label) demanded they pay for the session themselves. Ray did his vocal in one take; Dave produced the scorching guitar solo on the spot. "Maybe it's not much of a solo," says Ray, "but it's a beautiful eight or nine seconds." Contrary to rock apocrypha, Jimmy Page did not play guitar on "You Really Got Me" though Talmy did hire him to do some rhythm work on a later LP. Session drummer Bobby Graham, however, was used in Mick Avory's place. "You know, it's funny," Ray says. "Dave and I have our ups and downs. But when it comes to that song, all the feuds are forgotten." 86 - ROLLING STONE, SEPTEMBER 8TH, 1988