Ray Davies Says the Kinks Are Getting Back Together
By Jem Aswad
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In characteristically whimsical fashion, Kinks frontman Ray Davies told the BBC Monday that the group will be getting back together to record a new album after more than 20 years apart — although he seemed to hedge his bets by taking a call from drummer Mick Avory during the interview and saying he would see him in the pub later, then quipping: “The Kinks are getting back together…in the pub at least.”
However, Davies, 74, said during the interview with Channel 4 News (watch the video below) that he was “making a new Kinks album” with brother Dave Davies and Mick Avory.
“We’ve been talking about it because I’ve got all these songs that I wrote, then the band — not broke up, we parted company — and I think it’s kind of an appropriate time to do it.” A rep for Davies had no further information on a Kinks reunion. The singer will release “Our Country: Americana II,” his second album in collaboration with the Jayhawks, on Friday.
In the BBC interview, Davies said he was inspired by the Rolling Stones, who completed and eight-date British tour last week. He noted that a Kinks reunion “won’t be well-organized like the Stones.” He continued, “Great band, great at organizing their careers and Mick [Jagger] has done an incredible PR job and it’s kind of inspiring to see them doing it — but will probably play in the local bar,” he added.
The famously fractious group — whose founding members include Davies, his brother Dave, Avory and bassist Pete Quaife, who died in 2010 — formed in 1963 and rocketed to stardom the following year via their third single, “You Really Got Me.” A string of classic singles — including “All Day and All of the Night,” “A Well-Respected Man,” “Waterloo Sunset,” “Lola” and more — followed throughout the decade; the group remained a successful recording and touring act well into the 1980s and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
However, the group and particularly the Davies brothers were renowned for their arguments both on and offstage. Quaife left in 1966, returned, then left for good in 1969; Avory left in the mid-1980s; the Davies brothers last performed together in 1996 but both have continued to tour and record as solo acts in the years since.
“The trouble is, the two remaining members, my brother Dave and Mick, never got along very well. But I’ve made that work in the studio and it’s fired me up to make them play harder, and with fire,” Ray Davies said. “So if I can recapture those moments…”
