No Kinks reunion. So says Ray’s kid brother Dave in an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail, the following is reprinted with the slightest chance of permission. It is an interview with Dave by Rebecca Handy.
First off, Dave Davies wants to spell something out. There will not be reunion of The Kinks. Not now. Not in the future. Never. ‘I think the music is so beautiful it shouldn’t be tainted,’ he says. ‘It would be a shame. You don’t need to see silly old men in wheelchairs singing You Really Got Me.’
The problem is that there’s another ‘silly old man’ — fellow Kink and Dave’s older brother Ray — who thinks otherwise. Just a few weeks ago, he insisted Dave was ‘coming round’ to the idea of a reunion.
Dave sighs. ‘Ray’s an a***hole,’ he says
“You’ve heard of vampires,’ says Dave. ‘Well, Ray sucks me dry of ideas, emotions and creativity. It’s toxic for me to be with him. He’s a control freak.
‘I hate to say it, but it’s got worse since he met the Queen [Ray received a CBE in 2004]. In his mind, it’s given him more validity, more “I’m better than you”, more “I’m superior”. With him, it’s “me, me, me”. He thinks he is The Kinks.
‘When I think of all the beautiful music we made, it wouldn’t have been the same if I or Pete Quaife hadn’t been there.’
Quaife is the reason for the brothers’ latest bust-up. Ray wanted Dave to perform at a memorial for The Kinks’ bass guitarist, who died in June, insisting: ‘Even the Mafia get together and make up when someone dies. If only for the funeral.’
But Dave refused. ‘Ray wanting me to come back into the fold is to make him look good. He had an album coming out,’ he says.
‘He’s cancelled the memorial, which again will be my fault. But after Pete died, I had my own private service for him on my website. I asked Elizabeth, Pete’s girlfriend, and his brother David to join me in sending Pete our love and they were happy to.
‘I wrote a few prayers “
He lowers his voice. ‘We must be careful. We might be feeding Ray’s illness by making him think he’s more interesting than he is.’
What illness? ‘He’s a narcissist,’ says Dave. ‘I walked into a bookshop a month ago and picked up Tony Blair’s autobiography. I looked at the picture and felt sick. I thought: ‘‘Hello, he’s got the same thing [as Ray]. It’s some sort of grandiose disorder.’’ ’
Dave, you see, claims to be something of an expert on vanity and self-delusion. He has spent ‘a good part of my adult life studying metaphysics and psychology’.
Since when exactly? ‘When I first started to realise what an a****hole Ray was. I thought I’m going to investigate this.’
Oh dear. Ray and Dave come from a close-knit, working-class family. They were the only boys out of eight children and had a contented childhood in North London.
Wouldn’t their poor mum be turning in her grave now that her sons are at each other’s throats?
‘I should have listened to my mum,’ says Dave. ‘Three weeks before she died in the Eighties she said to me: “Make sure you get something for yourself because your brother’s never going to help you.”
‘I was thinking: “We’re family. We look after each other.” But I don’t think that now. You need to support yourself.’
‘He got a kick out of grinding me into the ground’ – Dave DaviesSix years ago, Dave suffered a serious stroke that left him unable to speak. It has been a long road to recovery. Surely his brother was supportive then?
‘I’m undecided whether he was pleased I was ill or jealous I was getting the attention,’ says Dave. ‘I stayed at his house afterwards. I was ill in bed and could barely move, but he started saying: “I’m sick, I’m sick!”
‘He was screaming in pain from his stomach. A doctor from Harley Street came round at 3am and said: “There’s nothing wrong with his stomach.” He just wanted attention.’
I meet Dave in a West Country hotel, near the home he shares with Kate, his partner of 16 years. He’s in fine fettle and has just finished recording an album with Russell, the youngest of four children from his marriage to Lisbet, whom he divorced in 1990. (He also has four children from two other relationships).
Dave tells me that he has little money – as the songwriter, Ray ended up with most of The Kinks’ royalties – but he insists this isn’t at the root of their feud.
Still, I suspect it has its part to play. As Kate insists: ‘It was your music all the way through, Dave.’ Described as one of Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time, Dave was responsible for the famous riff on their first hit, You Really Got Me, in 1964.
This jaw-dropping revelation comes at the end of our interview. I’ve never encountered such antipathy between brothers. But when I tell Dave this, he reacts with surprise.
‘Oh no, I don’t hate him. It’s impossible. Once an interviewer suggested The Kinks were old-fashioned.
He said to Ray: ‘‘You’re not having any hits any more.’’ Ray said: ‘‘I don’t care what people think. I write songs for my dad.’’
‘That’s the real Ray. I believe he’s still in there somewhere. I could never not love Ray. “
He’s my brother.