RAY DAVIES: PLANS FOR KINKS REUNION

BROTHERS: The Kinks' Ray and Dave in the 1980s

Friday November 16,2007

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RAY Davies is hoping to reunite his legendary Sixties band The Kinks but says it will never happen if it is just a “karaoke” get-together done for old time’s sake.

The band’s frontman says he loathes touring as a solo artist and longs to pen new tracks inspired by his bandmates.
“I really would like to get together if we had new music,” says Ray, 63, whose hits with the band include Waterloo Sunset and You Really Got Me. “Otherwise it’s just a nostalgia evening, ‘Karaoke Kinks’.

“I really hate being a solo artist. But there’s no other way to get my songs sung.

“The chemistry is still important. I wrote for those characters [band members] and they all had an influence on what I did.

I know I wrote a lot of the stuff but they were my muse. They were what I was writing for and I couldn’t have done it without knowing they’d be there.”

Relations, for the most part, are still good between the founding members of the group, reports Ray: “I still talk to [drummer] Mick Avory. Whenever I’ve got a big issue, I always talk to Mick. We grew up together and he’s a wise old bird.

I know I wrote a lot of the stuff but they were my muse

Ray Davies

“And [original bassist] Peter Quaife too, I call Quaife up sometimes.”

However, Ray says there are still tensions to be settled with his brother Dave, the band’s guitarist, who suffered a stroke in 2004.

“I haven’t spoken to Dave since February,” explains Ray. “That was not a happy confrontation. What’s the issue? I think family problems. I want him to come and live with me.

“He came and stayed with me for a while when he got sick. I quite liked it. I slept better because he was in the vicinity.

“I suppose it’s a big brother thing. But he wants to forge his own way. In a strange way he’s at his least communicative with me but we understand each other more because we’re brothers.

“And I’ve got a really clever idea for us. I’m not going to tell him what it is yet, until he says he’ll do it. I have an instinct inside me of what’s right for the next record and I know I can plan a great project – as long as they’ll do as I ask!”