Dave Davies on His New Album and Working with Family
by Rebecca M. Alvin
Dave Davies will forever be connected with the distinct, raw sound he and his fellow bandmates created as The Kinks. The legendary guitarist may always bring to mind amazing rock songs like “You Really Got Me” (1964), “All Day and All of the Night” (1964), and “Lola” (1970), but while the Kinks broke up in 1996, Davies’ musical explorations have never ceased. Fans will get to hear what Davies has been up to at this weekend’s Payomet concert at Provincetown Town Hall.
“Music is a great way of communicating all manner of ideas to others,” Davies says by phone from his home in New Jersey. “And it’s a great communication form for inspiring people.”
In his latest album, Open Road, Davies collaborated with his son, Russ Davies, an accomplished electronic music composer and multi-instrumentalist. As the album’s name suggests, the father and son musicians went into the project with open minds, and each brought his own particular musical angle to it.
“I like all kinds of music and finding good music that kind of inspires you, and we worked well together, I think. He brought a lot to the table,” Davies explains.
The two have collaborated before, but Davies explains this time it’s a little more mainstream. “We worked on a few albums together before this over the years, but they’ve been more experimental like space odyssey, sci-fi type things. I like working with him, and we decided to do more of a rock’n roll type album,” he says.
Working with family is something that can be fraught with complications, as Davies well knows. He and his brother, fellow Kink Ray Davies, have had a long, tumultuous past together, with the brothers famously attacking each other physically and verbally on stage, while recording, and in private. Dave Davies assures there is none of this toxicity with Russ.
Davies is also collaborating with another of his children, Martin Davies, on a documentary. The film, called Strangers, is set to be completed this year, and it follows Davies on tour, integrating archival materials from The Kinks days with contemporary interviews with fans and with Davies himself, of course. Although Davies is co-producing it, he says it is really Martin who is the director.
Off stage, Davies says he has many interests, describing himself as “a researcher or as a seeker… always looking for possibilities and things.” He adds, “I’m also a bit of an optimist, so I tend to look for optimistic solutions.”
This openness has led him to speak about the likelihood of alien life and to support the notion of UFO sightings.
“I think we can’t really, in this day and age, think that we’re the only intelligent life in the universe. I mean we need to really keep our options open, and keep our minds open to the possibilities… I mean there might be other intelligences out there that can help us,” he muses. “Hopefully. We tend to mess up our own things ourselves. We don’t need any help messing it up!”
This openness extends to the question he is most often asked… Will there be a Kinks reunion? With a sigh, Davies says, “I really don’t know. I worked with Ray a little bit last year, and we put a few ideas together and then he was working on his own projects and then I was getting heavily involved with me and Russ working on Open Road, so we kind of put that on hold for a bit. But I’m not saying never.”
Dave Davies will perform at Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St. on Saturday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m. For tickets ($30 – $75) and information call Payomet Performing Arts Center at 508.487.5400 or visit payomet.org.
