“I think rock music is just as important as painting.” Ray Davies—musician, poet, humorist, social critic and leader of one of the world’s oldest rock bands—is sitting in his Detroit hotel room, puffing a cigar, and contemplating just how seriously rock ’n’ roll should be taken. His stance isn’t that surprising, since many people have suggested over the years that “Waterloo Sunset”—one of the Kinks’ numerous masterpieces—is beautiful and vivid enough to be a painting as well as a pop song. If rock is indeed a serious art form, then Ray Davies has given the world some of its most wonderful works.

As far back as the British Invasion, Ray Davies wasn’t your typical rock ’n’ roll star. Unlike his English counterparts who based their appeal on cockiness or terminal cuteness, Davies never seemed totally comfortable in the role. It was strange to hear his shy, insecure voice projecting anthems of unrequited love over what was the wildest, rawest music anyone had ever heard in 1964. “You Really Got Me” and the tunes that followed planted a seed that would eventually spawn heavy metal, as well as four-chord punk rock, making the Kinks a major influence on the popular music of our time. Van Halen and the Pretenders probably wouldn’t argue with that. Neither would Ian Hunter, David Bowie, Sly Stone, the Jam, the Knack, the Romantics, Robert Palmer, the Stone City Band or Peggy Lee, all of whom have recorded songs originally written for the Kinks. More importantly, most of the band’s early records sound as fresh and exciting today as they did in the mid-60’s, living up to the often overused classifications of timeless and legendary music.

Unfortunately, the Kinks were banned from America over a union dispute during the years 1965 through ’69. As a result, America forgot the band, totally missing what might be called the Kinks’ “golden era,” when Ray Davies created some of the most beautiful rock songs ever put on vinyl. The British press and several enlightened American critics began applying the term “genius” to the Kinks with the release of albums like Face To Face, Something Else and The Village Green Preservation Society—all featuring pop melodies that easily compare with anything Lennon and McCartney were writing at the time. Apart from his skills as a tunesmith, Ray had also grown as a lyricist, using pop songs as social essays or satires, and revealing a highly complex mind behind the Kinks.

The Kinks’ special magic has always been the contradictions Ray Davies embodies and deals with in his songs. Ray is an existentialist (“What are we living for?” he asked on “Dead End Street;” “If life’s for livin’, what’s livin’ for?” on “Oklahoma, U.S.A.,” and “You can’t tell me what I’m livin’ for” on “Education”), yet he iis also a humanist who glorifies and celebrates some of life’s most simple, mundane pleasures. He has been both an optimist and fatalist, sometimes in the same song. Some of his best numbers have combined black humor with sincere sentimentality. In fact, the way he mixes the ugliness of reality with the beauty of romance is probably only comparable to Lou Reed’s best material. (Just what an incredible romantic he is can’t be fully appreciated until one actually sees London’s drab Waterloo station which he immortalized in “Waterloo Sunset”—hardly the type of environment one often romanticizes!) Above all, Ray has always championed the underdogs and misfits of a capitalist society—the ones that never had a chance—with a compassion and tender understanding that rivals Charles Dickens.

Following the ban, the Kinks scored big in America again with the sexually ambiguous (could it have foreshadowed “glitter” rock?) “Lola”—which reached the Top 10 in 1970—and an album that attacked the pop music industry at a time when the Clash was still a gleam in Joe Strummer’s eye. Soon after, Ray committed virtual commercial suicide by releasing a series of theatrical rock presentations which flopped miserably (although This is one—and perhaps the only—Kinks fan, who will argue that Schoolboys In Disgrace stands with some of the band’s best work). During the mid-70’s, the Kinks staged a phenomenal comeback by signing with a new label and proving that they were still a dynamic live act. Both Sleepwalker and Misfits entered the Top 40, followed by the one that really did it for the Kinks, Low Budget. The latter album went to #9 on the American charts, the band’s biggest success since their Greatest Hits package from the “You Really Got Me” era.

Of course, Low Budget was unquestionably an American album, and Ray Davies now seemed to be chronicling the decay of America in much the same way he depicted the decline of the British Empire on Arthur. Unfortunately, Low Budget seemed to lack all subtlety which had once been one of the Kinks’ strongest assets. Numbers like “A Gallon Of Gas” and “Catch Me Now I’m Falling” (which was embarrassing in its “borrowing” of the riff from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”) were much too topical to be timeless. The subsequent tour was extremely disappointing; the Kinks appeared to be just another heavy metal band with nothing very important to say and a touch of nostalgia thrown in for good measure. Ray seemed .a parody of his former self onstage, and the Kinks’ new fans (complete with “Fuck Iran” banners) loved every minute of it.

I don't feel I'm a cynic. There's no bitterness in my work.

Despite its deceptive title, the new Give The People What They Want is the best Kinks album in years. A concept album of sorts, it focuses on the world’s current emotional/psychological landscape and is not a very pleasant record. Murder, sexual perversion, rape, the corrupt media, paranoia, emotional battlefields, domestic violence, divorce and loneliness: Davies leaves no stone unturned. And yet just like the old days, he concludes the album with “Better Things,” a song so optimistic and romantic it would sound corny if it wasn’t so obviously sincere and heartfelt.

“Better Things” and “Art Lover” are two of the most beautiful songs Ray’s written since his ’64-’69 “golden era,” while “A Little Bit Of Abuse” and “Yo-Yo” are a glorious return to the classic Kink pop melodies. And songs like “Add It Up,” “Back To Front” or the title cut rock almost as hard as those killer fuzztone anthems of ’64 and ’65. Dave Davies’ buzzsaw guitar is still closer to heavy metal than anything else, but it’s melodic heavy metal with a purpose. The more and more I listen to Give The People What They Want, the more and more I love it.

Compared to the last tour, the Kinks’ current show is a vast improvement, due mainly to the strength of their new material. The crowd in Detroit (a lot of whom sat in the rain) greeted the Kinks with a hysteria that resembled what the band experienced in 1964-66. (Listen to 1967’s The Live Kinks for reference!) Teenaged girls jumped onstage at various times during the show to hug and kiss Ray, interesting since the Kinks are probably now older as a band than a good deal of their audiences is in age. In fact, a lot of the Kinks’ current fans probably have parents who were digging the same band on Hullabaloo and Shindig 17 years ago.

Ray Davies must also be pleased with Give The People What They Want, since he’s currently giving his first American interviews in several years. The man who once sang “You’ll never penetrate me” is a fascinating interview subject. Several days prior to this one, he told the Chicago Tribune: “I find interviews very painful experiences. You want to be truthful, so it’s a self-examining thing.’ Like talking to a psychiatrist, really.” That explains it better than I ever could, and it’s probably the only real introduction this interview needs.

Condensed below, a conversation between Ray, Kinks manager Eliot Abbott, and—from CREEM—Dave DiMartino and myself, following the band’s recent performance.

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Giving people what they want. How does that apply to your new music? Are you giving people what they want?

RAY DAVIES: Something I really deplore about the title of the album is that people might say, “Hey, here are the Kinks giving the people what they want.” The real inspiration for the title came from working in America when I was writing Low Budget, and being exposed to the media and watching TV 24 hours a day. Watching all those shows like That’s Incredible where they use ordinary people. What happens is the comsumer is being used to entertain, to get high ratings, to sell products to consumers. It was going around in a circle. That’s a real con. And good shows were being dropped from TV. I’ve just written an outline, and I hope we’re going to get some money from RCA to do a videodisc because it’s a mediabased album.

And entertainment is being used in the same way, like in the title song where it says the Roman promoters ran out of ideas bringing in audiences, so they thought it was a good idea to throw Christians to the lions. It applies to a lot of different things. It’s kind of my anti-music business thing; my in-joke about certain promoters because promoters are always moaning about their expenses and advertising. There was a verse that I cut out of the song that goes: “The French Revolution was a crazy scene/All those aristocrats getting guillotined/The promoters cleaned up/ The expenses were low/An execution costs nothing/It’s a wonderful show.” So it’s a lot of different ingredients, but in no way is it “Hey! Show Biz! The Kinks giving the people what they want.” It’s anti-that if anything.

"The only guy that gave the Kinks any credit was Jimi Hendrix."

I really want to get the point across that it’s not the Kinks giving the people what they want and that’s just show biz, folks, because that is not the intention behind this album. It’s anti-media, in a sense: the lengths people will go to—see riots, see murder, snuff movies on television—to get higher ratings. That’s really what it’s all about. Like the Yorkshire Ripper [Peter Sutcliffe] in England got the highest ratings. It was on the news all the time. Or this Chapman guy. The guy that shot the Pope is the one who initially inspired the song “Killer’s Eyes.” It happened while we were on tour in EnglandI saw that guy’s face in the paper, and it just wrote the song for me. His face. There was a quote in the story from his mother, and halfway through the song, I sort of take the role of ,the parent. I saw Peter Sutcliffe’s parents doing an interview on TV, and they were as confused and baffled as anybody else. They just didn’t know that they had this monster living with them. But then I would have liked to have written another song because I’d like to have known what made Peter Sutcliffe what he was. He might have had a bad sex life at home. He probably did.

Is the message a cynical one?

Now, tell me what your definition of the word “cynical” is.

Well, I guess a cynic would be someone who looks at the dark side of things. Cynical would be disillusioned.

I was always told that cynicism was the lowest form of comedy, the lowest form of humor. Cynical humor. I would say that my humor is black humor, not cynical humor. You can’t be cynical about someone trying to shoot the pope or strangling girls in Bradford.

I’d really like to get a dictionary and look up what those words mean because I think we all have differnt meanings for the word cynicism. Because I think overall it means a bad thing, an unpleasant thing. So until I have a definition of it, I really don’t want to use the word. I don’t feel I’m a cynic. I’m an optimist, always an optimist. There’s no cynicism or bitterness in my work, I don’t think. If I use bitterness, I use it as a send-up to the song or to the character in the song.

“Better Things” — which concludes the album and which you introduced tonight as a “Kinks” song—is very optimistic. This comes at the end of an album that basically says things are bad. It’s like a complete reversal.

That song was written in 1979, and it was turned down for Low Budget because the band couldn’t get it together. It was recorded as a joke at the end of a demo session, and it turned out to be one of the best tracks on the album, I think.

What makes it more of a “Kinks song” than some of the other ones. Was it relevant that you introduced it as a “Kinks song”?

It’s got a musical phrase in it that makes it a song like “Days.” It’s just going up the scale, but when I reach F sharp, instead of going to a B seven, I go to an F sharp major. It’s just a change, a musical trick. But I really like the song, “Better Things.” It gives me hope. And after a song like “A Little Bit Of Abuse,” you need some hope. So do you consider yourself a romantic?

Yes. Still.

You seem to be very much a performing band now. There was once a time in Detroit...

I smashed the door down that night. I was really angry because I thought it was totally wrong. You see, we came back to America on that tour after having 16 hits all over the world, and we had to start at the bottom because things had changed in America. I got onstage at the Fillmore East for our first concert, and I saw monitors. I’d never seen a monitor before in my life! At least not a stage one. For the first four years of our career, we didn’t hear what we were playing because of the screaming.

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It was a different world in America because of that silly ban that had been imposed on us, and we’d been unable to take advantage of the Woodstock thing and all the new things that happened inbetween. The only guy that gave the Kinks any credit at the time—because Led Zeppelin and other groups like that would come over and say, “On yeah, the Kinks are fucked”—but the only guy that gave us any credit was Jimi Hendrix. He’d come over and say, “Yeah, the Kinks do write good stuff.” I remember doing a show in England called Top Of The Pops. He was doing “Purple Haze,” and we were doing “Waterloo Sunset.” He came over afterward and said he really liked my song, and got a hold of my guitar. It’s one of the big thrills in my life that Jimi Hendrix got a hold of my acoustic guitar and started playing it. I rate him as one of the greatest guitarists. Not a great technician, but he just used it as a weapon. What was the question?

Well, the basic question was that there was a gap there where the Kinks didn’t seem to be a real performing band...

That’s because we were totally floored by all the new technology around us. I saw those monitors, and Bill Graham came onstage and said: “Now, l‘d like to introduce one of the great bands of the world, the Kinks.” We went on and didn’t know what we were doing! All we knew were the hits we’d had in England. We’d just made Arthur, which the critics really acclaimed a great album, and we only played one song from it. We should haive come over and done it as a show.

Those were legendary days as far as reports about the Kinks go. The reports were that the Kinks were out front hitting each other, falling all over the stage...

Well, there was one classic night in Washington, D.C. I’m not sure where we were playing. I think we played Washington J.F.K. Anyway, the Kinks had a really big following in Washington among the senators and other people who worked for the government, and they were going to take us to the White House after the show. And that night, we had one of the biggest punchouts ever onstage. What happened, I think, is my brother Dave is over-sensitive to other people’s emotions, and the keyboard player, Gosling, was totally pissed out of his head that night. We were doing “Celluloid Heroes,” and Gosling actually fell asleep. His head fell on the keyboard, so Dave ran over and kicked him. Mick Avory, the drummer, looked at Dave and said: “What the fuck are you doing?” Dave spat at Mick. Mick threw a cymbal at Dave. They all walked off, and left me singing “Celluloid Heroes.” I said to the audience: “I just can’t work with these guys anymore.” So all the undersecretaries and senators’ friends left, and we didn’t get to the White House that night. That’s typical of the way we were because there was a lot of hatred in the band that I was unaware of. I think it was partly because of those silly concept albums. I should have done them without the Kinks. Except for Arthur. I think that one stands out. The other ones were like experimental theatre rock—boring, yawn. It’s interesting that you see it that way. Maybe with the new videodisc you’re trying to get from RCA.>..

That is going to be sensational, It’s going to be a killer. It’s going to be great. What I’m using—you know that little intro we’ve got at the beginning of the show? That’s going to be part of the disc. I’m using the thing of the deejay—the guy who’s missing —as a very important part of the story because he’s pissed off at the way the media is run, the way people tell him how to play records. He’s being hyped-up, and he’s had enough of it and can’t take it anymore. He disappears. It’s all going to be a show. I’m not saying that this album is a concept album. It’s still a load of songs put together, but I think the videodisc will be a good concept, and I’d like to try it. It’ll be interesting to compare it to Preservation and the other concept things.

No, because this will be on TV. You see, there was no way we could do Preservation and Soap Opera effectively because people were buying tickets to see the Kinks. It wasn’t Soap Opera starring the Kinks. It was the Kinks presenting Soap Opera. We had a tough time staging that. I was listening to Preservation Act II several weeks ago...

. Oh?: How was it?

It was good.

I haven’t listened to it for five years. I can’t listen to it all the way through because I don’t think I went all the way with it.

I was particularly taken by “Shepherds Of The Nation. ”

That’s a great song.

It is. Do you realize that it sort of prophesized what’s going on in this country right now with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority?

Yeah. There’s a show I want to do one day—maybe I shouldn’t tell you this—I want to do a show like that religious channel. I don’t know whether that guy is crying or laughing when people come on and confess that they’ve met God. He says: “Oh, I know, I know.” (Puts hands over face, and makes a combination sound of laughter and sobbing.] What’s his name? Jim something? I want to do a show based on that. Because I don’t like it. It’s like Give The People What They Want—taking advantage of people. Weak people. There are a lot of lonely people in the world. I’m lonely. But for two hours a night, I’m a human being. I just said to Elliot in the car on the way back: “I’m dreading the next 24 hours.” Because I can’t cope with myself, and I’m too tired to sit down and write a song. I just can’t wait to get to Kalamazoo and do the next gig.

Let’s talk about “Art Lover. ” That song is ambiguous in the same way that “Lola” was. At first, it sounds like it might be about some sort of pervert, but I think there’s a lot more going on there.

I had great trouble when I first ran through that song in the studio with the guys. I gave them a chord sheet, and they were really pissed off by this time because we’d already done something like 15 tracks. They said, “Oh fuck. He’s not going to do another track!” And I said, “Just play the chords.” I looked at their faces when we did the playback. First of all, they were just worried about what they were playing. The second playback, they listened to the words, and they looked like “What the fuck’s he writing about?” I originally had put in a line that said something like “Sunday parents with their kinds knowing they’re just alone” which made it obvious that it was about someone who was divorced and only had his kid on a Sunday. So I left it out because I wanted to leave the song ambiguous. I think ambiguity is a good tool, a good weapon. I used it in songs like “Waterloo Sunset.” And I think it just about works because it says “I’m not a flasher in a raincoat.” One of the reasons they’re not putting it out as a single in England is because the BBC has said there’s a flasher in a raincoat, but it says “I’m not a flasher.” So it does sound like a pervert to begin with, but I think it does work in the end and you realize what the song’s about.

It’s a good song. It’s a sad song. And I’d love it to be a single. I wouldn’t care if it bombed and died a death because I believe in that song so much.

There seems to be some of your old themes or images in the song. Sunny afternoon, children, a river...

But it’s part of my life. I do go jogging in Regent’s Park. When I’m in New York, I go in Central Park. Running is an important part of my life. In fact, I think running has saved my life. I’ve been laid-up twice on this tour, and had to have injections to go onstage because my voice is completely gone and everything. The doctor examining me said the only good thing about me is my heart; I have an athlete’s heart. It saves me. So I do go running in the park, and I do see these things. I do see little people feeding the ducks. And on Sunday it’s different becauseyou can see these sad people trying for one day to make it a special event for their kids. And the kids are bored because they know the parents are putting on an act. I think that’s the saddest thing in the world. How seriously do you think rock W roll should be taken?

ELLIOT ABBOT: It’s a rough song for parents.

RAY: It’s a rough song for anybody. It’s a rough song for ducks.

A trivia question that nobody’s been able to point out in any rock magazine: “I Go To Sleep” that the Pretenders do on their new album. Was that written for the Applejacks?

No. That was about the fourth song I ever wrote. I made a demo for the publisher and he sent it to, I think, Mary Wells and Peggy Lee. Peggy Lee recorded it.

Didn’t Cher also record it?

I heard that she did, but I never heard her version. From what I hear, I didn’t miss much. Peggy Lee’s version was brilliant. But Chrissie’s version is great. The Pretenders did “Stop Your Sobbing,” and that’s with the same publisher so he sent them a few more of my songs. She really liked that one, thought it was great. The Kinks have never performed it. There is an original demo of me doing it. Very bad tracking, but it’s going around London selling at a very high price.

While we’re on the subject of trivia, why don’t we clear up one of the biggest rumors about the Kinks. There’s been a lot of arguments between rock fans...

About Jimmy Page playing those early leads?

Yeah.

I’ll tell you something about Jimmy Page. Jimmy Page thinks he was the first person in the world to ever put a B string where a G string should be. And for me, that’s his only claim to fame. Other than that, I think he’s an asshole. You see, when there was a new pop group like the Kinks, you got all sorts.of people coming to the sessions and wanting to sit in. There were a lot of groups going around at the time—the Yardbirds' the Kinks, the Rolling Stones—and nobody had really cracked with a sort of R&B number one record. The songs were always sort of like the Beatles. When we first wanted to do a record, we couldn’t get a recording gig. We were turned down by Decca, Parlophone, EMI and even Brian Epstein came to see us play and turned us down. So I started writing songs like “You Really Got Me,” and I think there was a sheer jealousy that we did it first. Because we weren’t a great group—untidy—and we were considered maybe a bit of a joke. But for some reason, I’d just had dinner, shepherd’s pie, at my sister’s house, and I sat down at the piano and played da, da, da, da, da. The funny thing is it was influenced by Mose Allison more than anybody else. And I think there was a lot of bad feeling. I remember we went* to dubs like the Marquee, and those bands wouldn’t talk to us because we did it first.

You must know the story of “You Really Got Me.” It was recorded first at Pye with a producer who made it sound like Phil Spector, and there was no way that I was going to let them put it out. I said I’d leave the music business first because I’d never write another song like it. In the end, they gave us 200 pounds—which is like 400 bucks—to re-record it. We went into a cheap little studio, and on the session was Mick Avory on ' drums, Dave Davies playing lead guitar—playing a Harmony guitar which was like a cheap version of a Gibson—I was playing a Maton which is a cheap version of a Harmony. I had a Wallace amplifier which was custom built. Dave was using a Vox and a little six watt pre-amp with knitting needles stuck in it. We had Arthur Greenslade—a session pianist—on piano, and a guy named Vic who was doubling my part because I was singing lead. So there were three guitars and a piano doing the riff. And for all I know, Jimmy Page must have been having dinner with his mother that night.

Jimmy Page and a lot of other people subsequently came to our sessions when we became hot, and I think he played rhythm 12-string on “I’m A Lover, Not A Fighter,” and he played tambourine on “Long Tall Shorty.” Jon Lord, the organist of Deep Purple, played organ on “Bald Headed Woman.” The curious thing is I wrote a song called “Revenge” which had a riff like “You Really Got Me.” Our publisher at the time was a man named Larry Page. To get a part of the action—this was a real con trick—he registered the song as a co-composer, and he wasn’t even on the session for the demo. So maybe the fact that Larry Page was credited as co-composer of “Revenge” adds some substantial evidence to Jimmy Page’s claim.

I remember Page coming to one of our sessions when we were recording “All Day And All Of The Night.” We had to record that song at 10 o’clock in the morning because we had a gig that night. It was done in three hours. Page was doing a session in the other studio, and he came in to hear Dave’s solo, and he .laughed and he snickered. And now he says that he played it! So I think he’s an asshole, and he can put all the curses, he wants on me because I know I’m right and he’s wrong. He’s an asshole. Dave is a great guitar player. He’s got his limitations, but he’s never been given justice for doing that. He made that when he was 16-years-old. He created a sound, and after that cdme Jimi Hendrix , and all the fuzz boxes.

How long do you think the Kink's can continue as a band?

Let’s put it like this. I don’t think there’s any end to what we can do. I don’t want to end up in a Holiday Inn. I’d rather sweep the streets because I’d be better at that. I’d be more artistic at that anyway. That’s the last thing I want to do—cabaret and all that bullshit. But I like to feel that every show is the last one we’* re going to do because that gives us the fire.

How seriously should it be taken? As seriously as the CBS News. Because there’s a lot of junk said in rock ’n’ roll— there’s a lot of junk lyrics—but there’s a lot of great lyrics and a lot of great music as well.

1 think what’s happened—it’s got to be taken a bit seriously because it’s become this huge industry. There’s so much at stake. You wouldn’t believe the wheeling and dealing that’s going on to get us to play with the Rolling Stones. I think it really is a big business, and I came into it just to play music. The big companies have got their schedules, they’ve got their quotas, they’ve got their money allocated to artists, and it’s all very important. It’s also a big industry for the government. In the 60’s, it was the only thing England had going for it. That’s why the Beatles got the MBE. Rock music is really one of our biggest exports. So it’s got to be taken a bit serious.

And those people in “Rock ’N’ Roll Fantasy”—it helps people get through their life. I said tonight: “Here’s a song for a waitress. This is for a queer. Here’s a song for a closet queen” or whatever. Everybody’s got to have some kind of identification with something. When I first started out, I used to walk around Muswell Hill and say: “I don’t relate to any of these people. I’ve got to get out of here.” My way out was through music and art. It’s the whole thing in England—the only way to get out is to be a coal miner or a football player. That’s the way it was in the 40’s~~ and 50’s. Now it’s rock music. That’s why . you get bands like Madness going straight from school and becoming rock musicians. Because there’s no other way for them. They can’t get jobs. But rock music has given them an understanding and a way of expressing themselves. I think it should be taught in schools.

It’s a way of expression for people who before would have just been lumbered in factory jobs, and that would have been the end. It would be like the rough going in Eraserhead. Nothing. And even if these kids make one album or one song, they’ve made a mark on the world and said something. That’s what was the great thing about 1977 and new wave music since then. It might not be the best music. The best music was written a hundred years ago or nearly a hundred years ago. But I’m talking about expressionism. You’ll notice that expressionistic art is becoming popular again. I think it’s all collective. So in the sense of a guy listening to music on his stereo to keep alive, to give him the will to get up in the morning, I think it is important. That it is as important as the news.

And it’s got to stop all this. [He points out the window.] Eventually people are going to get fed up with what’s happening to America and England. The Skinheads have got their music in England. I think there are elements in that, though—I hate to say the word—subversive elements. They’re using a lot of; innocent people. It’s great in England, though. We get a lot of Mod kids and Skinheads at our gigs because the Jam like us.

They do a good version of “David Watts. ”

It’s wonderful. They’re getting into our other songs because of that one, and they realize that there is another world apart from that horrible, blank concrete world that’s out there—the Eraserhead world. That’s why music is so good right now. And that’s why rock music is more now than a 19-year-old kid playing to a blonde. That’s why you get guys over 30 playing rock music to express themselves. And that’s why you nave 16-year-old kids playing rock music as well.