 Q:107.1 KGSR. This is Jody. And I know it's a good day when I look across from me and I see Ray Davies sitting right there. Welcome, Ray. You did the keynote speech this morning for South By Southwest...
A: I did, yeah. I did. At 10:30 in the morning. It's the same old cliché. I arrived really late last night, you know, about 13, 14 hours on the plane and a few hours sleep and I did that. Yeah, it was really nice. It woke me up anyway. I think they liked it, too.
Q: Did you prepare some spoken remarks
or did you -- A: Well, you know, people always say I'll make it up as you go along. But I had kind of an outline of something I wanted to say. And, yeah, since I've been doing this storytellers thing, - it's been about four or five years now - I've found that preparation is good and then improvise on it. And that's the way I work these days.
Q: Good, because that's how we're
going to work here. A: Oh, is it' So I throw this script away, do I'
Q: Yeah, let go of it. Well, what
was the gist of what you had to say this morning to the hopefuls' A: Well, basically, saying I'm here under false pretenses, really, because I was meant to have had my solo album almost ready, certainly half of it recorded. But it was held up for various reasons, personnel problems and my tour is on tour in England at the moment. And I flew over especially for this today -- the next few days. And so the idea was to do this because I agreed to do it. The idea was to -- last year. You know, I'm not -- didn't have anything to play that was new. So I spoke about how I go about writing songs for this album. It's going to be my first-ever solo studio album.
A: First credited recording was '64, January, February '64.
Q: So almost 40 years and your first
solo album. We're not talking about the Storytellers, which was a live
project. Do you approach it differently' Do you feel like you don't have to write
for the band now and you can write in a different fashion' A: I feel like an estateless person, at the moment, because the band was my kind of home. You know, my passport for all those years had The Kinks stamped on it. And now I've come -- I've left that country and going to a foreign land, a musically foreign land and discovering who I am. I've made about two albums with the demos that I've rejected.
Q: Why is that' A: Because there's more stuff. You know, I'm just -- I haven't rejected it, I've just -- I think part of the speech I actually lost the thread of it this morning, but I said, with the Kinks, we had such a demand for the music, I'd go and virtually finish writing the song on the session. So we didn't have a chance to do demos. Now, it's demo mania. That was the -- that was part of the things I was talking about is, people have to sort of explain what they're going to do so much. And we were so lucky because we had a three-single deal with the Kinks. First two singles were complete flops. Then I had this song "You Really Got Me." It was a number one in England. It did very well here. And after that - because they didn't let us record it straightaway. After that fight, they let me do anything I wanted. And so we just went -- I said, "Look, I've got this song, let me record it." And it was out within two months. I mean, it just can't happen like that. But now, as I say, 'demo mania.' I was also talking about characters within songs. For some reason, I picked up this character of Ralph Cramden, who used to be on The Honeymooners.
Q: Alice. A: Yes, that's it. That was his wife's name, was it'
Q: Yeah. A: Yeah, the Jackie Gleason character. I thought, if I had a record label, I'd sign The Honeymooners. I'd have the sewage worker on the drums.
Q: Art Carney. A: Art Carney. Alice would be on the keyboards and maybe -- you know, it would be a fantastic group. It's material that comes from character. I love that.
Q: And I know you love that. And
you've done, you know, concept records and television films. For some reason,
I thought that the liberation of writing with the Kinks and especially after seeing
the Storyteller show, which had so much autobiographical material, I thought we
might get, you know, Ray Davies in the first person in some of this stuff. A: Yes, you will, I think. It's just confronting it. Think of it this way: Someone who's been suddenly released from, um, not prison. It's cruel to say that Kinks are like prison, because they're not. I love them. I love the time with them. It's being let out into the world as an individual for the first time. That's what I'm going through. And I'm actually enjoying that process of finding out who I am as a singer.
Q: And it's been an unfolding process,
because your book came out and the Storytellers tour had evolutions. So it hasn't
just been like last year that this all began. And there never was a press release
in the papers, The Kinks have broken up and Ray Davies is a solo artist.
Q: Please. Ray Davies is our guest.
Ray Davies of The Kinks, Ray Davies of the Storyteller show that you might have
seen in town a couple of years ago. And Ray Davies, a man who hurt his finger,
is on tour in England, but yet has a guitar next to him. And it really is beckoning
you, Ray... A: I know. It's a lovely little Gibson. I just saw it here -- lying here. I'm also not really a musician. I've just discovered that as well. I only found that out about a week ago. I put songs -- I organize songs, ideas in songs. And I write them. I'm not a singer/songwriter. That's my take on it.
Q: If you were to pick up that guitar
right now and sing "Waterloo Sunset", you would be a musician and a singer/songwriter
instantly. A: Yeah. It's just a strange -- my strange attitude I've got towards -- see, The Kinks were not a -- and I don't want to put their musicality down. It wasn't just music. It was an ideology almost. We had a -- we said, "We're going to make an album called Low Budget." It became like a political thing for us. Even though the music itself wasn't political, we had our little agenda. And the fact that we made music was neither here nor there. It was just what we wanted to do. When I had horns in the band, when we toured with a horn section, one of -- the trombone player said he loved the way I used to voice them, arrange them internally, because the trombone would take the top part. It was like the trumpet and saxophone. Make the trumpet play low, the trombone high. That's the way I like voicing things. So I'm kind of a musical songwriter.
Q: Well, try it.
Q: I'll talk to Ed Hamell. You play
the song, then we'll bargain. A: I'll play you a verse. Jet-lag voice.
Q: No, my eyes are closed. I'm listening
through headphones. Keep going. A: I'll get the audience to sing this bit now.
Q: You took us to Paradise. Ray
Davies is our guest. A: Take it to the pub, I think.
Q: Well, you know, maybe I've been
there before I came here and that's why I'm in Paradise. A: That's nice, thank you. Sorry about the performance.
Q: No, no, hold on to that. We're
not leaving yet. A: There's something that sort of pulled me here.
Q: That's right. A: Yeah. I'm thankful, at least I found a new guitar I can take with me.
Q: You're going to have to play
at least one or two more songs to get that guitar. A: Well, mixed feelings, really, because those sessions we did in those days, you know, we spent so much time getting the records to sound like us and making them sound as good as possible. Then we had to rush in, because needle time can get on the radio. There wasn't round-the-clock radio then. They only had a few programs a week that dedicated to music. And it was quite a coup to get on then. We failed the BBC audition when we started out. But they had to have us on, because "You Really Got Me" was number one. So they got have that ' let us on. So we had like half an hour to do these songs in very rough -- they sound rough. But I think it's representative of the way the band sounded, you know. But not very well recorded. But I guess, as archive pieces, they stand up. What appaled me was the state of the archives at the BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation - you know, our state outlet, radio outlet, didn't really look after the tapes. And all the Who things and the Beatles' things were salvaged just in time, because they would have been lost otherwise.
Q: Now, other parts of the Kinks'
catalog, they were being released on a label that then went away fairly quickly,
Vel-Vel. I think -- don't you agree, it's time for the entire Kinks catalog to
be presented in the proper fashion at this point' A: It needs to be in one home. That's what we've got to do. And we're working on it as I speak. It needs to be -- yeah, I mean, one of the things I talked about in the speech this morning is that my songs are like children. But some of them are like orphans because they're off on funny little labels.
Q: Are you not willing to be the
one who looks for the additional tracks that might be added or to oversee the
reissue of the catalog' Are you not into that' A: You know, so many tracks were abandoned. One might say the Come Dancing album, the State of Confusion album that was out in 1983. And I had a meeting last week with some distributors in London who asked me to look at some old -- through the archives. And I suddenly remembered out of the blue a song I'd done called "Tonight in Romford". Romford is a suburb of London. And it was the whole Come Dancing project before it was actually -- you know, it's the first pass at it. And there were backtracks that we did at the studios. The Konk studios. And I'd forgotten about them. And they're still lying around somewhere. And at the end of multi-track reels, you know, I gave them joke titles, code titles, because the songs weren't finished.
Q: So it will be quite an undertaking
to try and unwind all that and figure it all out. We're talking with Ray Davies of the Kinks, who gave the keynote speech this morning at South By Southwest. The last album Ray gave us was a live edition of the Storyteller show, which played La Zona Rosa a couple of years ago. And now Ray is readying a new album for a new label, Capitol Records. A: Yeah. Q: I hear they have some other artists on that label that are from Britian. A: You know, I always said, right from the beginning, because we were turned down, the Kinks, by every major label in England. It was only a company called Pi Records. They were affiliated to Chess, I think, in America. But it was Pi. It was a little indy label. Gave us a three-single deal. And as I said, the first two singles were flops. And "It Really Got Me" was number one. And it's -- I always said, I never want to be on the Beatles' label. And there you go. It goes around. But actually, weren't they on Parlophone in England' I think they were.
Q: Yeah, EMI/Parlaphone. A: Yeah, I think they were.
Q: Well, here they're definitely
on Capitol. And that's where Ray's going to be. A: Good for them.
Q: And we're looking forward to
your new album. I understand you did a gig a few months ago where you had some
younger musicians like Yo La Tengo be your band. And that was a first of sorts. A: Well, yeah, the age thing in music, you know -- actually, they're all over 30 so I'm -- but I'm not prejudice. It's this whole mixing up music. You know, I believe, whatever makes the music happen is right. I like to -- I really want to cast the right players with this record, because I do like it to sound -- even though it's a solo -- I'd rather it sounded like a band, this record I'm doing, than a bunch of musicians backing Ray Davies. I think it would be boring.
Q: Well, I bet the Yo La Tengo guys
had some ideas about Kinks' songs to play that perhaps you hadn't dealt with in
-- since they were recorded. A: Well, there were a few that they suggested that I had forgotten that I had written, actually. And quite right, too. But everybody's got their own -- it's interesting how everybody's got their own definition of what a good Kinks' song is.
Q: You know, I could name a bunch.
I'd have to say off the top of my head, "Better Things" just comes to mind as
a quintessential song. Ray Davies our guest today on KGSR. Ray, I know your finger's
hurting, but if you want to just take one more pass at that Gibson before we say
good-bye. So many ways we could go here. "Tired of Waiting", "Better Things". A: This is a song that they suggested that -- Ira and Georgia ' in the Yo La Tengo. You know, that -- do you know what that means, their name'
Q: Yo La Tengo A: Yeah. It means -- it's -- I think it was in New York. I had two players who were either Hispanic or whatever. I think it means "I've got it." They both work for the same ball. They both said I got it and both missed it.
A: I think that's what it is. This is a song they suggested. This will be -- for all the listeners out there, this will be truly bad.
Q: Oh, yeah, it's halfway to bootleg
ville. A: Good luck to you.
Q: Ray Davies our guest. Good luck
to you. A: Yeah, no problem.
Q: It was nice to meet you. A: Sorry about the finger.
Q: Well, you've got work to do in
England, but when the record comes out -- A: No, I'll be here with all my -- you won't be able to keep me away from the studio when the record's finished. I'll be in there: "I've got to play live. I insist on being on the radio." But I was reluctant today because I've this wretched finger. I just don't know what to do about it.
Q: Well, just to look up for our
listeners, just to hear that voice coming through the speakers live is a real
treat. So welcome back to Austin. A: It's good to be back. It really is. Q: Ray Davies our guest.
A: Yeah, there's been a lot happening. And yeah, it's going to be busy this year.
Q: Alright. Nice to meet you, Ray. A: Take care, thanks.
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A: No, we still owe an album to somebody. I mean, we're still talking
about an album down the line. I must get this album, my solo album, done. But
my -- I know Dave, my brother, would like to do it. And I've talked to Mick
Avery, who was like the first incarnation. And Mick, you know, he should play
drums more. He plays in little bar bands now. But he's getting lazy. He plays
golf. That's sort of a period -- a horrible period to go through if he takes
up golf. I must salvage him from that.
