Ray Davies of the Kinks on new 'Americana' album: 'There’s no stopping me now'

Ray Davies was 20 when he and the Kinks, including 18-year-old brother Dave on lead guitar, arrived in New York City, four British invaders riding high on such career-defining early singles as “You Really Got Me” and “Tired of Waiting for You.”

Davies recalls the scene that greeted them at JFK in “Americana,” a 2013 memoir devoted to his relationship with a country that has fascinated him since childhood: “A big fat customs officer spelled it out. ‘Are you a Beatle or a girl?’”

By the end of that fateful adventure, he and his bandmates had done a spectacular job of getting themselves banned from touring in the States, effectively pumping the brakes on the momentum they’d been building since “You Really Got Me” hit the airwaves.

The stories he tells in “Americana” inspired a wealth of new material, as captured on 2017’s “Americana” and the recently released companion piece, “Our Country: Americana Act II.”

Davies recorded both “Americana” albums with the Jayhawks, alternative-country veterans from Minneapolis whose sympathetic backing lends a distinctly American flavor to the songs.

And yet, the albums also effortlessly tap into the essence of the Kinks’ best work as they follow a narrative arc laid out in Davies’ memoir.

They even revisit a handful of familiar Davies classics on the new one, re-recording “Oklahoma U.S.A.” in its entirety to breathtaking effect while also inserting a snippet of “See My Friends,” the chorus hook of “Muswell Hillbilly" and more allusions to his past.

We caught up with Davies to talk “Americana” and the journey that inspired it, including his life with the Kinks, who went their separate ways in 1996.

Question: What do you suppose it is that’s drawn you to writing about your relationship with America in recent years?

Answer: Well, obviously, America, when I was a child, had a big impact on me, because growing up in the austerity of post-war Britain, America offered the chance of freedom. I think of it as Britain was in black and white and America appeared in Technicolor. More opportunity. The music, of course, was very compelling. But just the sense of freedom, open spaces. People forget how small the U.K. is. It’s not very big, you know. Some people drive further to get to a shopping mall in America than it takes to drive from one end of England to another. The heroic values — good guys victorious over the emissaries of evil. Heroic, groundbreaking, adventurous, land of opportunity.

Q: Do you recall your earliest impressions of America?

A: When we were about 5 or 6, we used to go to watch the Saturday morning movies with people like Tom Mix and the Lone Ranger. They were all very picture postcard. Of course when we toured there, realism set in.

Q: How did reality compare to expectations?

A: Well, the scale was still the same. But it became scary. It was post-Bay of Pigs. Kennedy had been shot. It was 1965, long-haired people coming to America. There’s a track called “The Invaders” on the new record about the experience.

Q: Do you see this album as a sequel to “Americana” or more as a companion piece?

A: Oh, it’s a companion piece without a doubt. When I started this, it was going to be a three-album project. It’s still my ambition at some point to do a workshop where I can put the whole show down on stage, not as a musical or anything, but an event to put it together in sequence. But that’s down the line. It’s enough to make the record for now.

Q: So you had already planned to do this record when you made “Americana?”

A: Oh yes, it was all part of the plan. We recorded some tracks on the same session as the first album. It was kind of honed to fit the storyline. Without beating you over the head with it, I think it works quite well, storytelling-wise.

'There's no stopping me now'

Q: “Americana” was your first album of new original material in a decade and now you’ve got a second one in two years. Does it feel like a creative reawakening for you?

A: Yeah. I think there’s no stopping me now. I’m on a good roll. We recorded more tracks for possibly a third record or maybe a deluxe version.

Q: You worked with the Jayhawks on both records. What appealed to you about working with them as a backing band?

A: Well, they’re more than a backing band. They bring a great energy to the record. Great casting. They adapted really well. I like working with a band rather than using session musicians. I tried using U.K. session guys but I wanted a group feel. There’s something about a band that work together. They have, like, a telepathy. They interact easily. And I think I achieved that. They were great sports.

Q: You’ve said “ 'Our Country' follows my journey across America; through endless tours not just to reclaim the Kinks' career, but to rediscover the country that offered me my earliest inspirations." When you say "reclaim," are you talking about being made to essentially start over after being banned for four years?

A: Yeah, because the last gig of our first tour of America, we played something like the Hollywood Bowl in front of 15,000 people. Then, when we came back to play after the ban, we played a club in New York to about 200 people. So it was a great learning curve and quite a humbling experience. Even though we had some hits in the interim, we had to build back up, supporting other acts, until we able to eventually reach our own status in the mid-‘80s, playing Madison Square Garden and venues like that. It was a long building process.

Q: I would imagine there was a certain amount of vindication when you got to that point in the ‘80s where you were playing arenas.

A: Yeah, after the concert at Madison Square Garden, we all punched the air and said “Vindicated!” (laughs then adds "I'm kidding").

Q: I’ve heard different reasons for the ban

A: You know, I continue to get other people’s assessments but we had union disputes. Our managers were not very experienced in America. And rock and roll was a bit like the Wild West. You’ve got different taxes in different states. And naivete as well. A few cultural differences. I think now England and America speak more of the same language. Then, it was the same language but different meanings in some cases.

Q: As you say in the book, “Some people say I write songs about Englishness.” Do you think that had anything to do with how you were perceived here in the States?

A: Well, I remember we were banned at the time, but we did a record called “A Well Respected Man” where I sang in the accent I’ve got, an English accent. In those days, it was fashionable for everyone – the Beatles, the Stones and everybody – to sing with an American accent. But “Well Respected Man” is pure North London and it became one of our Top 10 singles in America. And people said, “You’ll never get away with it because you’re not singing in an American accent.” But we stuck to our guns. The same with a record called “Come Dancing,” which was in the '80s. We sang it with an East London Cockney accent. Amazingly Americans picked up on it.

Q: Do you think you would have made those albums you made in the mid to late ’60s if you had been touring in the States?.

A: No. Because America was our aspiration, our American dream and inspiration. So to be banned there cut us off. We felt like outcasts. And I felt like giving up because I couldn’t tour America. But I came back to Britain and bit the bullet and went back into my Englishness and wrote “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society” so I could feel my country of origin more. But eventually I had to journey back to America.

Q: What do you think of that album when you look back on it now?

A: I listened to it the other week and it’s still very different to anything we’ve ever done. It wasn’t trying to impress anybody. It’s a non-competitive album — very indie-sounding, low-achieving, leaving the work to be done by the songs. I think the band played brilliantly on it. And of course it’s the last record we made with our original bass player, Pete Quaife. So it was the end of an era.

Q: There’s a wistful quality to a lot of the songs on these two albums, which is one of the hallmarks of your writing style. What is it that draws you to that tone?

A: Particularly on this record because winning back America, regaining what was lost, the band toured and relationships broke up. It’s a cost you pay. We really toured a lot. Because before MTV, if you didn’t play Tulsa, Oklahoma, they wouldn’t play you on the radio. There was a cost in relationships. My brother had a marriage break up. So it’s very bittersweet. That night we got back to Madison Square Garden, we paid the price for that, in many respects, in private life. It was great playing Chicago, Cleveland, Phoenix. But it’s also what you’ve left behind as well.

Q: Do you think all the touring was worth it in the end?

A: We did what we had to do to get back. It’s a journey.

A new life in America

Q: You moved to America in the ‘90s.

I didn’t move to America wholly. I left the U.K. around 1997-98. I think I wanted to go back to the source of the music. There were politics I was not happy with in England. I felt I needed a change of scenery. But the music that inspired me all started in New Orleans, traveled up the Mississippi and became rock and roll. So I ended up finding a place down there. It’s been a wonderful city.

Q: Do you think the American dream is as strong as it seemed to you in the ‘60s?

A: I still think it’s there. It’s a bit tainted by all the events that have gone on since the ‘60s, but it’s still there.

Q: Have you thought about what sort of theme or topic might inspire your next move after these albums?

A: Maybe Europa. The world is poised to make a move. It’s very interesting. And I’ve got this pet project I want to do about families. I’m very interested in families because coming from a large family, now that everybody’s spread out, it’s very interesting to see the way our family has evolved.

Q: Speaking of family, do you see yourself working with Dave at all again at any point?

A: You know, I spoke to him on the phone the other day. Actually spoke. There’s a couple of songs I wrote, nothing to do with “Americana,” I said “You know, you’ve got the right chops to do that.” So we’re talking about it.

Q: Wow! Does the idea of working with Dave excite you at all?

A: Yeah. It terrifies me and excites me. It’s always a challenge with Dave because he’s a great player and he’s so unpredictable. He’s still got the chops. So who knows? He inspires me to want to write.

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