Dave Davies knew his brother Ray had come up with a special sort of masterpiece in the character-driven “The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.”

A bittersweet song cycle driven by nostalgic longing for a simpler time, it failed spectacularly when it hit the streets of 1968 with its odes to “preserving the old ways from being abused” but would go on to be the Kinks’ most celebrated album.

“Like all great art, it lasts because it keeps pulling you back,” Davies says.

“And you learn something new about yourself and about the world, hopefully. It’s about reminding us of what we’ve lost spiritually or emotionally. There is a longing for the past, but the real challenge is to adjust to the change that is in front of us.”

Were Davies and his bandmates disappointed that album did so badly at the time?

“I try not to look at things like that," he says, "because the impetus you need to go on is finding success in the fact that you finished something worthwhile. Otherwise you tend to become some kind of weird egotist where everything I do has got to be successful. I mean, obviously, we all need money. But the real reward is in the content. How is it changing my life?”

The album was written and recorded in the middle of a four-year ban from touring in the States, which effectively crushed the momentum the British Invaders been building since “You Really Got Me” hit the charts in 1964.

In an interview earlier this year with azcentral.com, Ray Davies said, “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.”

How the U.S. ban 'helped galvanize us'

Dave says he wasn't bothered by the ban.

“I quite liked it in a way that we weren’t able to go to America,” he says. “I thought that we could get back into sharing things as a family. It helped galvanize us as people, I thought. The Kinks have always been inspired by the family. We’ve often drawn from it, when you think ‘Arthur’ or ‘Muswell Hillbillies.’ It’s all about a part of our lives.”

A lot of the characters who populate “The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society” grew out of people in their neighborhood as they were growing up.

“The fact is when we got back from America, we became a much more introverted band,” he says. “I know Ray was writing more internal things. And I loved it. I fell right into it because Ray and I were close at the time. We were getting on well. Our families were living near each other. You’d go meet for a drink after working and we’d talk about the people we knew and ‘Oh, remember so and so.'”

The tone of Davies’ musings on the value of tradition, as embodied by lines as nostalgic as “God save little shops, china cups, and virginity,” could not have been more out-of-step with the prevailing values of rock culture at the time.

That may be why the album’s lyrics feel so timeless now.

'The Kinks were ahead of the curve'

“Ray was writing about that sort of thing way before people started to think about things like that,” Davies says. “’But as the ‘80s wore on and the ‘90s came, people started to realize the common sense of ‘We’ve got to keep some of this stuff. We can preserve the old things and values or ideas that work and integrate them with the new.’ So in a way the Kinks were ahead of the curve on that point.”

The album also marked the end of an era for the Kinks, their last release to feature founding bassist Pete Quaife.

“I think he’d been disillusioned for a while and wanted to do his own thing,” Davies says. “So that was a big event, when he left. And our managers left. It felt like we started all over again. But you know, you pick up the pieces and carry on as best you can.”

The 50th anniversary of the landmark album is being celebrated with the release of a deluxe box set that features 174 tracks spread across two vinyl LPs, 5 CDs and three singles; a 52-page hardback book whose highlights include a loving essay by the Who’s Pete Townshend and assorted memorabilia.

It also features a collection Davies did of six artistic representation of the songs, which are also on display in a newly opened “Village Green” exhibit at Proud Galleries in London through Nov. 19.

“That was a very rewarding thing to do," he says. "It’s like a new project again.”

The hope of new Kinks music

It was his brother’s suggestion that he do those paintings, Davies says, which may have set the wheels in motion for the brothers to collaborate on new material for the first time since the Kinks broke up in 1996.

“Hopefully, we can try and do some new music,” Davies says.

The guitarist sounds genuinely moved when told of a compliment his brother paid him in that interview from earlier this year, in which he summed up the prospect of working with Dave again by saying, “He inspires me to want to write.”

“That is really nice,” he says. “A pity he didn’t say it more in the past.”

Davies laughs, then continues.

“But that’s great. I’m quite taken aback. We all need inspiration to do whatever it is that we do. We all need motivation to help us get through life. So that’s a great compliment. And I’ve always felt that I’ve tried to fulfill that role, as a musician, as a singer, as a writer, as whatever I am, a person. I think it’s important to inspire people – your kids, the people around you, your village.”

Davies laughs at the word choice, then adds, “You don’t always have to be in the front line of things. Sometimes you can inspire people by saying the right thing at the right time, encouragement through positive feelings. It’s very beautiful if you think about it. If you’re trying to inspire each other, you have no idea what the outcome could be.”

'I've always been his biggest fan'

He and his brother are in a good place at the moment, he says.

“I think Ray knows I’ve always been his biggest fan. Also maybe his biggest critic. Because you know, he’s got great talent, he’s got great art, he’s got a great mind. It’s important to try and do the best you can.”

There was always tension, Davies says. “But when we meet now and talk about things, you know, we’re both getting old. And I hope with age, there’s also wisdom. Not always. But hopefully we’re growing old but learning something as we get there.”

As for the persistent talk of a reunion, Davies says, “It would be nice if we could organize some kind of Kinks event but we’re not sure really quite what it would be yet.”

The anniversary editions of “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society” will be released Oct. 26. Two weeks earlier, a new collection of Dave Davies tracks recorded in the ‘70s will be released as “Decade.”

A 'Decade' of solo music from Dave

It’s a great-sounding record whose highlights, all of which are previously unreleased, could hold their own against the Kinks best output of that era.

“It’s a wonderful feeling, really,” Davies says. “My son Simon produced the album and did a wonderful job. He turned it into a great piece of art.”

The recordings were never intended for release or as Kinks demos.

“It was just as part of the creative process,” Davies says. “I didn’t really envision anything happening. I just felt the emotional need to write and get them out. Sometimes that’s all it takes."

His sons Martin and Simon collected the tapes, he says, “from under beds and attics, all over the place," with Simon going on to handle the production.

Davies found the prospect of getting more deeply involved in the project himself “quite daunting,” he says.

“I thought, ‘There isn’t any way I could make this. It’s all too emotional.’ So Simon said he’d give it a go and I thought he did a wonderful production job. It has the flavor of the time and the tracks kind of flow into each other. Even though they weren’t recorded at the same time, there’s a kind of thread that goes throughout the album.”

Importance of getting emotions out

The beginning of the ‘70s was a difficult time emotionally for Davies, who mentions Quaife's departure and changes in Kinks management as well as the two brothers drifting apart.

"I was going through a lot of emotional and spiritual upheaval internally," he says. "And that’s where a lot of the songs came from for ‘Decade.’ They were outward expressions of what was going on inside. Also losing a couple of dear friends from schooldays had a great impact on songs like ‘Midnight Sun’ and ‘Cradle to the Grave.’ That’s the great thing about writing. It’s a way to get these feelings out.”

But what was once cathartic may have proven overwhelming after all these years.

“Having left them for such a long time, when you revisit them and try to put yourself in the songs again, it’s very in some ways traumatic,” he says. “But I’m glad we persevered and it’s really important to get these emotions out.”

When Davies heard the early mixes his son had been doing, he says, “I started to realize it was really taking on something it never had before, like a purpose or meaning it didn’t quite have when I was making it."

Sometimes you get that, Davies says, when you collaborate with other people.

"They see things totally different and you say, ‘Oh maybe the chords are bad’ or ‘Oh maybe that does work.’ But I’m used to collaboration. That’s what I do.”

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