Greg Prato for Ultimate Guitar spoke with The Kinks‘ Dave Davies, the segment appears in its entirety, below.
Ultimate Guitar: I think I recall once in an interview that producer Eddie Kramer claimed that Jimmy Page actually recorded guitars on You Really Got Me. Is that true or false?
Dave Davies: No, it’s not true. He [Page] was there at the sessions, because I thought they worried that we couldn’t play. There’s no animosity, and Jimmy was a nice guy, we got on well with him. I hardly said anything to him.
Ultimate Guitar:The Kinks are often credited with contributing to the creation of heavy metal. What are your thoughts?
Dave Davies: Yeah, I think so. I think it was true. And we did come at the time when the heavy metal wave was evident, and that was really important for us. And we were lucky. We were blessed with… Ray wrote the songs, wrote some great songs. And you have to remember that there comes a backstory with all these tracks. And it wasn’t easy. I’m glad.
Ultimate Guitar: Another style The Kinks are credited with helping create was punk rock.
Dave Davies: Well, I thought [The Kinks song] Prince of the Punks was a bit funny. It’s a funny song, really, because it was a little kind of a nod to a guy that we knew in a punk band [allegedly Tom Robinson]. We tend to take things in their stride.
9 Responses
i love the kinks. they definitely contributed to what became “hard rock.” their music is pretty varied, but one of my favorite eras of theirs is their hard-rocking “arista years” when they were making cranking tunes tailor made for arenas. check out the album “come dancing: the best of the kinks 1977-1986.
Everybody knows Sabbath invented heavy metal! Priest followed. Metal is all about the riffs! Kinks are in no way metal, never have been or will be by me anyhow. That muswell album is very country rock. But genius at the time. Can’t really label Kinks. But Deep purple and Zep! Hard Rock! Love physical Graffiti! I was buying records and seeing shows back then. Sabbath was the 1st ” metal ” band. Never say die was the last tour I saw Sabs on. Crazy that they kicked Izzy out of the band because he couldn’t sing. Then came blizzard of Oz to the top of the chart 🙂
longtimefan,
Welcome.
I am going to guess, that you meant to type Ozzy, as opposed to Izzy, and that is a typo?
As for the Ozzman, I don’t believe he was kicked out of Sabbath, because he couldn’t sing, but rather, because of heavy substance abuse. Even though, the entire band, were high out of their gourds, or smashed on liquor, Ozzy, was the sacrificial lamb, because he was showing up late and acting reckless.
Since the name Izzy was mentioned, Dust N’ Bones a great Guns N’ Roses song. 🙂