Post by phobia on Jun 7, 2008 4:33:43 GMT -5
Dave Davies: Bitten by the Bug: by Arlene R. Weiss
(PART ONE) Vintage Guitar Magazine – August 2002
They say that good things are worth the wait. In the case of Kinks’ co-founder Dave Davies, His first solo studio album in nearly 20 years is a good example, Davies garnered fame for his furious flights on the guitar, expressing raunchy, gritty power chords and riffs on Kinks’ hits like “You Really Got Me”. His guitar was straight-up attitude; a voice of frustration and anger at the bleakness he and his family experienced in the factories of working-class England… and yes, his clashes with his Kinks co-founder brother Ray.
But fans accustomed to Davies’ raging guitar work may be surprised to know that he also soaked up the innocence of his hometown, Fortis Green, with equal fervor, along with an array of musical influences ranging from Hank Williams to Eddie Cochran to Big bill Broonzy.
Davies’ mother recognized and supported music as a ticket to a better life. She nurtured his love of music and set him on the road when she bought his first guitar – a Harmony Meteor – when he was 14.
Time and wisdom have imbued Davies with a sense of purpose and idealism. He’s no less the rocker, but now does so with statements of social commentary and satirical wit, jabbing lyrics and crunching guitar tones. The new album rocks, yet is a revolution in the spirited vein of the ‘60s, delivering music as a force of hope and optimism.
Vintage Guitar: Bug is your first solo studio in more than 20 years. Why did you wait so long?
Dave Davies: I didn’t plan to wait 20 years. I have had CD releases on my website which were put together just for the purposes of the internet. I have a CD Purusha and the Spiritual Planet. It’s a classical/techno/trance album I made with my son Russell who’s 21. It’s a story about a young boy who embarks on this spiritual journey.
The other releases on the website are demos I’ve revamped just to get the songs out there. One is called “Fragile” and one’s called “Fortis Green” which is a demo version of what’s on Bug. There’s a couple of others, like my live solo CD recorded at the Marion College.
VG: You wrote, produced, and arranged all the songs on Bug. What was the creative process like?
DD: From the outset, I felt very motivated. The idea for Bug came to me from a few sources. I run a link on my website, and I get a lot of people – astrologers, spiritual healers, and psychics – who join in. I have an email from a woman who thought she had some alien implants in her aura. I did some research, and it seems there’s quite a body of information about so-called “abductees” – people who have had so-called experiences with extra-terrestrials and similar things. That got me thinking.
Then one night (laughing), I woke up 3 a.m. and had this horrible mosquito bite on my arm, and that triggered the song, “Bug”. The mosquito was like an implant from this covert government source, or an alien, Suddenly, it all started to mesh in my brain, and I woke up with the idea that the music is like the anti-virus for life. If you think about how music affects emotions and reminds people of emotions that they’ve had. It’s not such a farfetched idea to use music as a healing process.
VG: So the idea behind Bug is very much social commentary….
DD: It’s all connected. It’s my personal philosophy, my point of view, my perspective. But there are also a lot of people who subscribe to my viewpoint, especially these days. It’s really the theme of the album. “Who’s Foolin’ Who” is about self-delusion and the how the media manipulates the way we think. It starts with this poor guy who’s lost in this media bombardment and confusion, and he can’t tell the real from the unreal. But the guy is still a protagonist, which is me, him, or whoever. And through it all, for that person, it’s not over till it’s done.
VG: Even with all the social commentary and cynicism, the album has an underlying idealism…
DD: Right. That’s just how I think things are. There’s so much horror and sadness in the world. If we could just stand back and look at it, maybe it would be a cleansing process. Even the Earth cleanses itself. Then maybe we could move on. We have to hold on to our beliefs and optimism for the future of mankind because within that hope and that vision of peace or a new world, that’s the world that we all want deep down inside. Maybe the vision is enough to create it. Maybe we’re our own creators.
VG: What inspires your songwriting, and are the lyrics a reflection of your personal statements and comments on life?
DD: They ARE a personal reflection. The only way I feel I can write is from inside. It’s like an inside-out process. The writing for Bug came very quickly and was driven by the idea because it touches on so many levels. It can be funny, or it can be a bug bite. It can be a bug in our own computer. Or it’s negative emotions, that we’ve got to try and transmute into something greater, rather than just wallow in all this negativity, which we’re bombarded with which the media contrives, and it lives off it. The media exists because of misery. You don’t ever pick up a newspaper and read that John Smith woke up today and had a wonderful experience with his neighbor. People think it’s boring.
VG: How important is it for you to expand your horizons, to stretch, and to grow and evolve as an artist?
DD: It’s very important. But it’s only as important as the work is, I think. I think I couldn’t have written an album like Bug 10 years ago. This is another thing, and just because I’m 55, why didn’t I do the album when I was 25? Because I was evolving differently, growing in a different way, and learning. I think we are all like plants. Some plants take longer to grow than others, some are different colors and shapes, and you can’t rush the process. That’s another problem we’re having with technology. We’re trying to rush the process. We’re getting around the corner, but we’re not prepared to take responsibility for what we’re doing,
VG: Do you think it’s going to be a challenge for fans who know you mostly for your guitar work to accept you in these new-found, evolving roles as an artist, going into these new artistic directions?
DD: Interestingly enough, because of my Spiritual Planet link on my website, I have a lot of fans who have these cyberspace healing groups, that give healing to people all over the world. We’ve had some remarkable stories about how people who were seriously ill, benefited from these healing sessions, through cyberspace. So those are our hardcore part of the fan base that are moving along with my ideas as well. But, rock and roll’s my background. It’s what I do. So that’s why this album’s still very much a rock and roll record.
VG: How long did it take to write, record, and mix the album?
DD: I had “Fortis Green” which I had wanted to do a studio version of for some time. Then “Bug” came along and “The Lie!” and it all came together very quickly. I was writing every day. I’d wake up and write, and then sleep. Then I’d just wake up and write on pieces of paper, even in the dark, and make sure I got these ideas out. Next morning I’d get up and work them through.
Once I got the songs together, I contacted Koch Records” Bob Frank, and said, “I got this album and I want to do it.” He said, “Let’s go for it.” All very quick, no lengthy discussions. It all happened quite organically. We went into the studio on February 1 and it was finished by March 1.
VG: What mixing process did you use?
DD: We recorded in a great little studio in North Hollywood. We did the tracks working with 2” analog tape and mixed and did overdubs on Pro Tools, which was very quick.
VG: “Fortis Green: is a remembrance of your childhood, the working-class pubs, and the countryside of England. How has your sense of nostalgia influenced your music?
DD: Being a musician is not about being just one thing. It’s a lot of different elements. Two of my most important influences were Hank Williams and Big Bill Broonzy. They both were acoustic players.
The Kinks had an album called Muswell Hillbillies in the early ‘70s. It was our version of country-meets-blues. There was also the folk music of our family. Ray and I grew up in a big family, our dad played banjo and our sisters played the piano. We’ve got six older sisters and they all have different taste in music. Mum and dad liked music from Cab Calloway and vaudeville artists.
So the mixture of music really came from our family. Also, the social thing came from our family as well, because we were working class people. I could see a lot of parallels within the blues music.
There was one particular song that resonated very powerfully within me, much in my own course, being out of work. I couldn’t get jobs on the railway. The song is called “Get Back” by big Bill Broonzy, which was on the first album that I got. It was about racial themes here in America at the time, which as a young twelve, thirteen year old boy, I wasn’t aware of, but I understood the impression of it. The song is about a guy waiting in line, trying to get a job. It says, “If you’re white, it’s alright, if you’re brown, stick around, if you’re black, oh brother, get back, get back.” I could see that happening in my own family, not because they were black, but because they were working class. It was bad in those days. The great thing about the sixties was this cultural revolution where the working class had something important to say. We had a voice….in art, in movies, in fashion, and of course, in music.
VG: What chordal modes, tuning, and chromatic methods do you implement in your guitar playing, especially on Bug?
DD: I don’t like to think about it. I just plug in, pick it up, and tune. I do some D tuning on some of the tracks like “Displaced Person” which is one of my favorite songs on the album. It’s very personal to me. “Bug” I do with D tuning, and I use C tuning on some of the songs. But I don’t make a lot of conscious decisions about planning how to do it musically. That’s the only way I can work, is to do it and see how it comes out.
(PART ONE) Vintage Guitar Magazine – August 2002
They say that good things are worth the wait. In the case of Kinks’ co-founder Dave Davies, His first solo studio album in nearly 20 years is a good example, Davies garnered fame for his furious flights on the guitar, expressing raunchy, gritty power chords and riffs on Kinks’ hits like “You Really Got Me”. His guitar was straight-up attitude; a voice of frustration and anger at the bleakness he and his family experienced in the factories of working-class England… and yes, his clashes with his Kinks co-founder brother Ray.
But fans accustomed to Davies’ raging guitar work may be surprised to know that he also soaked up the innocence of his hometown, Fortis Green, with equal fervor, along with an array of musical influences ranging from Hank Williams to Eddie Cochran to Big bill Broonzy.
Davies’ mother recognized and supported music as a ticket to a better life. She nurtured his love of music and set him on the road when she bought his first guitar – a Harmony Meteor – when he was 14.
Time and wisdom have imbued Davies with a sense of purpose and idealism. He’s no less the rocker, but now does so with statements of social commentary and satirical wit, jabbing lyrics and crunching guitar tones. The new album rocks, yet is a revolution in the spirited vein of the ‘60s, delivering music as a force of hope and optimism.
Vintage Guitar: Bug is your first solo studio in more than 20 years. Why did you wait so long?
Dave Davies: I didn’t plan to wait 20 years. I have had CD releases on my website which were put together just for the purposes of the internet. I have a CD Purusha and the Spiritual Planet. It’s a classical/techno/trance album I made with my son Russell who’s 21. It’s a story about a young boy who embarks on this spiritual journey.
The other releases on the website are demos I’ve revamped just to get the songs out there. One is called “Fragile” and one’s called “Fortis Green” which is a demo version of what’s on Bug. There’s a couple of others, like my live solo CD recorded at the Marion College.
VG: You wrote, produced, and arranged all the songs on Bug. What was the creative process like?
DD: From the outset, I felt very motivated. The idea for Bug came to me from a few sources. I run a link on my website, and I get a lot of people – astrologers, spiritual healers, and psychics – who join in. I have an email from a woman who thought she had some alien implants in her aura. I did some research, and it seems there’s quite a body of information about so-called “abductees” – people who have had so-called experiences with extra-terrestrials and similar things. That got me thinking.
Then one night (laughing), I woke up 3 a.m. and had this horrible mosquito bite on my arm, and that triggered the song, “Bug”. The mosquito was like an implant from this covert government source, or an alien, Suddenly, it all started to mesh in my brain, and I woke up with the idea that the music is like the anti-virus for life. If you think about how music affects emotions and reminds people of emotions that they’ve had. It’s not such a farfetched idea to use music as a healing process.
VG: So the idea behind Bug is very much social commentary….
DD: It’s all connected. It’s my personal philosophy, my point of view, my perspective. But there are also a lot of people who subscribe to my viewpoint, especially these days. It’s really the theme of the album. “Who’s Foolin’ Who” is about self-delusion and the how the media manipulates the way we think. It starts with this poor guy who’s lost in this media bombardment and confusion, and he can’t tell the real from the unreal. But the guy is still a protagonist, which is me, him, or whoever. And through it all, for that person, it’s not over till it’s done.
VG: Even with all the social commentary and cynicism, the album has an underlying idealism…
DD: Right. That’s just how I think things are. There’s so much horror and sadness in the world. If we could just stand back and look at it, maybe it would be a cleansing process. Even the Earth cleanses itself. Then maybe we could move on. We have to hold on to our beliefs and optimism for the future of mankind because within that hope and that vision of peace or a new world, that’s the world that we all want deep down inside. Maybe the vision is enough to create it. Maybe we’re our own creators.
VG: What inspires your songwriting, and are the lyrics a reflection of your personal statements and comments on life?
DD: They ARE a personal reflection. The only way I feel I can write is from inside. It’s like an inside-out process. The writing for Bug came very quickly and was driven by the idea because it touches on so many levels. It can be funny, or it can be a bug bite. It can be a bug in our own computer. Or it’s negative emotions, that we’ve got to try and transmute into something greater, rather than just wallow in all this negativity, which we’re bombarded with which the media contrives, and it lives off it. The media exists because of misery. You don’t ever pick up a newspaper and read that John Smith woke up today and had a wonderful experience with his neighbor. People think it’s boring.
VG: How important is it for you to expand your horizons, to stretch, and to grow and evolve as an artist?
DD: It’s very important. But it’s only as important as the work is, I think. I think I couldn’t have written an album like Bug 10 years ago. This is another thing, and just because I’m 55, why didn’t I do the album when I was 25? Because I was evolving differently, growing in a different way, and learning. I think we are all like plants. Some plants take longer to grow than others, some are different colors and shapes, and you can’t rush the process. That’s another problem we’re having with technology. We’re trying to rush the process. We’re getting around the corner, but we’re not prepared to take responsibility for what we’re doing,
VG: Do you think it’s going to be a challenge for fans who know you mostly for your guitar work to accept you in these new-found, evolving roles as an artist, going into these new artistic directions?
DD: Interestingly enough, because of my Spiritual Planet link on my website, I have a lot of fans who have these cyberspace healing groups, that give healing to people all over the world. We’ve had some remarkable stories about how people who were seriously ill, benefited from these healing sessions, through cyberspace. So those are our hardcore part of the fan base that are moving along with my ideas as well. But, rock and roll’s my background. It’s what I do. So that’s why this album’s still very much a rock and roll record.
VG: How long did it take to write, record, and mix the album?
DD: I had “Fortis Green” which I had wanted to do a studio version of for some time. Then “Bug” came along and “The Lie!” and it all came together very quickly. I was writing every day. I’d wake up and write, and then sleep. Then I’d just wake up and write on pieces of paper, even in the dark, and make sure I got these ideas out. Next morning I’d get up and work them through.
Once I got the songs together, I contacted Koch Records” Bob Frank, and said, “I got this album and I want to do it.” He said, “Let’s go for it.” All very quick, no lengthy discussions. It all happened quite organically. We went into the studio on February 1 and it was finished by March 1.
VG: What mixing process did you use?
DD: We recorded in a great little studio in North Hollywood. We did the tracks working with 2” analog tape and mixed and did overdubs on Pro Tools, which was very quick.
VG: “Fortis Green: is a remembrance of your childhood, the working-class pubs, and the countryside of England. How has your sense of nostalgia influenced your music?
DD: Being a musician is not about being just one thing. It’s a lot of different elements. Two of my most important influences were Hank Williams and Big Bill Broonzy. They both were acoustic players.
The Kinks had an album called Muswell Hillbillies in the early ‘70s. It was our version of country-meets-blues. There was also the folk music of our family. Ray and I grew up in a big family, our dad played banjo and our sisters played the piano. We’ve got six older sisters and they all have different taste in music. Mum and dad liked music from Cab Calloway and vaudeville artists.
So the mixture of music really came from our family. Also, the social thing came from our family as well, because we were working class people. I could see a lot of parallels within the blues music.
There was one particular song that resonated very powerfully within me, much in my own course, being out of work. I couldn’t get jobs on the railway. The song is called “Get Back” by big Bill Broonzy, which was on the first album that I got. It was about racial themes here in America at the time, which as a young twelve, thirteen year old boy, I wasn’t aware of, but I understood the impression of it. The song is about a guy waiting in line, trying to get a job. It says, “If you’re white, it’s alright, if you’re brown, stick around, if you’re black, oh brother, get back, get back.” I could see that happening in my own family, not because they were black, but because they were working class. It was bad in those days. The great thing about the sixties was this cultural revolution where the working class had something important to say. We had a voice….in art, in movies, in fashion, and of course, in music.
VG: What chordal modes, tuning, and chromatic methods do you implement in your guitar playing, especially on Bug?
DD: I don’t like to think about it. I just plug in, pick it up, and tune. I do some D tuning on some of the tracks like “Displaced Person” which is one of my favorite songs on the album. It’s very personal to me. “Bug” I do with D tuning, and I use C tuning on some of the songs. But I don’t make a lot of conscious decisions about planning how to do it musically. That’s the only way I can work, is to do it and see how it comes out.
