By: Arlene R. Weiss
In May 2002 I was honored to interview a true musical legend, as an artist and as a guitarist, the Kinks’ incomparable Dave Davies. At the time, the six string virtuoso and innovator of the infamously raunchy “You Really Got Me” guitar riff had just released, and was touring the U.S. in support of, his first studio album in nearly twenty years, the imaginative, socially conscious, and critically acclaimed Bug.
This interview has always held a special fondness in my heart, hearing Dave affectionately discuss in depth his record, his musical influences, guitars, gear, his beloved Elpico speaker, and of course The Kinks, whilst playfully serenading me with show tunes from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical, Oklahoma.
Currently, the prolific Davies, who has since released several acclaimed solo and live albums, is busy preparing for “The Dave Davies Satsung Weekend And Spiritual Retreat,” being held this September 2011. At the retreat, fans can be the first to listen to new songs from Dave’s upcoming new studio album, coming out early 2012, while being personally regaled by Dave, who will discuss his iconic music and career, solo and with The Kinks, his guitars, life, writing, and especially spirituality, something which Davies holds very dear to his heart.
Here’s a wistful look back with the guitar and musical legend himself, the Kinks’ one and only Dave Davies.
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There’s a tried and true saying that all good things are worth waiting for. Indeed, as legendary Kinks co-founder, guitarist, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Dave Davies has released his first solo studio album in nearly twenty years, entitled Bug. It’s a refreshing and striking work from the formidable British axeman. Davies became infamous for his aggressive, downright furious flights on the guitar, expressing raunchy, gritty power chords and riffs on such infamous Kinks’ hits as “You Really Got Me.” His guitar was straight-up attitude, a voice of frustration and anger at the bleakness he and his family experienced among the low paying hard labor of the factories and railways of working class England, and yes, at the ongoing collaborative clashes with brother Ray, which fueled Dave’s explosive fretwork like gasoline on a fire.
But what fans accustomed to Davies’ raging guitar work may be surprised to know is that Davies, who was born in 1947, also soaked up the innocence of his hometown, Fortis Green, with equal fervor, along with a vast array of musical influences ranging from Hank Williams to Eddie Cochran to Big Bill Broonzy. He grew up among a family steeped in its love of music. His father played the banjo, his six sisters played the piano, and his family filled the house with the musical wonders of recordings by musicians that included Perry Como, Fats Domino and vaudeville artists.
Davies fondly recounts that it was his mother who recognized and supported music as a ticket to a better life than the factories for her son. She nurtured his love of music and set him on the very road to rock when she borrowed money from his sister to buy him his very first guitar, a Harmony Meteor, when he was fourteen years old.
At fifty five years old, Davies expresses his many musical influences and a gentler, resolute side on Bug. The concept behind Bug is that of an alien implant placed within people by some covert, government source or alien. Davies explains, that Bug can relate to many different levels, from a bug bite to a bug in a computer, from dark social commentary to whimsy. For Davies, Bug would seem to refer to the musical love bug that has bitten the legendary rocker. The famed guitarist has evolved into quite the impressive singer and songwriter as evidenced by the album, which was composed, produced, and arranged by Davies.
Time, wisdom, and life experience have imbued Davies with a sense of purpose and idealism. Davies is no less the feral rocker when lashing out, but now he does so with meaningful statements of pointed social commentary and satirical wit, via the jabbing lyrics and distorted, crunching guitar fuzz tone of “Displaced Person,” “Why?!!” and the title song. If his guitars growl, it’s at the hypocrisies and ineptitudes of society, the government, and the media that create a harsh world.
Bug rocks, yet it’s still a revolution, a throwback much in the spirited vein of the sixties, ironically also effervescing with nostalgia and wistfulness for something better. The idealistic tone throughout the album’s many tracks sees music as a healing, positive force of hope and optimism, with the power to change things for the better.
From Davies’ exuberant acoustic Dobro strumming, set amongst a brass orchestra in his paean to his cherished childhood memories, “Fortis Green,” to his understated acoustic brushstrokes on the inspirational anthem, “Rock You, Rock Me,” Davies uses his always outspokenly vocal guitar and his well crafted lyrics as a voice of reason in a world often void of any at all. All the while, Davies stays true to his rock roots with stellar six string work that speaks louder than words.
Herein, a genuinely charming, whimsical, and affable Davies, discusses Bug, as well as his many ongoing creative projects, spirituality, The Kinks, the story behind his beloved Elpico getting the famed Davies razorblade treatment, guitars, and oh yes, a mutual adoration with yours truly for Hollywood musicals, wonderfully serenading this writer with a host of show tunes.
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Arlene R. Weiss: Bug is your first solo studio album in almost twenty years and is a stellar work. Why did you wait such a lengthy time period to bestow your fans with your immense talents with this new album of your own, and can you fill us in on what creative ventures you’ve been up to in the interim years?
Dave Davies: Wow! You’ve knocked me sideways with that! Thank you very much! I didn’t plan to wait twenty years. I have had CD releases on my website which were put together just for the purposes of the Internet. I have this CD called Purusha And The Spiritual Planet. It’s a classical, techno, trance album that I made with my son Russell. He’s twenty one. It’s a story about a young boy who embarks on this spiritual journey. It’s still a work in progress because I want to make an animated feature out of it. So that’s been out for about five years, but we’re still working on it.
That’s the great thing about the Internet. You can put music or work out that isn’t really finished yet just so people can get an idea of it. Some projects can take years before people ever get to listen to them. So that’s one thing I’ve been doing apart from the other CD releases on the website which have been demo series, demos I’ve revamped, just to get the songs out there. Songs that were never released. One CD is called Fragile, one CD is called Fortis Green, which is a demo version of the version that’s on Bug. There’s a couple of other CD’s that we put out through the website like my live solo CD recorded at The Marian College.
Dave Davies – Bug
Arlene: On Bug, you really showcase your many creative talents. You wrote, produced, and arranged all the songs. After your infamous involvement with The Kinks in which you were a contributing member of a group, explain the personal significance for you, and the creative process for you, of this very multi-faceted, total hands on approach in recording Bug, being a solo album in which you have complete, total, creative control.
Dave Davies: I think the thing with Bug was the fact that I felt very motivated and driven to do it from the outset. I’ve always worked better when I’m inspired, and I work quicker when I feel inspired, rather than when it’s just hard work and you have to get it done. When you feel driven, it motivates you.
When I first got the idea for Bug, it came to me from a few sources…. the inspiration. Mainly, I run a link on my website davedavies.com, called spiritual planet. I get a lot of people, astrologers, spiritual healers, and psychics that join in. I’ve had some emails from a woman that said she thought that she had some alien implants in her aura. I did some research on it, and it seems there’s quite a body of information about a lot of people, so-called abductees, people who have had so-called experiences with extraterrestrials, similar things, that got me thinking. So we did some research.
Then, one night [Laughing], I woke up 3:00 in the morning and I had this horrible mosquito bite on my arm, and that triggered the song “Bug”. The mosquito was like this implant from this covert government source or an alien. Suddenly, it all started to mesh in my mind and I woke up with the idea of Bug. The music on Bug is like the musical anti-virus for life. If you think about how music affects people’s emotions, and reminds people of emotions that they’ve had. It’s not such a far fetched idea to use music as a healing process.
Arlene: So the idea is very much social commentary.
Dave Davies: It’s all connected. It’s purely my personal philosophy, my point of view, my perspective. But there’s also a lot of people that subscribe to my viewpoint as well, especially these days. I suppose it’s really the theme of the album. “Who’s Foolin’ Who” is about self delusion and about how the media manipulates the way we think. It starts with this poor guy that’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 until it’s done.
Arlene: Right. Even with all the social commentary and cynicism, the album essentially has an underlying theme of idealism, which sees music as a positive force of hope.
Dave Davies: 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 can move on. We have to hold on to our beliefs and our 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 really want deep down inside. Maybe the vision is enough to create it. Maybe we’re our own creators.
Arlene: What inspires your songwriting, and are the lyrics a personal reflection of your own personal statements and comments on life?
Dave Davies: They are a personal reflection. The only way that I feel that I can write is from inside. It’s like an inside out process. The writing for Bug came very quickly and it was driven by the idea of Bug because it touches on so many different 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 that the media contrives and lives off of. The media exists because of misery. You don’t ever pick up a newspaper and read that John Smith woke up today and he had a wonderful experience with his neighbor. People think it’s boring.
Arlene: You’ve made an indelible mark on music throughout your career, but mostly people know you as a guitar player. But, you’ve really come into your own, especially now with Bug as a songwriter and as a vocalist. How important is it for you to expand your horizons, to stretch, and to grow and evolve as an artist?
Dave Davies: 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 ten years ago. This is another thing, that just because I’m fifty five, why didn’t I do the album when I was twenty five? Because I was evolving differently, growing in a different way, and learning. I think we’re 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 that 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.
Arlene: Do you think it’s going to be a challenge for your fans who know you mostly for your guitar work to accept you in these newfound, evolving roles as an artist, going into these new artistic directions?
Dave Davies: 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 ‘N’ Roll’s my background. It’s what I do. So that’s why the album’s still very much a Rock ‘N’ Roll record.
The Kinks – The Singles Collection
Arlene: How long did it take to write, record, and mix the album?
Dave Davies: I had “Fortis Green” already, which I wanted to do a studio version of for some time. Then “Bug” came along and “The Lie!” and it all came together very quickly. The other songs came together, November, December of last year. I was writing every day. 3:00 in the morning I would wake up and write, 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, which was around the middle of January, I contacted Koch Records’ Bob Frank, whose a friend of mine, and I said, “I got this album and I want to do it.” And he said, “Ok, let’s do it. Let’s go for it.” All very quick, no lengthy discussions. It all happened quite organically. We went into the studio on February first, and it was finished by March first.
Arlene: What mixing process did you use?
Dave Davies: We recorded in a great little studio in North Hollywood . We did the tracks working with two inch analog tape, and we mixed and did overdubs on ProTools, which being a digital domain, was very quick.
Arlene: “Fortis Green” wistfully recreates an era long gone….remembrances of your childhood, of the working class pubs and the pastoral countryside of England from another time. It’s very vividly painted via a music hall brass band with your acoustic guitar. You’re very much known for being this hard, feral rock & roller, but how has your own personal sense of nostalgia, your youth, and a much simpler, more innocent time in England , influenced your music to also often be very reflective and lyrical?
Dave Davies: Being a musician is not about being just one thing. It’s a lot of different elements all combined. Two of my most important influences were Hank Williams and Big Bill Broonzy. They both were acoustic players, as well as country and blues players. And if you look back at The Kinks’ music, we had an album called “Muswell Hillbillies” in the early 1970’s, which was our version of country meets blues.
There was also the folk music of our family. Ray and I always tried to….We grew up in a big family. My Dad played banjo, my sisters played the piano. We’ve got six older sisters and they all have different and diverse tastes in music, everything from Perry Como to Fats Domino. My 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’s 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.
Arlene: What chordal modes, tuning, and chromatic methods do you implement in your guitar playing, especially on Bug?
Dave Davies: 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.
Arlene: What were your main studio guitars for the album?
Dave Davies: I used a guitar that I use live, which is a Fender Telecaster with Trace Sensor pickups. I really like those pickups. I also used a Dobro. I mixed it in with a Guild six string on “Fortis Green.”
Arlene: Describe your studio setup, gear, and some of the amps you used to establish the tone and the sound that is so paramount for you on the album.
Dave Davies: I used an old Mark Two Mesa Boogie Head which I’ve had since 1980 and it’s quite well cranked. I use it through a 4 by 12 Marshall with Celestion Speakers. That’s pretty standard, and basically what I use. I use some old Boss pedals that I’ve had since way back. I don’t use fancy gadgetry. I tried it and it just muddies up the sound too much.
Arlene: How do you achieve, then, the wonderful distortion, fuzz tone, and reverb? Do you use effects or not?
Dave Davies: Yes, for the phase effects I use Boss pedals, and some are like the really early Boss pedals which have two knobs on them. One’s got depth, and one’s got phase and speed.
Arlene: Especially on “Displaced Person.” That has a lot of fuzz tone on it!
Dave Davies: I used a Gibson Les Paul recording guitar on that, but through the same amp setup. I also had that split with a Marshall Amp that was running as a stereo thing on that particular track. That’s why it sounds kind of aggressive and whiny.
Arlene: On “De-Bug” and “Life After Life (Transformation),” you utilize a driving, pulsing, techno, dance remix. What guitar effects did you use for those two tracks?
Dave Davies: What I do, I just close my eyes and I play. Then I cut lead samples out of my own playing. It’s a cut and paste job of my own guitar playing. And a similar thing on “Transformation” but not quite as much, because my son Russell, who is working on Purusha And The Spiritual Planet worked on that song with me as well. We wanted to make the end of “Transformation,” and the album….It’s like we’ve been deprogrammed. We want to be in this new place. I think the dance/meditation, which is what “Transformation” is, is taking you into a higher consciousness…or if not, then just for fun. Take it however you want.
Arlene: The song has a lot of technical production, a lot of looping, overdubbing, and reverb. When did you become acquainted with techno, dance remix production?
Dave Davies: Some years ago. People are always sending me remixes. I have a remix of “You Really Got Me”. A few years ago, my son Russell, started to get interested in computers and technology in music. He’s studied classical music as well at school. I got into it via my sons, and one of my older sons, Christian, who is very much into dance music.
Arlene: Your role in The Kinks and rock history is undeniable. How much is there to the creative sibling rivalry stories in that…How much do you feel that in its own way, it possibly and potentially fueled and benefited your guitar playing to be as gritty, feral, and rock heavy as it is to this day?
Dave Davies: A lot of that, the answer lies in where I started. I like to think that all of The Kinks’ stuff is good, but I think all the peaks in The Kinks” music have been highly collaborative times or moments. Ray and I never really had to communicate very much together. It’s when the telepathy worked really well that the music worked, if you know what I mean.
It goes back to the fact that when I discovered that guitar sound for “You Really Got Me,” I was frustrated. I wasn’t a particularly articulated kid and I had a lot of rage and anger in me, which I channeled through this poor little amplifier that was not acting very well. And in a moment of frustration and destruction, I cut the cone of the speaker with a razorblade thinking that it was going to wreck it, and instead it came out with this amazing, raunchy sound.
Arlene: Your green Elpico! What’s the story behind that Elpico? I understand that it’s a personal favorite of yours, not just in terms of what you use for your music, but that it has sentimental meaning for you as well.
Dave Davies: It was a little ten watt green amplifier called Elpico. I think someone emailed me and said they could still get a hold of them. It was something that I bought in a radio store where we lived in Fortis Green in the early 1960’s. I was looking for a new sound, but it wasn’t giving me much so I sliced the speakers with a razorblade!
Arlene: A Gillette, that’s what I heard! [Laughing]
Dave Davies: I beat it up with the goods! [Laughing]
Arlene: Didn’t you plug it straight into your Vox AC30?
Dave Davies: I took leads off the speaker and I plugged it into an AC30, which was a very noisy thing to do. But it had the desired effect.
Arlene: Weren’t you once quoted as saying that that experience made you feel like an inventor?
Dave Davies: Yeah! I felt in a way that I was more of an inventor than a musician. It’s funny, like even now, I feel more like a communicator, more than I do a musician. I think these days you have to have your finger on different pulses, to be a performer or a musician.
Arlene: What was your very first guitar?
Dave Davies: My first guitar was a Harmony Meteor, which was the guitar that I used on “You Really Got Me.”
Arlene: How old were you at the time when you got your Harmony Meteor?
Dave Davies: I’d been messing around borrowing my brother in law’s guitar and Ray’s. Ray had a guitar. I was fourteen when I got my first guitar that was actually mine. And my Mum, having the foresight to see that if we didn’t get into music, we’d probably end up working in the factories, not that there’s anything wrong with working in the factories….but…. I was lucky. She borrowed seven pounds off of my sister to put a down payment on this guitar for me. So that was kind of nice. Whereas a lot of other kids, either music was just a hobby, or it was something they didn’t take seriously.
The Kinks – The Ultimate Collection
Arlene: What was your very first band?
Dave Davies: My first band was…. What we used to do was, whoever got the gig had the name of the band. If Ray got the gig, it was called the RDQ, which is Ray Davies Quartet. If Pete got the gig, it was PQQ! The Pete Quaife Quartet!
Arlene: And if it was yours, it would be the DDQ! [both laughing and saying “DDQ” in unison]
Dave Davies: That was silly! Then we had a band called The Boll Weevils because I was a big fan of Eddie Cochran and he had a song called “The Boll Weevil Song,” which is strange cause that’s a bug as well. [Laughs]
Arlene: Who are some of your influences?
Dave Davies: Of course, Eddie Cochran, he’s a big influence. He’s the one that made me think… “That’s it. I’m gonna do that!” But before that, my inspiration was Hank Williams. I couldn’t believe the tone in his voice and the sonic weirdness of the music on his slide guitar. Even now, you play his recordings and they make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. And his songs! It’s amazing how one of my sisters was into country music. My other sister Dolly, she liked Fats Domino. [Dave singing a scat bebop melody] All sort of a beboppy kind of vibe as well, which I loved.
Arlene: I listen to anything. If it sounds good, that’s what I care about. From roots music to blues to rock to bebop to old Hollywood musicals!
Dave Davies: ”South Pacific!” The music is totally stellar!
Arlene: “Bali Hai,” isn’t that gorgeous, and “Happy Talking!”
Dave Davies: I’ve got chills just thinking about it! But “Oklahoma” There’s some great music.
Arlene: Do you like the movie version with Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae?
Dave Davies: Yeah! And Gordon McRae! There’s a really interesting song in that movie that used to fascinate me, that’s always stuck with me. [Dave hums a long melody] Beautiful! Where did that come from? What is it? About a cowboy. Oh. [Dave sings], “The farmer and the cowman should be friends!” If you listen to it, not thinking of it as a funny piece, but as a purely musical piece, it’s like really cool jazz. It’s fabulous!
Arlene: What about your performance on “Shindig” in 1965? When you came here to the States to do the show, wasn’t that The Kink’s introduction to the USA ?
Dave Davies: Yes, it pretty much was. I loved it. Of course it’s always fun, as I remember at the time, being a young, cocky kid, I loved the attention. It was fabulous. But my very first visit to The States I was a bit disappointed because I thought Americans seemed a little bit old fashioned. When I think I had grown up with all this cool, cool music by Buddy Holly and Big Bill Broonzy, and all these great, inspiring mentors. Yet when I came to America, these artists seemed really out of fashion and it was really strange.
But then I got to meet some great guitar players who had played on Elvis’ records and on Ricky Nelson’s when I got to go to Los Angeles. Scotty Moore I got to meet. He was a big idol of mine. And James Burton, who I thought was the coolest guitar player. So it had its upside. I thought it was great to meet these great people, who influenced me when I started playing.
Arlene: What guitars did you play on “Shindig”?
Dave Davies: I had a guitar that I bought for $200 bucks and it was a Gibson Flying V. Well, it was really a Gibson Futura. It was a guitar built prior to the Flying V. I had lost my guitar on the airplane. Those were the days when you took just one instrument with you.
Arlene: Was that the Guild I heard was stolen?
Dave Davies: Yes. It “disappeared” on an airline. Unbelievable.
Arlene: Can you detail the vast array of guitars and gear that you’ve used through the years, through your career?
Dave Davies: I’ve always worked quite minimally. I was never one to….If I had money, I wouldn’t go and buy loads of guitars. I’ve got a hold of a country gentleman that got me a Gretsch model that’s just like the guitar that Eddie Cochran was known for.
Arlene: Do you still have your Vintage 1954 Fender Strat?
Dave Davies: Yeah, I’ve still got that. I never take it anywhere. It stays locked away. I use it, but I don’t take it on the road with me. An old 1954 Telecaster as well that I use. I use a National Dobro. The one I used on Bug is my son’s Dobro. It’s a new one, but the Dobro that I used on “Lola”, in the 70’s, is one that I’ve had for a long time, quite an old guitar.
Arlene: Do you still have some of the Gibson L5’s and the Guild 12 string acoustic?
Dave Davies: No, they all went. I wish I’d have kept the L-5. It was a custom built that I had. It was nice, it had more of a jazzy kind of feel to it and a contour body.
Arlene: With so much attention often cast on Ray’s significance to The Kinks and as a musician, how much of a challenge has it been for you to establish and define your own, creative role and voice in The Kinks, and now, as a solo artist and with Bug, and how satisfying is that for you?
Dave Davies: I always liked working with the band. I like working with groups. I like and prefer the collaborative way of working with people. Even Bug, it’s just collaborating with ideas, isn’t it? But, yes, I thought that there were a lot of times within The Kinks where I did get a bit unhappy about my role in it.
And then Ray and I would get together, he’d have a half on a song, and then I’d suggest something. We’d go backwards and forwards and all of a sudden, we’d have a great song. So, I’d like to feel that I’ve been a catalyst for a lot of Ray’s work as well, which we all need. I think when The Kinks were at their best, the working relationship was at its best. It was an exchange of energy. So, yes, the collaborative thing is important and the creative mind is quite fertile in a sensitive place. You have to give it a bit of space.
Arlene: On Bug, you have a lot of songs with beautiful, acoustic, understated playing, and of course throughout your career, with The Kinks, you had eloquent songs like “Waterloo Sunset.” Very often, people and the press seem to hone in on this hard rock playing that you do and are known for, but you’re a very eloquent, understated player as well. Can you describe some of the gentle side of your guitar playing, especially that you used on Bug and what acoustic guitars that you use?
Dave Davies: I don’t use very many guitars. I think it’s all down to the song. If you feel comfortable with the song, you play accordingly to the song. That’s really the only way that I can explain that. And sometimes a more sensitive song requires very little, rather than dominating it with a lot of guitars. You might just need one. You have to try and tune in to the emotion of the song, without cluttering it with too much instrumentation.
Arlene: Tell me about your current tour to promote Bug. I understand that the set list will include both songs from your career as a solo artist and Kinks’ tunes.
Dave Davies: Yeah! I’m mixing it up. It’s a lot of fun. I’m doing some of my older songs like “Living On A Thin Line” and then I’m doing “You Really Got Me”, and some of a few more obscure Kinks’ songs. I’m mixing them up with “Bug,” “De-Bug” and “Rock You, Rock Me.”
Arlene: That’s the best song on the album. I adore that, where your lyrics say, “Have faith, have hope, have love,” and when things are at their worst, “Lift your head up to the sun.” Just beautiful.
Dave Davies: Do you like that? See, I like simplicity as well. Sometimes you can say a lot with just a few words. When you have a song like “Who’s Foolin’ Who,” we’re bombarded by words, because just like the guy in the song, we’re confused. It’s the way that he feels, the character at the moment, but in “Rock You, Rock Me,” the guy knows that it’s simple if we all understand what the truth is or what it will take for us to all get it together. It’s not very complicated.
Arlene: What are your future goals and plans as a solo artist?
Dave Davies: I don’t know yet. I just want to see what’s around the bend, what’s around the corner.
Arlene: Well if this is any indication, it’s going to be wonderful things!
Dave Davies: Thank you, made my day!
Copyright August 8, 2011 By Arlene R. Weiss-All Rights Reserved
Copyright May 6, 2002 By Arlene R. Weiss-All Rights Reserved
