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The Kinks’ Dave Davies: ‘I spent the money from ‘You Really Got Me’ on Scalextric’

Dave Davies, of The Kinks - Alistair Heap / Alamy Stock Photo
Dave Davies, of The Kinks - Alistair Heap / Alamy Stock Photo

Kinks guitarist Dave Davies is the younger brother of the band’s lead singer and lyricist Ray.

Brought up in a family of eight children in Muswell Hill, north London, Davies was 17 in 1964 when the Kinks’ debut single You Really Got Me reached number one.

The Kinks went on to have two more UK number one hits with Tired of Waiting For You the following year, and, in 1966, Sunny Afternoon.

Between 1964 and 1997 the Kinks released 24 studio albums and four live albums. Worldwide there have been more than 100 compilation albums. In 1967, following a disastrous American tour, the Kinks were released from ­contracts with publishers Edward ­Kassner and Larry Page, with the High Court agreeing Davies was a minor when the contracts were signed, making them void.

His wealth is reported to be around £3m compared with his brother’s £12m. In 2004, Davies had a stroke. He has six sons and two daughters from three relationships. He lives in New ­Jersey in America with his partner Rebecca Wilson.

How did your upbringing shape your attitude to money?

We were a big, working class family of six sisters and two brothers and we all helped each other out. It was very supportive. By the time I came along when my mother, Annie, was in her 40s, my older sisters, Dolly, Joyce, Gwen and Peggy, were all working.

My father, Frederick, worked as a slaughterman and my mother ran the house: cooking, doing laundry and mending clothes. She was very resourceful. Our fruit and veg came on tick from the local greengrocers. In our Muswell Hill terrace, Ray and I shared a bedroom, and there was no bathroom, just a scullery curtained off from the kitchen, where water had to be heated up for the tin bath.

Did you receive pocket money?

It wasn’t very much. When I was 13 I saved up for weeks to buy my first record for six shillings and fourpence at Les Aldrich in Muswell Hill. I had a paper round for a very short time but I didn’t like it.

What was your first proper job?

The only real job I ever had was an apprenticeship at the warehouse of Selmer’s music shop off Cambridge Circus, cleaning musical instruments. The wage was about a fiver a week.

After the success of ‘You Really Got Me’, what was it like having money to spare for the first time in your life?

It was exhilarating. I’d seen Scalextric models in Gamages department store in Holborn with my mother, and now I was in a position to kit out my whole room with model cars and track. The bill was around £100, which must be equivalent to £500 now, or even more.

Did you ever splash out on anything else?

Taking my first proper holiday to ­Portugal was a big event for me. As kids we just used to go to Ramsgate and Southend. So taking the family from my first marriage, my wife Lisbet, Martin and Simon when they were small boys, was huge. Later on a big event was taking the family to America: Florida and Disney World. I can’t remember if I was ever able to take my parents on holiday.

The Kinks - Reprise Records/Warner Bros./Courtesy of Getty Images
The Kinks - Reprise Records/Warner Bros./Courtesy of Getty Images

If your first tour of America in 1965 had been better managed, would you be wealthier?

Sure. But things work out for a reason. I was quite happy to come back to England. I love being at home. And in the early days I didn’t think the Kinks would be around for more than a year. Ray was more the cautious one, but I was more a “make hay while the sun shines” type.

I didn’t consider the Kinks a career until a few years later. I was lucky to have a good accountant who kept money back for taxes, hiring equipment and road crew.

What work with the Kinks made you the most money?

We had hit records. But there were ­publishing issues and financial dealings early on that weren’t particularly efficient. We didn’t make a lot of money for some reason. We had money but we didn’t get bucketloads like celebrities get now. It was a more functional existence.

Was the distribution of money in the Kinks fair to you?

They were different times with different priorities. We would have liked to have been more aware of money and what it does, and been more efficient with it. There were so many people involved in the line of income, people who had to be paid.

I would have loved to have been a ­little more worldly and saved money. But I was a little bit reckless. I thought it would last forever, and worried about now and not the future. I was quite a wild person when I was young. I’ve always tried to keep that anxious and insatiable kid under lock and key, but it’s hard because it’s part of my personality.

What was your best investment?

I spent a lot of money on houses and ­different relationships. You’ve got to have somewhere to live and having a home has always been enough for me. In the 1980s I had a nice house in north Devon, near Exmoor, a property by the sea. But I couldn’t hang on to it.

I had so many commitments abroad with work and touring. Things come and go. I’ve met people who are really into money and I don’t get on with them.

Do you own a property at the moment?

It’s complicated. I have eight kids and I’m trying to buy one of them a property. Whenever somebody says “oh you should buy this townhouse or you should buy that”, one of my kids needs a home and I have to put them first.

My partner, Rebecca, has a lovely home in Bergen County, New Jersey. At the supermarket we see Tri-state celebrities like Tracy Morgan from Saturday Night Live.

How did you and Ray resolve your differences over the authorship of the musical ‘Sunny Afternoon’?

Over the years Ray and I have always tried to sort things out. My parents instilled into us, whatever happens, you’re still family, you’re still brothers and you have to try to sort things out.

Now we talk about the football and how the kids are doing, and which record could be re-released or repackaged. Now we have a good record company to help us.

What was your worst financial decision?

There were tons of things I could have done better. But as my mum used to say, “what’s the point of crying over spilt milk?” Bad decisions and good decisions are just part of life. What I’ve learnt from yoga and Zen is we have to be realistic about life, we can’t have what we want all the time.

Do you donate to charity?

I auction signed T-shirts, artwork and backstage passes on eBay to raise money for the International Elephant Foundation. Each auction raises around £1,000.

As a child I had scarlet fever, and I had visions of an elephant spirit ­protecting me with its trunk spread from my abdomen to forehead. And I paid the vet’s fees for a pregnant cat that Rebecca rescued from a ­building site.

Living On A Thin Line, Dave Davies’ autobiography, is out now