The Kinks supported The Beatles on tour but Dave think John Lennon wasn’t a fan of their songs.
The Kinks star Dave Davies has insisted John Lennon didn’t like their band but “didn’t really like anybody” in a playful dig at The Beatles star. Davies and his brother Ray played alongside The Beatles on a number of occasions in the Sixties but there was also a healthy rivalry between the pair of bands.
Asked if The Kinks supported the Fab Four, Dave said: “We did. John Lennon didn’t like The Kinks, he really didn’t.” Laughing he added: “In fact John Lennon didn’t really like anybody! George Harrison was the only one I really liked. He was the nicest guy. Paul McCartney wrote a few decent songs, yeah.”
Looking back to the Sixties, the bands didn’t always see eye to eye. In August 1964 when the bands were playing in Bournemouth Lennon reportedly told Ray Davies “Look lads, if you forget your songs you can use one of ours,” before walking off.
Ray would later claim that The Kinks played ‘You Really Got Me’ with so much raw energy that the crowd screamed louder for the opening act than for the headliners, prompting The Beatles’ management to move them down the pecking order of acts.
Whatever the rivalry, Lennon’s bandmate Paul McCartney looks back on the times with more fondness than the Davies brothers.
McCartney recently chose The Kinks song ‘You Really Got Me’ as one of his Tracks of My Years for BBC Radio 2, meaning it was one of ten songs which help soundtrack his life.
Explaining the choice, McCartney said: “That was their big hit, really, their first big hit. And we loved it. I mean, I love it to this day.You can put it on at a party and it still works. The guitar sound and the riff is really great. And yeah, they supported us.
“And I remember being, I think it was Brighton, and we loved them so much that we kind of crept out and crept sort of to the side of the audience with trying to not be seen. Just to watch them. I think they were a really good group. I think the writing was great. It was another period for explosion. That was really happening. Stones were happening. We were happening. There was a lot going on.”
Dave Davies was speaking at the launch of a new art exhibition with British portrait artist Christian Furr at Gibson Garage London.
The show transforms a 1968 passport style photograph of the brothers Dave and Ray shot in a Photo Booth into a series of original paintings.
The image sees Dave’s brother Ray looking stern faced. Asked if he was serious to work with, Dave replied: “I thought so, yes, he was. You know, he was always on time.
“Years later I realised the benefit of being serious. In the beginning, I really thought it was just six months of being in a band.”
The Kinks, formed in London by Ray and Dave, enjoyed three UK Number ones beginning in 1964 as well as a string of acclaimed and influential hit albums such as 1968’s The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.
They have had 15 top 40 albums and played live dates up until 1996. But despite previous rumours of a reunion, they now seem set to never play live again. Original bass player Pete Quaife died in 2010.
The brothers ended a feud they had in 2019 and now live near each other in London.
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