The Kinks currently are promoting the recently released third installment of their 60th anniversary compilation series, The Journey. The band’s three surviving original members—frontman Ray Davies, lead guitarist Dave Davies, and drummer Mick Avory—all reportedly had input into the new collection, which focuses mainly on the group’s years with Arista Records during the late 1970s and early ’80s.
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While chatting recently with American Songwriter about The Journey – Part 3, Avory also discussed the possibility of a Kinks reunion, something fans have long hoped for. Avory parted ways with the band back in 1984, although the band remained active until 1996. Since then, Ray and Dave both have talked about the possibility of a reunion project, but nothing has really come to fruition. The last time the brothers performed in public together was at a concert by Dave and his solo band in London in December 2015. At the show, Ray came up and sang “You Really Got Me” with Dave and the group.
Unfortunately for Kinks fans, Avory told American Songwriter that a reunion now is extremely unlikely.
“[It] seems more likely to have a resurrection now than the reunion,” the 81-year-old drummer said with a chuckle. “That’s what I say to people.”
Mick pointed out that people always ask him about a Kinks reunion, but he shared, “[T]hey don’t know the state of play, you know. They still think we’re in our fifties, but … you know, Ray and Dave are not up for it. … They wouldn’t be up for it now.”
Without going into specifics, Avory added, “It’s less and less likely. I mean, Ray … wouldn’t be able to do it.”
Avory Discussed The Kinks’ Previous Potential Reunion Plans
Avory also talked about how The Kinks previously had discussed reuniting at different times since 1996.
Mick recalled that not long after the band called it quits, Ray suggested a reunion with various band members, including founding bassist Pete Quaife, who’d left the group in 1969.
Avory explained, “Ray said … ‘We should try and do a reunion, ’cause … every band’s doing it and it’s worth doing, ’cause … you can sort of get out there and do some stuff, and you can get help, as long as … we’re in it. And things have moved on sound-wise, and [we can] do some shows.’”
Mick then noted that Ray and Dave couldn’t agree on who would take part in the reunion.
“Ray wanted to do it more of a sort of an evolution of The Kinks,” the drummer said. “[T]he people that were involved [in the band] in different periods of time would walk on stage and do the numbers that they recorded or that they played, you know. And so, I thought that was a good way of doing it.”
Avory then explained, “Dave … didn’t particularly want me in it, ’cause I’d left anyway. … [H]e just wanted him and Ray, really, and then he wanted his son to play drums. And I thought, ‘Oh, no. Don’t do all that family business. It’s not what people want to see.’ But he thought it was.”
Mick added that the potential reunion “was under discussion for at least 15 years before we dropped it.”
More About The Kinks’ Unfulfilled Reunion Plans
Dave Davies suffered a serious stroke in 2004, although he eventually recovered and began recording and touring again. Quaife died in 2010 of kidney failure at age 66.
Despite Dave’s health challenges and the passing of Quaife, Avory told American Songwriter that a Kinks reunion was still being discussed for many years, but the brothers couldn’t come to an agreement on how to present it.
“[After] Dave had a stroke … [he] could have still done it, probably with a bit of help, but it was getting more and more sort of unlikely,” Mick shared. “And it just fell apart,”
He added, “I think the last line of any hope was when the Monty Python team got together and did a reunion [in 2014]. … I remember Ray saying, ‘Look, just let bygones be bygones and … forget … what you think of each other.’ He said, ‘If it makes you feel any better, … everyone [in Monty Python] hates John Cleese, but they’re still going out there and doing it, so just remember that,’ but you can’t tell Dave that. So, I kind of lost … interest with it.”
Avory’s Current Musical Endeavors
Avory told American Songwriter that he continues to play in a couple of different groups. One of them is the Kast Off Kinks, a tribute group that formed in 1994 and that has featured various ex-members of Mick’s famous former band over the years.
Avory noted that the Kast Off Kinks have built up their popularity to where they can play theaters, doing a few dozen shows annually.
“We have no problem doing like 30 gigs a year,” he said about the Kast Off Kinks. “[T]he only thing is we’re running out of Kinks now.”
Avory also plays with a group called The ’60s All Stars that features former members of various British Invasion bands.
“[That band] … does clubs and pubs, basically, and The Kinks’ stuff is included in that … repertoire as well,” he noted. “And we do a bit of everything that’s anything to do with the ’60s and ’70s, really. So that’s my stamp, really. I’m a ’60s man.”
More About The Journey – Part 3
As previously reported, The Journey – Part 3 features 12 newly remastered tracks spanning from 1977 through 1985. Among the songs are such memorable and popular Kinks tunes as “Catch Me Now I’m Falling,” “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman,” “Come Dancing,” “Do It Again,” “Better Things,” and “Destroyer.”
The compilation also includes 16 previously unreleased performances from a July 1993 concert at famous Royal Albert Hall in London.
The Journey – Part 3 is available as a two-CD set, a two-LP vinyl package, and via digital formats.
(Photo by Dave J Hogan/Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)
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