Ray Davies Announces New Album, Teases Kinks Reunion

It’s been a few years since Ray Davies released an album of new material, but it looks like the wait for his next studio LP might soon be over — and the future could even bring a few treats for long-suffering Kinks fans in the bargain.

Davies shared his upcoming plans during a recent interview with ABC News Radio, saying he intends to use his recently released road memoir, ‘Americana: The Kinks, the Riff, the Road: The Story,’ as the foundation for a new batch of solo recordings. Asked about the previously unreleased lyrics interspersed throughout the chapters, Davies revealed, “I’m happy to say that I’m going to start recording those as a sort of soundtrack to the book.”

According to Davies, the new songs started taking shape during his convalescence after the ugly 2004 incident in which he was shot by a mugger. “The songs formed this kind of diary while I was recovering in the hospital and the post-hospital in New Orleans, ’cause I wasn’t allowed to travel for many weeks,” he recalled. “So they act as a subtext to the story.”

The prospect of a new album is exciting for Davies fans, but the really intriguing news is his newfound willingness to reconsider a Kinks reunion. Although his legendarily testy relationship with his brother and bandmate Dave Davies has been fairly frosty in recent years, it sounds like things might be thawing between the squabbling siblings. Admitting he’d been enjoying the freedom of his solo career too much to revive the Kinks, he said, “I was walking down the street the other day and I thought to myself, ‘You know, I could write Dave a great song.’”

And it’s the writing that’s key for Davies. As he quickly pointed out, he isn’t interested in putting together a nostalgia tour. “My answer is ‘no’ if we’re just going to go out and play the oldies, ‘maybe’ if we can make good new music as well,” he mused. “I must write something new, something fresh, because … as long as I’m alive, I’m living in the present world and I want to be inspired by it and resonate the world I live in.”

Whatever happens with the Kinks, it seems likely we’ll get to hear the Davies brothers recording again soon. “I like writing for his voice and I like writing for his guitar sound,” Ray pointed out. “So, even if I just do the soundtrack to ‘Americana,’ there are some tracks I’d love Dave play on. So we’ll start from there and see how it works.”