All About Decade - Dave Davies (2018)

The new "Decade" compilation collects all the solo compositions written by the musician at the height of the 1970s. They have never been presented to a wider audience until now.

Diving into the past...

Around the time Dave Davies released his 1967 smash hit "Death of a Clown," he had a spiritual epiphany that questioned mortality itself. The lyrics, co-written with his brother and Kinks bandmate Ray Davies, tell of a performer who has lost his creative fire and vigour, but still has to keep the show going.

"We all wear masks, pretending to be something we're not really," the musician says now.

"Death of a Clown" was kind of a trigger, trying to figure out what I was doing. Am I just a clown that makes people laugh? Is that all I am? Of course, I later realised that it wasn't. But it took a long time to find the answers to all the questions."

Davis continued to experiment with genres and rhymes into the next decade, actively developing tracks. However, he was still not ready to present them to a wider audience.

Album Description

The new compilation "Decade" includes around ten tunes written by Dave between 1971 and 1979, revealing the various existential difficulties and issues explored by the musician during his creative pursuits. It was these critical reflections that helped him to create the full-length solo album "AFL1-3603".

Combining surprisingly different in character and genre compositions (from the free-spirited "From the Cradle to the Grave" to the bluesy "If You Are Leaving"), he gives the listener answers to eternal sacred questions.

Why didn't Davis release all these songs at that time? The thing is that each of the songs represented a separate page from the artist's biography, was something very personal and intimate.

"I didn't know what to do with all those tracks," Davis admits in the interview. "Ray was going in one direction, and my creativity was going in diametrically opposite directions. Nevertheless, after almost forty years, I finally found myself ready to share some of the songs."

"Forty years?" the musician marvelled enthusiastically. "It's a big relief to have these sands out in the world after all. They've been mocking the hell out of me all these years!".

Davies' new project is a sort of sequel to the Hidden Treasures comp, centred on major songs from the sixties. The musician's sons, Simon and Martin, accidentally found a whole series of various compositions recorded by their father over forty years ago. On hearing them, Dave felt a pleasant nostalgia for the old days and asked Simon to complete their production.

"It's a funny way the world works: you do something a long time ago, but the feelings stay with you forever," Davis revealed. According to the musician, listening to the tracks of the past years, he feels the same emotions and experiences as during the recording. For example, the folk ballad "Web of Time." with its guitar solo and cosmic effects reminded him of the global issues he had to face at the dawn of his musical career.

"Recording this track, I was sure that in the future humanity will be able to overcome all the difficulties, stereotypes, racial prejudices. But now I think more and more that we are still at the same stage of development, with the same state of affairs" - summarises the artist.

"Cradle to the Grave" - is the album's particularly important and symbolic single. "Now I know what our destiny will be," Davis sings in unison, but his voice sounds torn. "I actually thought that at the time," he confirms. "I felt that I could move forward, that all people - the human race - should move forward. It's not just about me. So when I sang about a man with his head in his hands, I was picturing on myself. But that same person is looking at me and at people in the same emotional, spiritual situation."

Davis was also moved to hear a new version of "Midnight Sun", a light and uplifting tune about the importance of pursuing your own dreams. The song was written in memory of George Harris, a childhood friend of the artist, with whom they used to skip school, listen to records of their favourite bands and learn to play musical instruments. They even thought about forming their own band, but these plans were never realised - Harris went travelling around the world and he and Davis lost touch.

On his return from an American tour, Dave tried to reconnect with his mate, but it was too late - Harris was wandering the streets, dying of drug addiction. "It bothered me enormously. I just took all my thoughts and experiences and created a song out of them.

'Midnight Sun' is about me and George's dreams."

"Music is what has always kept me afloat, saving me from a lot of problems" concludes the artiste.