The Kinks frontman hints band getting back together

Former leader of rock band The Kinks, Ray Davies in 2014. Image: RAFA RIVAS / AFP

British rockers The Kinks, best known for a string of 1960s hits including “You Really Got Me” and “Waterloo Sunset” might be getting back together after 20 years, frontman Ray Davies has said.

Davies, 74, told Britain’s Channel 4 that he had been working in the studio with his two surviving bandmates — his brother Dave Davies and drummer Mick Avory — and they were “making a new Kinks album”.

Pete Quaife, who was in the original line-up, died in 2010.

Davies said in the interview that his brother and Avory “never got along very well but I’ve made that work in the studio and it’s fired me up to make them play harder, and with fire”.

“I’ve got all these songs that I wrote for the band when we — not broke up — parted company, and I think it’s kind of an appropriate time to do it,” he added.

But when asked directly whether the iconic band were reuniting, he answered: “Officially we are… in the pub later on”.

Formed in 1964 in Muswell Hill, north London by the Davies brothers, the group became one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s. Some of their best-known songs also included “Sunny Afternoon”, “Lola” and “Tired of Waiting For You”.

The group continued playing into the 1970s and 1980s, with a total of 24 studio albums under their belts. In the 1990s, bands such as Blur and Oasis cited the influence of The Kinks on their own music but the group’s popularity declined and they split up. NVG

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