“It was a fantastic idea. I would have liked a ménage à trois with Brian Jones and his girlfriend”: The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies’ wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin and more

The Kinks’ Dave Davies posing for a photograph in the 1960s.

Ray Davies may have been the songwriting genius in The Kinks, but brother Dave was responsible for defining their 60s sound. The lead guitarist has a valid claim for having invented heavy metal via the roaring riffs of the Kinks’ monster hits You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night. It’s a style that proved inspirational for everyone from Van Halen to Green Day, Mott The Hoople to Metallica.

When the Kinks disbanded in 1996, Dave set about firming up his solo career, though it was temporarily derailed by a stroke in 2004. In 2010, several years before he patched up his antagonist relationship with his brother Ray, Classic Rock sat down with him to look back on mixing with rock’s great and good over the years. “I was pretty manic and driven back then,” he said of his his pill-popping 60s pomp. “Music was like a big green light going on in my head.”