Speaking to the British paper The Guardian, Dave, who now lives in New Jersey, says he’s been in the U.K. lately working with his brother.
“Me and Ray are talking. Or talkingish,” he says. “I’ve been working with Ray. We’ve been working on some ideas.”
“There’s a lot of it,” Dave explains. “Some of it is O.K. and some of it is really good and needs tarting up, knocking into shape, as it were. It’s going O.K. We’re getting O.K., that’s the main thing. [Ray] can be cheeky. He wants what he wants. It’s just brother s***. When the music works, everything else is ‘Sod it, it will be all right.’”
The Guardian reports that Dave is also involved in a campaign to preserve a historic shopping arcade in North Finchley, London, very close to where he and Ray grew up in nearby Muswell Hill. Developers want to tear down the art deco-style arcade, which features an array of small mom-and-pop shops, and build high-priced apartments in its place.
Dave says, “I think we are at a time now when we need to celebrate individualism rather than trying to make everything the same. This sort of place brings people together.”
Recalling how the Kinks sang “God save little shops” on their 1968 song “The Village Green Preservation Society,” Dave notes, “Little shops matter because people matter…It’s more personalized, more individual, more quirky….Some people don’t care, but I do. Ray was right about it before anyone else on the Village Green album.”
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Ray and Dave Davies (David M. Benett/ Dave Benett/Getty Images)