It’s one of the most notorious sibling rivalries in music history.
Ray Davies and Dave Davies didn’t see eye-to-eye for decades – their relationship was so fractured that it in fact broke up The Kinks.
During their time in the influential band, things were continually tense between the two brothers, but their creative powers still flourished.
Ray’s witty, quintessentially British lyricism captured imaginations, writing era-defining songs like ‘Waterloo Sunset’ and ‘Sunny Afternoon’.
Dave’s guitar mastery conjured riffs like the timeless ‘You Really Got Me’ their first hit in 1964, and a sound which brought opened the door for distortion to revolutionise pop music.
Together they brought The Kinks to the fore of British music throughout the 1960s and 1970s, despite it being “a constant state of screaming and shouting at each other” as Dave recently revealed to the Daily Express.
Even after the band split, the brothers’ rift deepened, with Ray infamously stamping on Dave’s 50th birthday cake in 1997.
They’ve softened over the years however, and have learned to appreciate each other’s work, with a reunion long been mooted.
“We spoke about it only last week,” Dave told The New Cue earlier this week. “We’re going to meet up again this week and see where the journey might take us.
“We’ve had loads of stuff in the can for ages so who knows. Stuff we’ve had in demo form or things we didn’t use. There’s quite a few songs we’ve either revamped or done slightly differently so we’ll see.”
Asked outright if new Kinks music was on the way, Dave replied: “Let’s hope so, eh!”
It’s not the first time the band have hyped up a comeback recently with Dave telling the Express last month: “We’ll try to get back on stage”.
So The Kinks getting back together has never seemed closer, with Ray telling NME recently that they have around “20 songs” for a new album.
It’s been on-off-on-off and on-off again between the Davies brothers – Dave seemed to pour cold water on the prospect in 2022 by branding Ray “a megalomaniac”.