Dave Davies confirms The Kinks really did once party with John Wayne Gacy: “He was so nice”
The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies has finally confirmed the longstanding rumour that his band once partied with the notorious American serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
Davies is the latest guest on The Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan’s podcast, The Magnificent Others, which saw him reflect on his life in music and fondly reminisce about The Kinks.
At one stage in the conversation, Corgan recited the following lyrics from The Kinks’ 1967 song ‘Death of a Clown’, “My makeup is dry and it cracks round my chin, I’m drowning my sorrows in whiskey and gin, The lion-tamer’s whip doesn’t crack anymore, The lions they won’t fight and the tigers won’t roar.”
In response, Davies explained the story behind the song, which came from a phobia of clowns, sharing, “That was based on an idea I had. I was always scared of clowns and always worried that I’d write a song about a clown. They are horrible and frightening.”
Corgan then shared that he grew up in Chicago when they had the “serial killer clown” John Wayne Gacy, which prompted Davies to reveal, “I met him.”
The guitarist continued to Corgan’s astonishment, “He was so nice, I just couldn’t believe it.”
“Somebody told me that he invited us to the party he gave that night, but I didn’t know who it was,” Davies continued, as Corgan recalled being a child “quaking in my basement” in the Chicago suburbs.
Gacy, who was convicted of murdering 33 boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in the Chicago area, came into contact with The Kinks during their first US tour in 1965.
Therefore, when Davies wrote ‘Death of a Clown’ in 1967, the ‘Killer Clown’ was yet to commit his atrocious crimes, which would gain international attention and haunt Chicago throughout the ’70s.
Through his work with the Jaycees, Gacy booked The Kinks to perform at Springfield’s Illinois State Armoury, which is where Davies came into contact with the serial killer.
Davies is not the only Kinks member to have spoken about the experience; their original bassist, Pete Quaife, once recalled to Mojo in 2000, “The local promoter that was looking after us turned out to be a real greaseball. He was polite enough, but a greaseball nonetheless. After the gig, he invites us back to his house. Says he’s got some people coming round and he’s got some booze, so we say, ok.”
Quaife continued, “We get there, and the place has an awful, sickly smell about it. But he’s our promoter, so we stay there, drinking, ’til about 03:00. When we decide to go, he gets upset, says can’t a couple of us stay? By now, we were beginning to get a bit antsy about this guy, so we took off to the hotel, and that was the last we saw of him.”
The late bassist also said they “could have ended up as mementoes, bricked up in his walls”.
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