Riffs and a razor blade: The story of The Kinks’ greatest guitar line
There’s absolutely no doubt that ‘You Really Got Me’ is one of the most iconic guitar riffs to have ever been written, and not only did it provide the world with the genesis of garage rock, but it predicted the advent of punk far before its time and managed to propel The Kinks into the spotlight early on in their career. While they would arguably go on to achieve greater things later on in their career, it’s a momentous point in their trajectory that showcases just how formidable they were even in their infancy.
The band would, of course, transition to playing in a multitude of different styles later on in their career, becoming famous for their adoption of psychedelic rock and folk music on records like Village Green and Arthur, but the seismic shock that was created by this full-frontal assault of forceful guitar aggression changed everything we know about popular music when it was released in 1964. The harshness of the power chords was something that would end up becoming a prominent feature of not only punk, but heavy metal and hard rock, and it’s all thanks to the brilliance of Dave Davies.
But how exactly did the band come up with a sound so raw when there was virtually nothing that predated the song in the same style? The group had taken significant influence from blues musicians such as Lead Belly and Howlin’ Wolf, but there was nowhere near as much distortion or aggression in their music as there was in ‘You Really Got Me’, so the question of where the sound originates from is something that has puzzled fans for years.
For many years, there had been rumours circulating about how Davies and his brother, frontman Ray Davies, had gotten into a fight in the studio, and that one of the brothers ended up slashing Dave’s guitar amp with a razor blade in a fit of rage at the incident. This was taken as gospel by many news outlets, publishers and music historians for a long time, and while the truth isn’t too far from this, it wouldn’t be until 2016 that the true origin of the sound was revealed.
Dave Davies decided to take to the band’s official Facebook page to debunk all of the published rumours that he and his brother had got into a fight. He even demanded that several publications amend any article that suggested this was the cause of the guitar sound on the record.
In his post, Davies revealed: “As I have stated in interviews and print since 1964, I was alone at home in the front room of 6 Denmark Terrace in Muswell Hill, North London, when I got angry because I was upset about being separated from my girlfriend. I slashed the speaker cone with a razor blade IN A FIT OF RAGE. Ray was not with me. I was alone in my ANGER. IT had nothing to do with a fight with my brother.”
While his block capitals suggest an ire about the fact that Ray had been credited with helping in the slightest, he’s very insistent that it was all his doing, and that he’s single-handedly responsible for changing the course of music history. “My friend and peer Jimi Hendrix told me some years later that he loved my guitar sound and that ‘You Really Got Me’ was a landmark record,” he concluded. “In all modesty, that guitar tone on ‘You Really Got Me’ revolutionised rock guitar and rock guitar was never the same again.”
