All in Music Features

Next Article

Music Features

Kink appeal

Last year, there was an exhibit on the brain at Boston’s Museum of Science, and there was a list of famous manic-depressive, or bipolar, people. You were on it.
Why did they put me there? I’m not. Like everybody, I get depressed from time to time, but I get depressed when I can’t do my work. I’m a frustrative-obsessive.

You told me once that the Kinks were the only band where you could be over the moon with excitement and still walk away disappointed.
I don’t think I meant it in the sense that the audience will be disappointed; it’s more from the person’s point of view going through the exercise. I equate this to a marathon runner. You train four years, deny yourself the things you should be doing — like having a life — for one event. You win and then think, “Was it worth it?’ Sometimes, it was like that with the Kinks. We’d go through a lot of ups and downs, and I’d think sometimes we could have achieved less and been just as happy. Now I’ve got this record out. I’m really proud of it, but there are things I could have done in the past 18 months that may have been more worthwhile. But the work stands. It’s there.

On Working Man’s Café, once again, you deal with hard, changing times — with globalization, and the effect on common people. Maybe your time has come again.
A promoter once said, “If there’s a recession, book the Kinks.” He said it was because we resonate more in times of economic crisis. People start to think about the real issues in their life and are less materialistic.