The Kinks’ Dave Davies reacts to “horrible” AI cover of the band

31 August, 2024

Dave Davies

The Kinks’ Dave Davies has reacted to what he’s described as a “fukin horrible” AI cover of one of the band’s songs.

The “new original track”, which was uploaded back in January and called ‘Hop Skip Jump’, has now been removed – but not before Davies had seen it.

Davies posted to X/Twitter: “What the fuk is this??? This Kinks AI cover is like horror show sounds fukin horrible.”

Star Wars actor Mark Hamill also commented on Davies’ post, writing “you will be happy to know when I clicked on this it said ‘video unavailable’. (Still curious what The Kinks AI would sound like though),” to which Davies replied: “this one was s***”.

Later, the original creator of the clip apologised and posted a video of his band doing a cover of The Kinks’ ‘Living On A Thin Line’.

Davies was more approving of this and wrote back: “I really like your cover”.

Back in June, Davies hit out after spotting his Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame trophy being put up for auction on eBay.

The original four members of The Kinks – Dave, his brother Ray, bassist Pete Quaife and drummer Mick Avory – were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1990, reuniting for the first time in many years.

However, guitarist Davies noticed the award was up for auction for USD$12,500 (£9,860) and took to X/Twitter to share his feelings on seeing the listing, saying the award had been listed “without my consent”.

“I lost track of my award years ago and didn’t know where it was,” he wrote. “If the person bought it at a storage unit it may have been [around] the time of my 2004 stroke when I was incapacitated in [the] UK”.

Davies suffered a stroke in 2004 on June 30, staying in hospital for two months; the stroke forced him to relearn the guitar afterwards. He went on to record a full album called ‘Fractured Mindz’, releasing it in 2007, going on to make a full recovery.

Continuing on social media, Davies added: “I’m grateful to have made a full record from my stroke but it’s a shame that I wasn’t contacted. I’m assuming this is what happened. This auction makes me very sad.”

Dave Davies (Photo by Bobby Bank/WireImage)
Dave Davies (Photo by Bobby Bank/WireImage)

It appears as though Davies found a resolution; he later shared he had “written to the seller and are waiting to hear back. I don’t want to have to pay 12 grand to get my own award back. But maybe we can work something out more reasonable.”

The sellers who put the item up for sale, Colony Records, have also since reached out to the guitarist on X/Twitter, encouraging him to shoot them a message, to which Dave responded: “OK thank you”.

NME spoke to The Kinks last year to celebrate their two-part anthology series called ‘The Journey‘ honouring the band’s 60th anniversary.

There, Ray Davies shared the band had enough material for “about 20” new songs, adding: “There are about two or three songs I want to finish, and when they’re finished, I’ll put the whole thing together.”

However, he said a potential Kinks reunion remained “in the lap of the gods”, and would only come to fruition if they could lock in “a show that gives us the credit we deserve”.

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