A lot of our stuff recently has been routine for the studio, when it should have been routine for the stage, and that's why it sound different. I think the writing's the same, maybe, but it's the fact that we spend more time in the studio and less on the road that's changed the sound of it.
All my records - at one time they've been the most important things I've ever done.
At one time they've been the most important thing to me. So I can't hear our records on the radio, I can't stand it, because they sound so out of what everyone else is doing.
I don't think England is that gray but India is like a long drone.
I got that idea from being in India. I always like the chanting.
I like surfers. Their imagery, it's great.
I still like to keep tapes of the few minutes before the final take, things that happen before the session. Maybe it's superstitious, but I believe if I had done things differently - if I had walked around the studio or gone out - it wouldn't have turned out that way.
I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio.
I was an art student at the time, like thousands of others.
I'm easy driving, But I'm not a person who loves living pleasantly above all else. I'm not that way at all. I might think I'm that, but I'm not really that.
I'm susceptible to that sort of thing - to walls and flowers. You can probably get something more from a wall than a person sometimes. It's just put somewhere.
I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere.
If I had to do my life over, I would change every single thing I have done.
If New Orleans is allowed to die, a crucial part of the world's music heritage will disappear.
In the States, our old image is still lasting, since the last time we were there that's what they remember us doing... .the heavy things, the chunk chunk things, you couldn't really miss it.
Love ends, but songs are for ever. They capture a moment and an emotion. You can have two human beings who should not be in the same house, or possibly even the same country, but the music tells you that it really could have been for ever. In those three minutes, there are no hard feelings.
Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep.
No one can penetrate me. They only see what's in their own fancy, always.
Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.
People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to proved that it really existed.
See, when groups were on the road, they used to go right in the studio and create the same kind of feeling they had on the road, and the stuff they used to cut was influenced by what they did at gigs. But when groups spent more time in the studio and started to change, the atmosphere changed.
Then I got together with my brother and a friend and we decided to play dates. The more we played, the more we wanted to do it. And it got to a stage where we wanted to do it all the time.
Those three chords were part of my life - G, F, Bb - yeh, it is, it is, and I can't help noticing it. But there have been other things nearly as close to it which people haven't noticed, other things we have done.
What I try to do probably doesn't come out. What I've worked out what I do - I might not be right - is to do something very personal, and then suddenly I look at it, up in the air. I blow it up and look at it and then I come down again - a better man.
What struck me was that it was more like the family Christmas I enjoyed as a child growing up in London. Thanksgiving is a time for sharing and even though they throw up their eyes as though it were a chore, family members traditionally gather for a reunion at the house of the oldest relative.
What you are saying too, is that it's not only what other people are doing, it's what I'm doing, what I'm feeling. It's a little bit selfish as well.
When I wrote the song, I had the sea near Bombay in mind. We stayed at a hotel by the sea, and the fishermen come up at five in the morning and they were all chanting. And we went on the beach and we got chased by a mad dog - big as a donkey.
When you are making a record and if you spend too much time over it, you have to record it a tone lower or cut the tones lower because you can't reach some of the notes, I find this. But when you go on stage, you have to put the key up and it really changes the whole thing.
Ray was inducted into the UK Music Hall Of Fame in 2005, along with the rest of 'The Kinks.'
Ray performed live at Buckingham Palace in 2003, as part of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations. The performance was broadcast worldwide.
Ray is to be given the BMI Icon award on October 3, 2006, at the annual awards dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London. This honor is for lifetime achievement in the recording industry.
Ray was one of the first featured artists on VH1's Storyteller series. He like the concept so much that he went on tour playing songs, telling stories, and reading excerpts from his autobiography.
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