DD - Awwright.

PG - A need to create order.

DD - Oh no, scary it's Saturn, auunnhhh! (this exclamation of fright is screeched in a high pitch)

PG - I'll tell you something, I'm a Virgo.

DD - Nightmare! (microphone dies and comes back to life again)

PG - Are you going to call back? Testing, testing.

DD - Hello.

PG - Let's talk about gremlins again. Remember that Bugs Bunny Looney Tune with gremlins in it?

DD - I don't recall that, remember that Twilight Zone where he was terrified of flying and he kept seeing this strange looking creature that kept chewing at the engines?

PG - uhhh

DD - You never saw that?

PG - I don't think so, I remember those furry things on Star Trek?

DD - Dribbles! DRIBBLES! (laughs)

PG - They were something between gerbils and gremlins.

PG - Let's start again, this is Rebecca Wilson for Punk Globe radio and we're interviewing Dave Davies today! Hello Dave!

DD - Hello Rebecca, it's good to see you, sunny California?

PG - It's actually rainy today, it's like British weather.

DD - It's nice now and again but not every day. So you're a Virgo, right? Yeah, that Virgo thing about always looking for perfection, tricky, when perfection doesn't really exist. Tough call.

PG - And you're an Aquarius right?

DD - Yeah, with Scorpio rising and lots of Cancer stuff, sensitive Cancer moon, that's where I got all me psychic stuff from, Cancer moon and me mum's genes I think.

PG - What did you think of that film Scorpio Rising?

DD - Never saw it, so if you're a Virgo, right? If you're true to a Virgo, you're well read and you remember what you read -

PG - Yeah, I have a good memory.

DD - A lot of people don't, I always, as a student, I always hated school anyway.

PG - That was one of my questions, you've got so many intellectual pursuits so you-

DD - I'm not an intellectual.

PG - But you read so much! I mean in your DVD, I loved the scenes in the Atlantis bookshop in London with your friend, uh, Geral-

DD - Geraldine Beskin, she's beautiful.

PG - I loved those scenes because it was like a mini-salon. It was just so interesting to hear your discourse with her about different subjects. You seemed pretty intellectual there!

DD - Yeah, maybe my understanding of intellectual is different from yours. I only ever read books that I wanted to read. I think it comes from being a bit of a rebel in school. I wouldn't read what I was told to read but I probably only read two books in school. It was only when I left school really, about 14, 15 - that I would go and buy a book if it was something I needed to know about. So I guess when I was about 19 I was getting into astrology that I went and bought books. Because I'm one of those people who had to be motivated or inspired to do things. Once I get hooked into something I like to follow it right through. It's like with music, when I got interested in music, it was like an arrow, you know, it was like shooting an arrow, follow it where ever it went, very determined. I'm not an intellectual, that's what I'm trying to say.

PG - You're an artist!

DD - I find I always get information from how I feel about things.

PG - Maybe being an artist is different from being an intellectual. You're more instinctive -

DD - As a kid I always knew what to say to people and what not to say to them because I could tell how they felt. When I was little when my Auntie or just people came into a room if they felt upset I would be upset and I would wonder why all of a sudden I was so upset. It took me a long time to realize that I was actually taking on the condition of someone else’s feelings. Cancer Moon. It can be difficult. That’s why I got into mystical things, psychic things, because it teaches you to somehow navigate around these feelings and impressions and being creative is the perfect way of finding out how to solve problems.

PG - Yeah!

DD - I think that’s what’s happening in the world today.

PG - What?

DD - I don't think we don't rely on our creativity and imagination as much as we should do so I think that’s where a lot of the solutions are and the solution might not be in a linear form, it might not be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 it might be 1, 8, 27, 494 and I think that's what we’re learning or trying to learn as well as so much chaos in order that the methods and systems in life that surround us, linear thinking is unreliable.

PG - Yeah!

DD - and I’m saying that to a Virgo, I'm asking for trouble.

PG - Yeah, I had to accept myself for who I am.

DD - It’s hard isn’t it?

PG - Yeah, but it's easier to embrace one's shortcomings and quirks, my Mom always says just be yourself!

DD - Yeah, well, maybe she’s right.

PG - I find as a Virgo I used to have conflicts with people. I - I would get very frustrated because I would want people to act as though I wanted them to act and my mother would just say people are who they are, you can't change them.

DD - Yeah, it's a big Virgo hurdle all right, because a lot of the problem is connecting with the external world and a lot of Virgos think that they're already connected, and that they know what they're doing, it's part of the maze the Virgo has to go through, is to realize that to look for perfection is one thing, but to find it is impossible.

PG - Scrooge seems like a Virgo, I love Charles Dickens' writing.

DD - I do too! You know, what I used to do, I still do it, I get a book and read the first page, and just open another page and look at the end. I like to read the ending first. Well I don’t really like novels so, I like movies! But novels are far too boring. Explaining how somebody opens up a box.

PG - But your Aschere Project, it seems like a novel idea with its 8 page booklet accompanying the CD.

DD - Yeah it is. I’m actually talking to my book publisher about getting some sort of a book deal together trying and expand on the concept but I find screenplay writing easier because you're already in that perspective in observing what's going on.

PG - and it’s multi-dimensional, I mean you're a musician so you're right way thinking of the soundtrack and the-

DD - Oh yeah, the story, the music ideas came first. Russell, my son, is a genius, I ought not say that, ha ha, but he is. I found working with someone like that stimulates your own mind and heart and intellect and everything. So it was a very even and balanced, backwards and forwards exchange of energy and that's what I like. You know, being an Aquarian I like communicating with people and I think as you get more into mystical things you realize the depth of very simple communication is important, profound and life changing. So that's where I think the hardest thing to learn and growing up and trying to be a mystic for example is honesty and truth because they're important keys to finding out knowledge. You can’t really find out anything when it's tainted by ego and deceipt and half truths. That’s why governments don’t work that's why politics don't work.

PG - So what do you think of wikileaks?

DD - Wikileak?

PG - the fellow that's spilling the government secrets all over the world, um

DD - Have you seen what are the secrets like?

PG - I read what more what they were about in the New York Times.

DD - I kind of think we’re allowed to see things sometimes. we never really see what we should be seeing. it's always covered up. Fortunately, nowadays, I think, we can work at finding out what’s behind the veil anyway. We don't need other people to tell us what's going on.

PG - Right.

PG - Back to the Aschere Project. Did your son turn you on to trance music?

DD - No, Russell and my other son Christian who’s a dj turned me onto a lot of trance music and electronica and stuff years ago so it's been kind of there because it's been their interest

PG - oh, so -

DD - sorry

PG - ( I spaztically interrupt) oh cuz one of the older tracks -

DD - am I talking too much?

PG - oh No, I -

DD - oh O.K. (laughs)

PG - you're talking to a Virgo

DD - (laughs)

PG - you know that song Superman by the Kinks -

DD - yeah, (laughs)

PG - has sort of a fast drumbeat and it reminded me -

DD - it's like in those days, early 80s, there's a lot of records like Blondie that had a lot of dance type club tracks and Superman's a little bit of a send up really. It's a bit of a wind up. do you remember a song by - you're probably too young but a track by Frank Zappa called Dancing Fool?

PG - Oh yeah, I love that!

DD - I’m a big fan of Frank Zappa, I love his work. So it was kind of a bit of a send-up as well and the Superman film was in the theaters and there's all this imagery about heroes and you know it's good to have heroes. We all need images and people and someone to set an example. It's all a little bit in the end it is a little bit like the Emerald City, isn't it?

PG - (laughs)

DD - (laughs) Bad trip man.

PG - The Wizard of Oz

DD - I actually do believe there is a greater truth. I believe in the divine. I believe in divine energy. The problem we have is trying to connect and trying to connect back to it. That's all.

PG - Well, that's what yoga does for you, right?

DD - Well yeah, I don't know if you do it. From the age of 22 to I still practice it now but I don’t do the hatha yoga, I don't do the physical yoga so much As you get older and your body starts aching but the whole point of hatha yoga is to develop the mind so you convince the physical machine to do certain things and train it, there's a means to an end, you have to get hold of the mind. that’s really what yoga’s about getting hold of the mind.

PG - Hmmm

DD - and then we realize that the mind is only a tiny part of what we are - so it's like the more you find out the more there is to know.

PG - Yeah!

DD - Yoga has been a big part of my life. I think it saved my life in many situations.

PG - It helped you to center yourself when you were feeling anxious.

DD - Anxious, scared, like panic is such a corruptive emotion. It throws everything out of whack when just the beginnings of anxiety are quite good because it tunes the brain to the emotions to search. You know like a telephone, a mobile telephone, you turn it on, an I phone, you can see it’s searching. In that slightly anxious frame of mind, we’re in that searching mode, which I think is good, that's like a part of meditation. We seek out, search, put your antennas out and search for things that you want. But the mind's not always helpful. The mind likes to just throw rubbish at you.

PG - I like that writer Ram Dass.

DD -I’m not so sure about his teacher but I like him.

PG - In one of his books he mentions the term sadhana, chop wood, carry water, the idea of a routine as a meditation. Do you have a moving meditation? I mean you don't always have to sit still to contact the divine, right?

DD - No, of course not. Everybody has to find their own technique I think. That’s why I was never into religion or ashrams and stuff because you need help, everyone needs help or direction. We have to choose ourselves what we need. We have to make up our own minds about what we need because there isn’t a one size fits all, unfortunately, well no I think it’s a good thing, that we all have to try and work it out. But what I do is everything I do is based on a regime of breathing, meditation, visualization. What I do is like an inside-out process. I go in and work with all the stuff in there and hope it will come out and hopefully what comes out in the external world is better because of the inner work. One thing that is good about some kinds of meditation, it's like an operation. If you're dealing with the external world and that's what I'm a big advocate of. If something’s wrong with your life or there seems to be something wrong with everybody's life at the moment. See that’s where I think we’re connected and prayer and the divine can help us, because at a certain level of meditation we're all connected anyway. So when I go and do my meditation, at some level maybe it's a split second, whatever it is, I'm helping the world or helping you or you're helping me.

PG - Well, your new album the Aschere Project sounds very tranquil, beautiful, calming and healing so if your meditation was part of the process of recording that I can feel the good vibes!

DD -Oh, I’m so glad because the intent is only good, it's only gonna help. It might be a science fiction story about two characters the opposite sides of the universe, but the story is a means to get people into a place. I like to think and I don’t want to sound pretentious or anything. I like to think that everything I do in the waking state is divine. And why shouldn't I? I'm a divine being and so are you.

PG - Namaste

DD -Namaste

PG - Can I ask you some questions about your early career?

DD - Yeah, do it.

PG - I was wondering if you ever went to that shop Granny Takes a Trip in London and bought clothes?

DD - Yeah I did, I used to like it! (laughs) I was probably drunk or stoned every time I went there so that’s about as much as I can remember.

PG - So I guess a lot of these great 60s designers would give you clothes for free?

DD -Yeah, they did! For some reason I could wear anything kind of looked o.k. and um, the sillier the clothes or the hats or whatever the better they looked, I dunno.

PG - I have a vintage clothing shop online on Ebay called Vintage Royale.

DD - Oh cool! you’ll have to link me to it send me a link and stuff.

PG - I think fashion is an art form as well -

DD - Of course it is! When we started, me and Pete Quaife, he was our first bass player, we were as much into clothes and fashion as we were into music. Pete was a graphic artist we both used to go out and look at clothes and draw them. I drew pictures of our first band suits. It was all very much a part of it.

END OF PART 1 - Part 2 to be continued in February 2010 issue.

Please check out Dave Davies' website to read many more archived articles about him, see photos of his guitar collection or purchase his DVD autobiographical documentary Dave Davies Kronikles Mystical Journey and his latest CD the Aschere Project.

http://www.davedavies.com/