It seems impossible to pry Ray Davies away from England for very long.

He has lived in Ireland and New Orleans but recently returned yet again to the country whose personality and peculiarities he documented in the classic songs he wrote for his band, the Kinks. “It’s always the place where I have to be, for some reason,” Davies notes as he settles into a chair at London’s Konk Studios, the facility founded by the Kinks in 1973 that still serves as their base of operations.

Davies’ second solo album, Working Man’s Café—recorded in Nashville with producer Ray Kennedy and a band of local session players—might someday be seen as the end of his “American period.” Most of the songs on both it and its predecessor, 2006’s Other People’s Lives, were either written during or inspired by the time Davies spent in America between 2001 and 2005. It was an eventful period in which he got to know the country’s dark side a little too well: In January 2004 he was shot in the leg while chasing down a mugger, an incident that inspired a couple of songs on Café.

Davies is clearly at ease in North London, and not just because gun laws are somewhat stricter. The 63-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was born just a couple of miles away in the Muswell Hill suburb. Ray and lead-guitarist brother Dave formed the Kinks in 1962 along with bass player Pete Quaife and drummer Mick Avory, and released their first single two years later. After breaking through with the raucous “You Really Got Me,” the group proceeded to rack up mid-’60s hits with Davies-penned tunes like “All Day and All of the Night,” “A Well Respected Man,” “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” and “Tired of Waiting for You.” From the late 1960s through the mid-’70s, Davies turned toward ever more elaborate, album-length conceptual pieces that examined the nuances of English life in vivid detail.

The Kinks cranked out new music through the mid-’90s with an ever-shifting rhythm section, fueled by the Davies brothers’ endlessly combustible chemistry and the occasional classic like 1983’s “Come Dancing” (their biggest American hit). News reports surfaced late last year that the band’s original lineup might reunite, and Davies confirms that there has been talk among the members to that effect. “I spoke to my brother and he said he’d love to do it, but the deal has to be right,” says Davies. “It will also depend on if we can come up with something new, as well. We can play the old stuff, but if we do something new it makes it more worthwhile.”

He has other, firmer plans for the future, including an album of collaborations with other artists, a choral-music project and a Kinks box set. We asked Davies to reflect on his evolution as a songwriter, the often-tumultuous history of the Kinks and his belated emergence as a solo artist.

How does a song usually begin for you?
I’m from the do-what-it-takes school of writing. It can come from notes on a piece of paper. It’s a strange thing; I can find a lyric that I wrote on an envelope years ago, and when I see it written down the music comes back into my head. I have a good musical memory. I don’t remember where I live, but I know a song from 10 years ago! (Laughs) That comes in handy. I used to tape everything I wrote. I don’t do that as much anymore, but I have gone back to taping a bit. The problem is that the Kinks have our little studio where it’s possible to go in and make 16-track demos, and invariably those demos will become the master. We went through years doing that, putting demos out and fooling everybody (laughs).

For more, get the latest Issue of Performing Songwriter, ISSUE No. 109