How The Kinks Got Banned In The USA

The Kinks, led by Ray Davies, were rising stars during the British Invasion in the 1960s. Their songs showed what life was like in Britain, but they didn’t become as popular in the U.S. as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. One of the reasons? A messy tour filled with chaos, conflict, and controversy that eventually got them banned from America for four years.

Backstage Brawls and Bad Blood

Things hit a boiling point in May 1965 when guitarist Dave Davies and drummer Mick Avory got into a full-blown fight on stage. It ended with injuries, arrests, and a reputation that stuck. On top of that, the tour faced poor ticket sales and payment issues. The final straw came when the band canceled a San Francisco show due to not getting paid—leading promoter Betty Kaye to file a formal complaint with the American Federation of Musicians. The result? A tour ban across the U.S.

Ray Davies later shared how tense things became during that time. “We were threatened backstage on The Dick Cavett Show with anti-British remarks and being reported,” he recalled.

Davies admitted the ban hit hard. “That ridiculous ban took away the best years of the Kinks’ career when the original band was performing at its peak,” he said in 2014. The lost U.S. exposure cost them momentum just as their peers were skyrocketing.

Rooted in Britain, Reaching for Greatness

But out of that forced pause came new direction. “It made me root myself more in Europe, the folk tradition in Britain,” Davies explained. During this time, The Kinks leaned into storytelling and national identity—resulting in songs like “Waterloo Sunset,” now considered a British rock classic.

In the end, a ban that once felt like a setback may have sparked some of The Kinks’ greatest creative moments.