Billy Corgan<\/a>\u2019s podcast The Magnificent Others, where he reflected on his time with The Kinks, and recited the lyrics from their 1967 tune Death of a Clown.<\/p>\nThe lyrics read: \u201cMy make-up is dry and it cracks round my chin, I\u2019m drowning my sorrows in whiskey and gin, The lion-tamer\u2019s whip doesn\u2019t crack anymore, The lions they won\u2019t fight and the tigers won\u2019t roar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corgan asked Davies about the inspiration for the song, which the musician said had stemmed from his phobia of clowns.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThat was based on an idea I had. I was always scared of clowns and always worried that I\u2019d write a song about a clown. They are horrible and frightening.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nWhen Corgan said he had grown up in Chicago, where \u201cserial killer clown\u201d Gacy had murdered at least 33 boys and young men, at which point Davies said: \u201cI met him\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nHe continued: \u201cHe was so nice, I just couldn\u2019t believe it. Somebody told me that he invited us to the party he gave that night, but I didn\u2019t know who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHowever, their meeting took place when Gacy booked the band to perform at Springfield\u2019s Illinois State Armoury during The Kinks\u2019 US tour in 1965 – before Gacy became the \u201cKiller Clown\u201d and carried out his atrocious crimes between 1972 and 1978.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s not the first time The Kinks have referred to their meeting with Gacy. <\/p>\n
\nLate bassist Pete Quaife told Mojo magazine back in 2000: \u201c\u201cThe local promoter that was looking after us turned out to be a real greaseball. He was polite enough, but a greaseball nonetheless. After the gig, he invites us back to his house. Says he\u2019s got some people coming round and he\u2019s got some booze, so we say, ok.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe get there, and the place has an awful, sickly smell about it. But he\u2019s our promoter, so we stay there, drinking, \u2019til about 03:00. When we decide to go, he gets upset, says can\u2019t a couple of us stay? By now, we were beginning to get a bit antsy about this guy, so we took off to the hotel, and that was the last we saw of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nQuaife concluded by saying he\u2019s very grateful the band didn\u2019t \u201cend up as mementoes, bricked up in his walls\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nGacy was convicted of 33 murders, and executed via lethal injection in May 1994.<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"8 June 2026 The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies has admitted American serial killer John Wayne Gacy was \u201cso nice\u201d when he met him. Dave Davies of The Kinks – 2015 – Photoshot – on stage Davies made the revelation during a chat on The Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan\u2019s podcast The Magnificent Others, where he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[536,6555,15601,15599,15600],"class_list":{"0":"post-244971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-billy-corgan","9":"tag-dave-davies","10":"tag-john-wayne-gacy","11":"tag-the-kinks","12":"tag-the-smashing-pumpkins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}