Pete Quaife, a Bassist for the Kinks

Pete Quaife, a bassist who joined forces with two schoolmates to form the Kinks, one of the leading rock bands of the 1960s British Invasion, died on Wednesday in Herlev, Denmark. He was 66. The cause was kidney failure, a spokeswoman for the band said.

Born Peter Alexander Greenlaw Quaife on Dec. 31, 1943, he went to William Grimshaw Secondary Modern School in North London with Ray and Dave Davies, and the three began playing music together in 1961, with a succession of drummers. Ray was the frontman and Dave played lead guitar. They went through several names, including the Ravens, before settling on the Kinks in early 1964, with Mick Avory on drums. After two failed singles the band struck gold that August with You Really Got Me.

The song reached No. 1 in Britain and No. 7 in the United States, catapulting the young band to the fore of the British scene, and the abrasive guitar distortion on You Really Got Me and its follow-up, All Day and All of the Night which Dave Davies made by slicing his amplifier with a razor helped start a thousand garage bands. The Kinks were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Pete, Ray and me were the original band, Dave Davies said in a statement on Friday. We might never have done any of this without him. The band continued to score British hits throughout the 1960s, yet had only sporadic success in the United States, where a four-year dispute with the American Federation of Musicians prevented it from touring for most of the late 1960s.

Within the group, Mr. Quaife was sometimes called the ambassador for his ability to break up the Davies brothers regular brawls. But eventually the Kinks bickering and frustrations forced him out.

Mr. Quaife left the band for part of 1966 when he was injured in a car accident, but by 1969, after playing on the albums The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), he quit for good. He was replaced by John Dalton.
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