During the '90s, however, the Kinks gradually became inactive and Davies pursued other projects, starting with his semi-fictional 1995 memoir, X-Ray. He supported the book with a series of concerts subtitled Storyteller, where he played classic Kinks songs, read from the book, told stories, and showcased new songs. The Storyteller concerts sowed the seeds of a number of projects, including the music cable network VH1's recurring series of the same name. Davies himself released a book entitled Storyteller, filled with short stories, and a similarly titled album that captured one of his solo acoustic concerts. That record was his first solo effort since Return to Waterloo, and was released in the spring of 1998.

In late 2005 he released the benefit EP Thanksgiving Day. All net proceeds raised by the EP went to New Orleans music education programs. A year later the full-length Other People's Lives appeared, followed by Working Man's Cafe in 2008. A year later, in 2009, Davies released choral orchestral arrangements of some of his hit songs for The Kinks Choral Collection. Davies then devoted himself to See My Friends, an album project where he revisited his catalog with the assistance of such admirers as Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, Alex Chilton, Black Francis, Jackson Browne, and Spoon.