Dick Dale Quotes

I'll never die. I'll just explode, right there before your eyes, onstage.

I'm constantly being influenced by the soul that's directly in front of me.

I met Leo Fender, who is the guru of all amplifiers, and he gave me a Stratocaster. He became a second father to me.

I don't claim to be a musician, I didn't go to Julliard.

Every song is like a painting.

I can play every instrument there is, every horn, I've played all the saxes and trumpets and everything and keyboards.

Jimi was a good guy 'til he got into drugs. That's the way it is. I just tell it like it is.

My aunt played the piano and I used to sit and listen to it.

I'll just tell you the way it is. You ask me what time it is and I'm gonna tell you how to build a clock.

When I start playing I'm just a rollercoaster of sound. I don't know what's coming next, I never do, and I sit and sign and talk to the people afterwards.

I used to be a mean maniac. Someone once threw a firecracker at a show and I jumped off the side of the stage and whacked 'em on the side of the head.

Music is an attitude. It's a sensation to the average person, to the human being. And keep it simple, stupid. That's always been my theory.

My philosophy is the thicker the wood the thicker the sound, the bigger the string the bigger the sound. My smallest string is a 14 gauge.

Every time I went into the studio some engineer tried to impress me with how they're going to capture my sound with all kinds of tricks. But they limited the sound and never allowed me to play how I felt.

People just loved the sound because I kept it simple.

The kids called me King of the Surf Guitar. I surfed sunup to sundown.

I grew a love for helpless, defenseless things. People would give me lions and jaguars. I had cheetahs, monkeys.

I've got holes in my guitar.

I almost had to have my leg amputated because of an infection.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.

I always felt people should live with animals.

Buddy Rich was one of the most incredible technicians in the world, on this planet, but the only people he could really impress, who knew what he was doing was another musician or another drummer.

My son now is 22 months old, he's been playing since he was 12 months old and he gets standing ovations on the drums. He's been with us since he was 10 weeks old, he's been on the drums. He's got blisters on his fingers before he can even talk.

I became stereotyped.

My uncle gave me a trumpet, but I loved the Louis Armstrong sound and the Harry James sound and I played by ear and I played always soulful or very direct from the gut.