Dick Dale
I thought of Gene Krupa's drumming, his staccato drumming. I went and put 'Misirlou' to that rhythm.
I make my guitar scream with pain or pleasure or sensuality. It makes people move their feet and shake their bodies. That's what music does.
My mind never left 20, because once it does, that's when you start to die.
I know what it's like to wash my clothes in a Chevron station.
When I played with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings in Vegas, the guys used to go, 'Dick, cut it out, man! You're moving around too much on this stage. You're making us look bad!'
I've never followed a list in my life, and that's probably what has created so much nervous energy in my body.
Drums were my first instrument.
I blew amps like they were made of tissue paper. Once I blew out the sound system at Royal Albert Hall in London.
You know what the doctors call me? 'The Cancer Warrior.'
Dick Dale don't surf no more.
Earthlings are confused, insecure. And some Earthlings have no heritage: that's what leads them to kill each other and rob 7-11 stores.
I live like in the days of Daniel Boone, hauling water by hand. I used to have two Rolls-Royces. Now I got one. It's got four flat tires; the trunk is open, and a rat lives inside it.
Nothing could capture the sound of Dick Dale - he was too loud.
Every time I do an album, I say, 'That's the last one.'
People ask about love. Real love. I was never in love; the people around me didn't love me. They were just along for the ride.
I've been performing since 1955. I'm going to have to keep performing till I die because I'm not going to die in some rocking chair with a big ol' beer belly.
I make jokes because humor is the greatest healing factor that there is.
When I play, I don't cheat. I played for 490,000 in Berlin, and I'll play just as hard for 100.
I smashed my tailbone and couldn't sit for five years, and I broke my clavicle because I thought I was a great surfer, and of course, I could be a great snowboarder, too. Man, was I wiped out!
I don't like to use the word 'fans;' I call them 'Dick Dale music lovers.'
With every problem comes a gift in hand.
I'm not one of these guys who is dedicated to playing or performing - that's just one facet of my life.
I answer number one to myself, because I know myself. I answer to my fans, because they know me. My mother knows me and God knows me, and that's where it's at.
When I come onstage, I'm exploding.
I've been called 'the father of loud.'
If you ask me what I'd rather be doing, well, I'd rather be home in California, watching TV, polishing my tools and working around the ranch.
I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.
I like to say, 'I hit every type of music in a show, and I play the people, not the instruments.'
I enjoy living like a hermit, but I cannot live like a hermit.
If I ever wrote a book, people would never believe it.
My father never put me on his lap and said he loved me.
I've never taken a lesson in my life, and I can play every instrument there is. I play by ear, but I can fool anybody into thinking I went to some conservatory of music.
I do not play to musicians. I play to the people.
What I play now isn't surf music. It's too powerful. I used to go through paper bags; now I go through brick walls. I play hard.
I was reading a magazine when I was a little kid, probably about twelve years old, and an ad said that if you sell so many jars of Noxzema skin cream, we'll sell you a ukulele. So I went out and banged on doors in the snow in Quincy, Massachusetts, where I was raised, and I sold the skin cream.
When my guitar was growling, playing surf beat, you could hear it; you could feel it.
I'm going to make people happy. I'm going to make them forget about their cancer. I'm going to make them forget about their diabetes.
What we perceive things to be when they come out of our mouth is not what the listener perceives it to be. They think it differently. They're not your blood. They're not your mind. You get in an argument.
My philosophy is that on a scale of 1 to 10, I will go to 15. No matter what!
I try to read the audience, see what they're in the mood for.
As I'd go out learning to surf, I'd feel the power of waves coming over my body. It's like you're with God.
Springsteen - he's the Lord God.
Kids don't see me as an oldies person when I go out on stage. They see me as an energy force.
Music is nothing but a door opener to meet families and their children and the elderly.
People who have witnessed all the years of me playing, they bring their kids and say, 'I used to see this guy when I was fourteen!'
In the Shao Lin temple, they never allow you to touch the skin of a drum until you can tongue what you're going to play.
The ultimate guitar players can play every scale in the book.
Gene Krupa was my big hero, and I used to play on my mother's flour cans and sugar cans with the kitchen knives, listening to the big bands on my dad's records. Gene Krupa and Harry James.
I'm dedicated to touring the rest of my life.