Dick Dale Quotes

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

— Dick Dale

“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.”

— Dick Dale

“I called it Rockabilly 'cause I was rocking the strums, which you're not supposed to do.”

— Dick Dale

“Hendrix was the bass player for Little Richard. We were both left-handed, but we would use a right-handed guitar held upside down and backwards. He developed my slides and my riffs. In fact he used to say, and this is documented, 'I patterned my style after Dick Dale.'”

— Dick Dale

“Every song is like a painting.”

— Dick Dale

“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.”

— Dick Dale

“I thought of Gene Krupa's drumming, his staccato drumming. I went and put 'Misirlou' to that rhythm.”

— Dick Dale

I blew amps like they were made of tissue paper. Once I blew out the sound system at Royal Albert Hall in London.

— Dick Dale

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

— Dick Dale

“Whatever you do, don't take shortcuts. It's great advice to take and live by.”

— Dick Dale

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.

— Dick Dale

“There's a saying. If you want someone to love you forever, buy a dog, feed it and keep it around.”

— Dick Dale

“I'm a perfectionist. I'm not going to cheat the people.”

— Dick Dale

“I don't play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration, patience, anger. Music is an extension of my soul.”

— Dick Dale

You know, music is sex. It's a sensual driving mode that affects people if it's played a certain way.

— Dick Dale

“I don't like to use the word 'fans;' I call them 'Dick Dale music lovers.'”

— Dick Dale

“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.”

— Dick Dale

“When I was 18 at the Santa Ana River Jetty is where I put my first board in the water that I ever got from Joe Quigg. I was just riding the whitewater in, and I was just in heaven.”

— Dick Dale

“As a little kid I had a girlfriend, and her boyfriend used to beat me up, so then I used to sing these songs, and that's what it's all about. Country music is all about your heart and your people and things like that.”

— Dick Dale

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.

— Dick Dale

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.

— Dick Dale

“I actually first picked up an ukulele before I picked up a guitar.”

— Dick Dale

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

— Dick Dale

Music is nothing but a door opener to meet families and their children and the elderly.

— Dick Dale

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

— Dick Dale

“My father never put me on his lap and said he loved me.”

— Dick Dale

Some guys record an album with songs that are filler. I recorded this album like it was my last.

— Dick Dale

“You can't eat fish. It's 6,000 parts DDT per million all over the world, not counting radiation.”

— Dick Dale

“Drums were my first instrument.”

— Dick Dale

“I make jokes because humor is the greatest healing factor that there is.”

— Dick Dale

“I refuse to bring my son up in a world corrupt as it is now.”

— Dick Dale

“I wanted to put a sheet in explaining what all the songs are about, but they didn't do it.”

— Dick Dale

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

— Dick Dale

“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.”

— Dick Dale

“I'm not one of these guys who is dedicated to playing or performing - that's just one facet of my life.”

— Dick Dale

“I've been called 'the father of loud.'”

— Dick Dale

“I've never followed a list in my life, and that's probably what has created so much nervous energy in my body.”

— Dick Dale

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.

— Dick Dale

My mind never left 20, because once it does, that's when you start to die.

— Dick Dale

My music is more native than intricate or technical.

— Dick Dale

“People just loved the sound because I kept it simple.”

— Dick Dale

Surfers were the ones who named all my songs. They'd yell out the names, and we just kept 'em.

— Dick Dale

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

— Dick Dale

“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.”

— Dick Dale

“I'd rather be a Jack-of-all-trades than master of one. If I became an icon, where my whole life was music, I would probably have become a vegetable. I wouldn't be able to have all these talents I have today and be an interesting 'character.'”

— Dick Dale

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.

— Dick Dale

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.

— Dick Dale

“When I started surfing, you'd hear this neat rumbling sound when you took off and go for the drop, and when the wave is lipping up over the top of you, it makes this hissing sound.”

— Dick Dale

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

— Dick Dale

“I enjoyed it (Dr.Ducks Ax Wax) .. in fact I'm all out ...”

— Dick Dale