Dick Dale

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

You shouldn't even be writing this story if you haven't heard me play live. You can't write with the passion you receive until you see a Dick Dale concert.

I like to say, 'I hit every type of music in a show, and I play the people, not the instruments.'

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.

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

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

Guitar Player Magazine says Dick Dale is the father of Heavy Metal, blowing up 48 amplifiers, creating the first power amplifier.

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

I became stereotyped.

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

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.

For 20 years I've been screaming at these guitar companies, saying, 'It's abnormal to put your arm around an acoustic guitar that is about 6 to 8 inches deep.' Your arm reaches over, and you start to strum, and then all of a sudden you get a charley horse in your back. The older you get, the greater the charley horse.