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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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!'”

“That's what my music does for me. It makes people happy. When I play, I thank the Lord I've never seen someone walk away from a Dick Dale dance not having a good time. That's what it's all about.”

“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.”

“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.'”

“Kids don't see me as an oldies person when I go out on stage. They see me as an energy force.”

“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.”

“I enjoy living like a hermit, but I cannot live like a hermit.”

“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.”

“When I first played the guitar without plugging it into an amplifier, the people at Fender were blown away. They couldn't believe the sound. I said, 'See, gentlemen, the world is no longer flat.'”

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

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

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

“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!”

“Springsteen - he's the Lord God.”