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

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 always felt people should live with animals.

I've got holes in my guitar.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

People just loved the sound because I kept it simple.

I became stereotyped.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Every song is like a painting.

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 told them if were going to do it were going to do it right, I'm not leaving 'til it's done. My wife, child and I slept in the studio. We cut these raw.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Dick Dale don't surf no more.

Drums were my first instrument.

Earthlings are confused, insecure. And some Earthlings have no heritage: that's what leads them to kill each other and rob 7-11 stores.

Every time I do an album, I say, 'That's the last one.'

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.

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.

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.'

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

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.

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

I do not play to musicians. I play to the people.

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