My music is more native than intricate or technical.
From 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.
Surfers were the ones who named all my songs. They'd yell out the names, and we just kept 'em.
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.
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.
I have all the rhythm in my left hand, and I use the rhythms that Gene Krupa did on his drums.
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.
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