128 Quotes by Dick Dale

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

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.

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.

If I ever wrote a book, people would never believe it.

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.'

My philosophy is that on a scale of 1 to 10, I will go to 15. No matter what!

Surf music is actually just the sound of the waves played on a guitar: that wet, splashy sound.

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

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.'