I don't claim to be a musician, I didn't go to Julliard.
I grew a love for helpless, defenseless things. People would give me lions and jaguars. I had cheetahs, monkeys.
I always felt people should live with animals.
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.
I'm a perfectionist. I'm not going to cheat the people.
Jimi was a good guy 'til he got into drugs. That's the way it is. I just tell it like it is.
You can't eat fish. It's 6,000 parts DDT per million all over the world, not counting radiation.
My music is more native than intricate or technical.
I actually first picked up an ukulele before I picked up a guitar.
Surfers were the ones who named all my songs. They'd yell out the names, and we just kept 'em.
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.
I've never followed a list in my life, and that's probably what has created so much nervous energy in my body.
I surfed Dana Point, San Clemente, and of course Huntington Beach. Every morning, you could find me at the hot water pipe.
Drums were my first instrument.
Dick Dale don't surf no more.
