When I went to school, it was really just to immerse myself in listening to, studying, and making music.
If you've become a huge act and you're still doing the same music you wrote with your friends when you were making zero dollars, you're lazy.
My parents were just really weird and protective about the music I listened to. Whenever I wanted to buy an album, they would have to buy it first and listen to it and let me know if I could have it.
I thought I'd use music to confront the problems that I faced, and it helped. I found a more healing mindset, and it did rejuvenate me.
A lot of our music came out of a lot of weird psychology and weird emotions. When you play the whole body of work, you get tossed all over the place. It's not easy listening. It's not even comfortable to listen to.
I don't need my phone to play me music. I need it to be a phone and an e-mail thing.
You know, music is sex. It's a sensual driving mode that affects people if it's played a certain way.
Every song is like a painting.
I don't like to use the word 'fans;' I call them 'Dick Dale music lovers.'
What I play now isn't surf music. It's too powerful. I used to go through paper bags; now I go through brick walls. I play hard.
Surf music is actually just the sound of the waves played on a guitar: that wet, splashy sound.
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.
My music is more native than intricate or technical.
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.
I like to say, 'I hit every type of music in a show, and I play the people, not the instruments.'
Music is nothing but a door opener to meet families and their children and the elderly.
Surf music is played through a Showman amp with a Stratocaster guitar.
Music drives you. It wakes you up, it gets you pumping. And, at the end of the day, the correct tune will chill you down.
I really pay attention to the bass in the music I listen to, and that's what I tend to write toward.
Kids these days don't know as much about music as they think they do.
Our music, you either get it or you don't. There's no middle ground.
