Our series is about rock and roll innovators, and your guitar playing has influenced generations of guitarists. We really want to focus in on that. On your style of guitar playing. We've noticed the percussive quality of your playing. Will you talk about that, what's the influence that causes that?

The actual influence of my gui-, the style that I play actually stems from you know, a lot of people say, what guitar players were you listening to, and, and at that, in, in my time when I started, the only guy that I was listening to was Hank Williams, and he didn't play an electric guitar. Where I got my, my, my actual feeling and my styles was from listening to Gene Krupa, and Gene Krupa, and 'cause drums was like my first instrument and ah, listening to the way that he went into the jungles to, to study, the, the native drumming styles, to mesmerize people, to keep a rhythm going, tin, tin, da, da, tin, tin, da, da, tin, tin, da, da, and like that instead of going tin, tin, da, da, tin, da, da, bid a dum, ba, da, dun, like you were doing a jam session or a jazz session, trying to impress other musicians. He wanted to find out why people were, could get mesmerized. And that's the reason why that, the famous Gene Krupa drum solo was dum ban da, dum ban da, dum ban da dum ba da, dum ban da, and that always grabbed everybody because music is not only an attitude, it's, it's sexual, it's sensual. And when you tend to play the same thing like, if I was doing, if I start doing a thing like this [guitar] and I keep that going people just all of a sudden, even people who are deaf can feel. I've, I've had them come to my concerts and going um tum ta da, tum, tum ta. Now, if I go and break that, and start doing some other, fancy things, then I wake 'em up. And that's what they did. They made them, they made them not change that driving bottom sound, so I decided I would not get, not only that kind of a sound, I'd get a thing that would go like a [guitar] see that kind of a sound just keeps 'em kicking. And it's simple.

Dick there's a percussive quality to your playing, could you talk about that? What were your influences that would create that sound?

The actual, the actual influences of my playing, lot of people say, how did you get that sound, and, and what made you do that sound. It was actually, all the way back from the beginning of time, when I was listening to my ah Mom and Dad's big ah, 78 ah whatever they call them, ah records, listening to like guys like Harry James, and I was listening to Gene Krupa, and drums, was, he was such an influence on me, and, and everything I do on stage is with this drumming rhythm that Gene Krupa put together. He was a man who went into the jungles and, and tried to find out why the natives, how they were mesmerized, what mesmerized them. And he come to find out that keeping a, a, a, dun, dun, dada, dun, dun, da, like a sound that, like, for instance you would go like a [guitar] that sound ah, keeping it driving like that, ah tend to mesmerize them, and, and if you changed it if you went over it, if you went [singing] you would just wake 'em up. And then henceforth there goes the hip, hip, hip, hypnotical type of trance you put people in. So when I play the guitar, I play it like I'm playing a drum. I, I play just the way Gene Krupa made his sounds, [singing] and ah, I take people for a ride on that kind of a sound, like I would go, for instance ah [guitar]. That, is, is a heavy staccato picking, machine gun staccato picking sound. It's an attack. And it's keeps the timing tight, and that is really the basis of what I play. It's how I, I get that sound, and, and that way I don't try to get too fancy. You know, don't get too, keep it simple stupid I used to say.

You've been cited as the first power guitarist. Now what was the inspiration to try to create that kind of power out of your electric guitar? What were you after there?

The actual power ah, of my guitar, when I'm performing and when I'm playing. What I was really looking for, lot of people say yeah, he's the father of, ah, of like guitar player once said, ah take it take away the surf title of Dick Dale and you'll get the father of heavy metal. And I said, what do you mean by that, and they go well, anybody who blows up 48 amplifiers and, and speakers that's power. And it's true in the beginning, when I first met Leo Fender, ah he had given me, he had made the guitar, the, the telecaster for the country players, and then he'd given me this guitar that was just already out. Ah came out a year before I met him, the Stratocaster. And he said here, beat this to pieces. And then, ah tell me what you feel, and think. And when I would do that, I, listening as I say to the Gene Krupa albums, and getting that tribal thunder sound. When I would play it, I could not capture that out of an amplifier. Because we did not have mikes to, to mike in front of amps in those days. They had to play on their own ah own qualities. So what would happen is here I got a little ten inch speaker you know, twelve inch speaker, and I'm pumping this guitar through it, with like 60 gauge strings and ah, and all of a sudden the speakers are burning, the speakers are locking, the speakers are rattling and, and then the amp wasn't enough. And so, through a, a complete trial and area for many, trial and error for many months, Leo would call me up night and day, here try this, try this. And finally ah it's a beautiful story and ah, but as the, the end result was the Dick Dale Showman Amplifier, which was a combination of, an output transformer that he, he really focused on that favored the highs, mids and the lows, whereas most transformers only favor one. And then along with a fifteen inch Lansing D130 F speaker, F meaning Fender, ah we went into the, the Lansing company and they, finally, they thought we were nuts when we said, this is what we need. But the speakers were breaking, freezing, burning. We put bigger voice coils, and bigger ah, we put rubberized, the edge of the speakers. And then the amplifier, the, when it was finished was a hundred amp. and ah, it, it peaked a hundred, a hundred watts, and it peaked a hundred and eighty watts, it was a hundred amp, peaking a hundred and eighty watts. That combination was the, the Dick Dale Showman Amplifier, and the Dual Showman, it was nothing, the only difference was the, ah, the impedance changed from ah 8 to 4 and ah, with the combination of the Stratocaster being solid wood, the, the body, making it as heavy as we could make it, made it a, a fat, thick sound. If you could put strings on a telephone pole, Freddy used to tell me, and a pick up you'd have the purest sound in the world. But unfortunately you couldn't hold a telephone pole. So we stuck with Stratocaster, as is.

Some of the Surf Music stars didn’t actually Surf, like ah the Beach Boys for example. But you actually surfed. Were you inspired by the sounds of surfing, of the waves in your playing? Was that something that affected what sounds you were going after?

You know after I ah, finally understood what Gene Krupa was trying to do with sound. Ah, rhythm, your driving rhythm, forget about you're trying to impress other musicians, forget about jam sessions, forget about ah, just doing all these other things, by just concentrating on, the, the average human. Ah the average person who's not a professional. They don't they don't understand an augmented 9th, or a 13th, neither do I, I never took a lesson in my life in anything. I, would, I'd be surfing ah, I knew what I wanted, I knew the sound that I wanted. And it was very tribal and big. But I also at the same time was surfing, and I also at the same time had lions and tigers and. And when I would watch my lion, he's got 22 hundred pounds per square in and his jaw'd go through a stainless steel pan, like it was, somebody shot it with a, a metal piercing Uzi, or something. The strength was so overwhelming, made me feel really small, made me really feel, made me realize what I'm not. And when you're paddling out to a wave it's the same thing. You paddle out to a ten-foot wave, you start saying your prayers, and say, God get me over the top of that wave and I'll go to mass every Sunday. Ah the same thing, it really humbles you and makes you realize that what you are really not. And when I get wise guys who think they're really something, I go, go stand next to a 10 foot wave, or go get in the cage with a, with a 500 pound lion. And then tell me how great you are. So with these real forms of spiritual power, that nature has given us, in the forms of exotic animals, ah the jungle animals, and the forms of the surf. When I would do, come across on a bottom turn, I'd drop to the bottom, it would be just like my lions roaring at around five thirty every day. They would go [guitar] like that. That gives you chills, just me even telling you gives me chicken skin on it. And the same way, it's just like a wave. So when I, I would have my, my lion would like this go [guitar].