Jimi Hendrix Youll Never Hear Surf Music Again

Dick Dale's Surfer'due south Selection. The photo was shot by SURFER Magazine Founder John Severson at San Clemente Pier.

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If such a matter as surf music exists, Dick Dale invented it. The 73-year-old cancer survivor and world-renowned "Rex of Surf Guitar" explains the meaning of surf music, clarifies a Jimi Hendrix quote, and shares some words of wisdom.

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Equally the peer-appointed "King of Surf Guitar," can you speak to what y'all recollect surf music is?

Well, what do you lot call back surf music is?

If information technology exists, I think it has to connect with surfers.

Well what it is, is the meaning of the sounds of the waves, like the echo and the sounds of the tube and my finger would be in the wall and I could hear it get chhhhhhhhhhh! And I'd take my strings and go weeeeeeer! Up high and then y'all become that rumble merely before you're going to be flung over, you know right before you lot're going to go over the fucking falls and become slammed down, all that rumbling and all that stuff like that they associated the heavy Dick Dale staccato picking tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk on those strings, it sounded like the barrel of a goddamn wave.

So are you still surfing?

I'm still a longboarder. My shortest lath is fat. Guy Takayama made me an incredible board. It'south grey. It looks like a line-fishing lure, and I promise 1 of the giant damn sharks doesn't come afterwards me and eat me. It looks like a giant lure.

Can you lot speak more than about the connection between music and surfing?

The rhythm that you get is the same thing. The rhythm in that water – nothing comes shut to that. Nothing. The rhythm of a beautiful burnished wave matches the rhythm of playing music on an instrument and non but that, but the ferocity of Mother Nature's ocean is the same affair when yous hear my guitar growl…The ferocity when you just go into a gnarly wave that just wants to chew you up and spit yous out – that'due south my guitar when it starts getting angry. So I tell people, I'm not a guitar player. I don't know what an augmented ninth or thirteenth is, and I don't requite a shit. I make my guitar scream with hurting or pleasure, and that'due south what it does.

I read that when Jimi Hendrix said "You'll never hear Surf music again," that was in reference to your battle with cancer. Is that true?

Y'all know what's so funny is that they didn't say the rest of his judgement. Do y'all know what the rest of the judgement was?

I accept no idea.

I had never missed a gig in my life, and I had a temperature of 104, and I couldn't fifty-fifty talk, but I got hit with rectal cancer and I found Jimi when he was playing bass with Petty Richard.

In the outset Jimi Hendrix was a very humble, serenity person, but he got involved with peers, where as I say, "Sentinel your ain road."

Anyway, Jimi was recording in the studio and said, "I heard Dale did a no-show. That'southward not like him. You know? His guitar player said, "No, man, he's dying."

They had given me three months to live. Then Jimi said, "Yous'll never hear surf music again." And then he said, "I bet that's a large lie. Let'south pack upwards boys and go home."

That was the full fucking sentence.

So how are you doing now?

As I say, I'k dealing with the cancer affair and I don't requite a shit what cancer thinks. I'chiliad going to play my goddamn guitar and that'south all there is to information technology. I'k going to make people happy. I'm going to brand them forget virtually their cancer. I'm going to make them forget about their diabetes. I'g going to make them forget most all their pains and all their bullshit…That's what my music does for me. It makes people happy. When I play, I give thanks the Lord I've never seen someone walk away from a Dick Dale dance not having a skillful time. That's what information technology'due south all about.

If you could give your fans some advice, what would it be?

If I could convince everybody to go surf, I would. Your body follows your mind. Don't fuck up your mind, considering your torso will fuck upward. Don't put shit in your mind, because shit volition follow in your body, so go out in that location and do something in Mother Nature and give her the credibility and kudos…I used to sit out there freezing my ass when everybody was going to work with their fur jackets and I'k sitting out there with no goddamn wetsuit and I'd say, "Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to sit here and await for that wave." And I tell you lot, in that location'due south nothing more heady than dropping in on a burnished moving ridge and seeing a school of fish or a porpoise following you. You lot tin't purchase that. That's better than any drug. Any bottle of booze. People merely use that shit because they're insecure. And that'south all it is. They tin can't stand up on their own two feet and fight life like it's supposed to be.

Interview has been condensed and edited. Read an extended version of the interview on SurferMag.com

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