AH: So—
Dick: But now everybody from like, you know the Black Eyed Peas? That’s me doing Pump it Louder. They came to me and asked if they could write words to Miserlou, which there’s words already to Miserlou. It’s an Arabic love song. And Miserlou means “The Egyptian”, but they went and did words to it and it was great! I played it and you know, [sings a line from the song to me]. And then you know I’m responsible for different movies, Pulp Fiction. Tarrantino came to me and asked if he could use my song to create the energy for him to create that movie. He said to me, “I want to make a masterpiece of a movie to complement the master of your song”. And because he was a pretty straight forward kind of a guy—I’ve always been around the business, and I just don’t like the way all the stuff is being done, how they take advantage of the kids. Every time they give me a lifetime achievement award I always tell the kids not to sign contracts with record companies (laughs). And they hate me for that! But anyways I’m always going to be that way about it. And uh, I try to guide them into how they can control their royalty status and copyright and things like that. So now, as I say, my son is touring with me and it’s really great. He’s been playing the drums since he was about 12 months old. He matches me note for note on the guitar so he’s in magazines all over the place with me. We play duets together too.
AH: Right on. There’s a story that you saw Little Richard’s Band in the 60’s and Jimi Hendrix was playing bass at the time-
DD: Yeah, I loved Little Richard’s Band. At that time when I was performing, Little Richard was playing a bar. (laughs) He was only playing for about 30 people in those days, and that was in the late 50’s. and when he was introducing people playing for him, uh, it was Jimi—well he wasn’t Jimi Hendrix then, but he was playing bass for Little Richard at that time. And he used to come to see me and I used to show him all the slides and the goodies like that. You know people who, like Stevie Ray Vaughn, the first records he ever learned off of were Dick Dale records. But what he used to talk about all the time. And Jimi would tell, what’s his name…oh the drummer that just passed away…oh, uh…I just had an elderly moment where everything just stops. Oh it was Buddy Miles, who used to open for me. And he used to always talk about Jimi going, “There ain’t a day that doesn’t go by that Jimi doesn’t say shit about Dick Dale, saying ‘I got my best shit from Dick Dale’”. (laughs) And stuff like that. And he was a nice kid then. He was very quiet. Very clean.
You see with me I’ve never had a drug in my body in my life, even when I went through the cancer and going through the radiation every day, Monday through Friday. 5 days a week for 6 weeks starting at 8:30 in the morning, and then I was doing concerts at night for 6,000 people at the Anaheim Convention Center and I’m going home and I eat all this fish, because I would never allow a medication drug in my body because when you take medication drugs, it retards healing by 50% in your body. So even after my 8 hour operation, with the 3 surgeons, and all that, I pulled the tubes out of my body because they took the train of pain, which was quite interesting. In fact, I’m still here and I go through what I’m going through. Now they call me the cancer warrior. We have a big club going. Last year we raise over 2 million dollars for the Padre Foundation at Disneyland for the children with Diabetes 1. Little kids, 5 years old, come to my ranch and visit me and they play the guitar and all of that stuff. So if you can take their minds off of these things, and make everyone laugh and have fun it helps them. So what we do is work with the children cancer victims and we call it a big club.
So I go on tour and the people that come to my concerts for the last 18 years, I mean I’ve been doing this 51 years, but I went back on tour when Jimmy [Dick’s son] was born and he’s 17 now, but these people are my family. They bring their kids and I’m dealing with them from all ages. Every year the same families come. I get 1,000 emails a day which I answer all myself because it’s too personal. I’m dealing with people with the different diseases that they have that they shouldn’t have. And we’re like a big family. That’s why I never get anything done. Because I’m answering emails all day. That’s what I was doing when you just called. But we’re back on the road and a lot of stuff is happening again and it’s kind of funny you know, we go to Europe and they’ve got the award for the best concert in 500 concerts for the whole year of 2007. And when I was in Spain, I was playing with the guys with spiked hair and piercings and all that other kind of stuff. And they’re going “Dick Dale is cool man”, (laughs). It’s fun. It’s all what you make your mind. They’ll say, “How old are you?” And I go, “how old do you want me to be?” My brain never left 20, you know? But my body ain’t buyin it.
AH: So who were some of your inspirations growing up? What bands did you like? What albums shaped you?
DD: Well I didn’t really listen to anything like that. I used to listen to all the big band albums, like Harry James. And they say Gene Krupa was the first one to make the drums a solo instrument. So to me, everything was like a window of life. You know, I was given a trumpet by my uncle, and I listened to Harry James and Louis Armstrong. I never took a lesson in anything. I was always self taught. And that’s why I teach people. I teach people that have been taking lessons for three years and they can’t stand it, because they’re just learning scales and you don’t need to learn that stuff. In one day I got em’ playin’ a whole song. Piano’s my favorite. So I would listen to Hank Williams. I loved country and I always wanted to be a cowboy singer. And I sang and I played with people like Johnny Cash, before he ever wore black. On town Hall party in Compton California I played with Lefty Frizzell, and Hank Williams. Hank Williams’ daughter, Jet Williams, I tutored her on her stage performing. Uh, you know Lefty Frizzell and Freddy Hart. I just did a dedication album for Joe Maphis who was “the Hands of Lightning” on the double neck guitar. And I just did Glenn Campbell’s. They said it was going to be his last album. And I did the guitar work on one of his songs, about three weeks ago. And we were all together, you know Chris Isaak…It’s like a big family.
So what I listen to know on my satellite, I listen to two things. One, The 40’s. It reminds me of my mom and dad. And they’re both gone now. And I listen to the 50’s cause it brings back memories of really neat times when I was in my 55 Pontiac convertible, and I had my motorcycle and at that time I had a 1941 Harley and I was in the Sultans of Southwest LA, car club and biker club. And then I listened to bluegrass, because it’s just such a beautiful… uh being a hopeless romantic, I write country music. And I’m concentrating on doing a country CD. My dad always wanted me to do a country album so I’m going to do one. And so that’s why you’ll always hear at least one romantic-type song on my CDs. I love to listen to different types, like Dean Martin. You know when Dean Martin sang he had that beautiful, (starts singing) “Everybody loves somebody sometimes…” And he did that really neat sound with his voice. And then I love to listen to the Latino music because I taught my son that. And we play it together on the guitar. I’ll play the song “When A Man Loves A Woman”, from Don Juan Demarco and I play that 100 times…over and over again. And then I get involved, because my life was in Hawaii for so long, where I worked with the Duke, and surfed from sun up to sun down. I’ll listen to things from the local singers to Israel Kamakawiwa'ole, anything in the islands, because I’m a romantic. I listen to that kind of stuff. Like I told my son, “Find the beauty in every style of music…because you might have to play it for nothing one day.” And I always used to say, when you fall in a bucket of crap, tell yourself it’s perfume, because you might have to stay there a while. (laughs) Make use of what you got. There’s no bullshit in my life. You know I’m from Boston and that’s the way it is. We call it like it is.
