Link is a quiet man to meet- easy and courteous. His music, though, betrays that deep inside he gets very very mean very often. I remember being made very uneasy the first time I heard Rumble , and yet very excited by the guitar sound. And his voice! He sounds like a cross between Jagger and Van Morrison, even sometimes like Robbie Robertson. We met him in New York in 1970 while recording Who's Next.... this later inspired the b-side Wasp Man, a tune we dedicated to Link Wray.
In a situation like the Rumble, I'm looking around constantly and keeping my back against a rope as much as possible so I can see what's going on.
The great Muhammad Ali used to have that phrase where he would say: 'Rumble young man, rumble' and 'I'm so pretty I'm ready to rumble.' I kind of just fine tuned it to 'Let's get ready to rumble.'
Let's get ready to rumble!
I think it would be great to start a Super Bowl off with, 'The players are ready, the field is ready, let's get ready to rumble.'
He is the king. If it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble', I would have never picked up a guitar.
I used to watch old clips of Muhammad Ali, where he'd be talking the jive during interviews, you know, 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, rumble, man, rumble.'
Last night I had a dream. When I got to Africa, I had one hell of a rumble. I had to beat Tarzan's behind first, for claiming to be King of the Jungle.
Hurd puts on entertaining fights, I put on entertaining fights. Let's bang it out, let's rumble.
I looked at motor racing in America where at the Indy 500 the drivers are told 'gentlemen start your engines' and the crowd go wild because they know the race is about to start. I needed a hook and came up with 'let's get ready to rumble.'
You know the rules. No jazz before a rumble.
