The Lemonheads' frontman Shares on Drug Use: 'Some People Were Meant to Use Substances – and I Was One'
Evan Dando rolls up a sleeve and points to a line of small dents running down his forearm, subtle traces from decades of opioid use. “It takes so long to develop noticeable injection scars,” he says. “You inject for a long time and you believe: I'm not ready to quit. Maybe my skin is especially tough, but you can barely see it today. What was the point, eh?” He smiles and emits a hoarse chuckle. “Only joking!”
Dando, former alternative heartthrob and key figure of 1990s alternative group his band, looks in decent shape for a person who has taken numerous substances available from the age of 14. The musician behind such acclaimed tracks as It’s a Shame About Ray, Dando is also known as rock’s most notorious burn-out, a celebrity who seemingly achieved success and threw it away. He is warm, goofily charismatic and entirely candid. We meet at midday at his publishers’ offices in central London, where he questions if we should move the conversation to a bar. Eventually, he sends out for two pints of apple drink, which he then forgets to drink. Often losing his train of thought, he is likely to go off on wild tangents. It's understandable he has stopped owning a mobile device: “I can’t deal with the internet, man. My mind is extremely scattered. I desire to read all information at once.”
He and his wife his partner, whom he wed recently, have flown in from São Paulo, Brazil, where they reside and where Dando now has three adult stepchildren. “I'm attempting to be the backbone of this new family. I avoided domestic life often in my life, but I'm prepared to make an effort. I’m doing quite well so far.” Now 58, he says he is clean, though this turns out to be a flexible definition: “I’ll take acid occasionally, perhaps psychedelics and I’ll smoke pot.”
Sober to him means avoiding heroin, which he hasn’t touched in almost a few years. He decided it was time to give up after a catastrophic performance at a Los Angeles venue in recent years where he could barely perform adequately. “I realized: ‘This is unacceptable. The legacy will not tolerate this kind of conduct.’” He credits his wife for assisting him to cease, though he has no remorse about using. “I believe certain individuals were meant to use substances and I was among them was me.”
A benefit of his comparative sobriety is that it has rendered him creative. “When you’re on smack, you’re like: ‘Forget about that, and this, and the other,’” he explains. But now he is about to release his new album, his first album of new band material in nearly two decades, which contains flashes of the lyricism and catchy tunes that propelled them to the indie big league. “I haven't truly known about this kind of hiatus in a career,” he says. “This is a Rip Van Winkle situation. I do have integrity about my releases. I wasn’t ready to create fresh work until I was ready, and now I am.”
Dando is also publishing his initial autobiography, named stories about his death; the name is a nod to the rumors that fitfully spread in the 1990s about his premature death. It’s a ironic, intense, occasionally shocking account of his adventures as a performer and addict. “I authored the first four chapters. It's my story,” he says. For the remaining part, he worked with co-writer his collaborator, whom one can assume had his hands full considering Dando’s haphazard way of speaking. The writing process, he notes, was “challenging, but I felt excited to get a good company. And it gets me out there as a person who has authored a memoir, and that is everything I desired to accomplish since childhood. At school I was obsessed with James Joyce and Flaubert.”
Dando – the youngest child of an lawyer and a former model – speaks warmly about school, maybe because it represents a time before life got difficult by substances and celebrity. He went to Boston’s prestigious private academy, a progressive establishment that, he says now, “stood out. It had no rules aside from no skating in the hallways. Essentially, avoid being an jerk.” At that place, in bible class, that he encountered Ben Deily and Ben Deily and formed a band in the mid-80s. His band started out as a rock group, in thrall to the Minutemen and Ramones; they agreed to the Boston label Taang!, with whom they released multiple records. After band members left, the Lemonheads largely turned into a solo project, he recruiting and dismissing bandmates at his discretion.
During the 90s, the band contracted to a major label, a prominent firm, and dialled down the noise in favour of a more languid and accessible folk-inspired sound. This change occurred “since the band's Nevermind came out in ’91 and they perfected the sound”, Dando explains. “Upon hearing to our early records – a song like an early composition, which was laid down the following we finished school – you can detect we were trying to do their approach but my voice didn’t cut right. But I knew my singing could cut through softer arrangements.” The shift, humorously labeled by reviewers as “bubblegrunge”, would take the band into the popularity. In the early 90s they issued the album It’s a Shame About Ray, an impeccable demonstration for his writing and his melancholic croon. The title was derived from a newspaper headline in which a clergyman lamented a individual called the subject who had gone off the rails.
Ray wasn’t the sole case. By this point, Dando was consuming hard drugs and had acquired a penchant for cocaine, as well. With money, he enthusiastically threw himself into the rock star life, associating with Johnny Depp, filming a music clip with Angelina Jolie and seeing Kate Moss and film personalities. A publication declared him among the 50 sexiest individuals alive. He cheerfully dismisses the idea that his song, in which he voiced “I’m too much with myself, I desire to become someone else”, was a cry for assistance. He was having a great deal of enjoyment.
Nonetheless, the substance abuse became excessive. His memoir, he provides a detailed description of the significant Glastonbury incident in 1995 when he did not manage to turn up for the Lemonheads’ allotted slot after acquaintances suggested he accompany them to their accommodation. When he finally did appear, he performed an unplanned live performance to a hostile audience who booed and hurled bottles. But this was small beer compared to what happened in the country soon after. The visit was intended as a break from {drugs|substances
