Evan Dando Reflects on Substance Abuse: 'Some People Were Destined to Take Drugs – and I Was One'
The musician rolls up a sleeve and indicates a series of faint marks along his forearm, subtle traces from years of heroin abuse. “It takes so much time to develop decent track marks,” he remarks. “You inject for years and you believe: I can’t stop yet. Perhaps my complexion is especially resilient, but you can hardly notice it today. What was it all for, eh?” He grins and lets out a raspy laugh. “Only joking!”
Dando, former alternative heartthrob and key figure of 90s alt-rock band the Lemonheads, looks in decent shape for a man who has used numerous substances going from the time of 14. The songwriter behind such exalted songs as My Drug Buddy, Dando is also known as rock’s most notorious burn-out, a star who apparently achieved success and threw it away. He is friendly, charmingly eccentric and entirely candid. We meet at lunchtime at his publishers’ offices in central London, where he wonders if we should move the conversation to the pub. Eventually, he orders for two glasses of apple drink, which he then forgets to consume. Frequently losing his train of thought, he is apt to veer into wild tangents. It's understandable he has given up owning a smartphone: “I can’t deal with the internet, man. My thoughts is too scattered. I desire to read everything at the same time.”
He and his wife his partner, whom he wed last year, have traveled from their home in South America, where they live and where he now has three adult stepchildren. “I'm attempting to be the backbone of this new family. I didn’t embrace family much in my life, but I'm prepared to try. I'm managing pretty good up to now.” At 58 years old, he says he is clean, though this proves to be a loose concept: “I’ll take acid occasionally, perhaps psychedelics and I consume pot.”
Clean to him means not doing heroin, which he hasn’t touched in almost a few years. He decided it was time to quit after a disastrous performance at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in recent years where he could barely perform adequately. “I realized: ‘This is not good. The legacy will not bear this kind of behaviour.’” He credits Teixeira for assisting him to cease, though he has no remorse about his drug use. “I think certain individuals were meant to take drugs and I was among them was me.”
One advantage of his comparative clean living is that it has rendered him productive. “During addiction to heroin, you’re all: ‘Oh fuck that, and this, and the other,’” he explains. But now he is about to release his new album, his first album of original Lemonheads music in nearly 20 years, which contains glimpses of the songwriting and catchy tunes that elevated them to the mainstream success. “I’ve never truly known about this kind of dormancy period in a career,” he comments. “It's some lengthy sleep situation. I do have standards about my releases. I didn't feel prepared to create fresh work before the time was right, and at present I am.”
The artist is also releasing his initial autobiography, named stories about his death; the name is a reference to the stories that fitfully spread in the 1990s about his early passing. It is a ironic, heady, fitfully shocking narrative of his experiences as a performer and addict. “I authored the first four chapters. It's my story,” he declares. For the remaining part, he collaborated with co-writer Jim Ruland, whom one can assume had his work cut out considering his disorganized way of speaking. The writing process, he notes, was “challenging, but I was psyched to secure a reputable publisher. And it positions me out there as a person who has authored a memoir, and that is everything I desired to do since childhood. At school I was obsessed with Dylan Thomas and literary giants.”
He – the last-born of an lawyer and a former fashion model – speaks warmly about school, perhaps because it represents a time prior to life got complicated by drugs and fame. He went to the city's prestigious private academy, a progressive institution that, he says now, “stood out. There were few restrictions aside from no rollerskating in the corridors. In other words, don’t be an jerk.” At that place, in bible class, that he encountered Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz and formed a band in the mid-80s. His band began life as a punk outfit, in awe to the Minutemen and punk icons; they agreed to the local record company their first contract, with whom they released multiple records. Once band members departed, the Lemonheads largely became a solo project, Dando recruiting and dismissing bandmates at his discretion.
In the early 1990s, the band contracted to a major label, a prominent firm, and dialled down the squall in preference of a more melodic and accessible folk-inspired style. This was “because the band's Nevermind came out in ’91 and they perfected the sound”, he says. “If you listen to our initial albums – a track like an early composition, which was laid down the day after we graduated high school – you can detect we were attempting to emulate their approach but my vocal wasn't suitable. But I realized my singing could cut through quieter music.” This new sound, waggishly labeled by critics as “bubblegrunge”, would take the act into the mainstream. In 1992 they released the LP their breakthrough record, an impeccable demonstration for Dando’s writing and his melancholic croon. The name was derived from a news story in which a priest lamented a individual named the subject who had gone off the rails.
Ray was not the only one. At that stage, Dando was consuming heroin and had acquired a penchant for crack, as well. With money, he eagerly threw himself into the celebrity lifestyle, associating with Johnny Depp, shooting a music clip with actresses and dating supermodels and film personalities. People magazine anointed him among the 50 most attractive individuals alive. He cheerfully dismisses the idea that My Drug Buddy, in which he voiced “I'm overly self-involved, I desire to become a different person”, was a cry for assistance. He was having too much enjoyment.
Nonetheless, the substance abuse became excessive. His memoir, he delivers a blow-by-blow account of the significant festival no-show in 1995 when he failed to appear for the Lemonheads’ scheduled performance after acquaintances suggested he accompany them to their hotel. When he finally showing up, he performed an impromptu acoustic set to a unfriendly audience who booed and threw objects. But that proved small beer next to what happened in the country soon after. The visit was intended as a break from {drugs|substances