THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF EVAN DANDO, CHIEF LEMONHEAD AND WOMAN MAGNET.
Interview: September 06

Evan Dando, oh Evan Dando, the Evan Dando – I mean is there a woman out there who doesn’t utter the words ‘Evan Dando’ with some sort of breathing problem? There, that’s over and done with. Jealousy is a touch sad isn’t it? Now we should address the question: Why are The Lemonheads the biggest cult band in the world, never to burst the boundaries of cultdom and spill into the embrace of mass adoration, ever able to keep Evan in the style to which he hasn’t become accustomed?

There was a time there when it all looked like happening. 1992’s pure pop masterpiece, It’s A Shame About Ray, whizzed through in under 30 minutes of near flawless song wizadry. The campus circuit – worldwide – absorbed The Lemonheads like a meringue looking for extra Taang! (which just happened to be the name of the indie label the band’s first three student pleasing LPs – Hate Your friends, Creator and Lick – were released on). But songs like Confetti, My Drug Buddy, Ceiling Fan In My Spoon (bloody great title), took them to a new high and the 1993 follow-up Come On Feel The Lemonheads with its single, Into Your Arms, and frayed gems such as You Can Take It With You, Down About It and Great Big No, put them close enough to sniff the promised land.

Evan, meanwhile, was revelling in the kind of fame that comes with being named in a 1993 People magazine spread as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. Then there was his relationship with brilliant singer/songwriter and professional virgin, Juliana Hatfield, who also played on Ray – Were they? Weren’t they? Did they? Didn’t they? Was she? Wasn’t she?

Hell, Evan was close to becoming a Rock God. But then fate played the two-year touring trick on the band, 1996’s Car Button Cloth wasn’t quite what the fans expected, good as it was, and, at the Reading Festival in 1997, Dando announced he was disbanding The Lemonheads. Hedonism has its price and Evan was paying.

Now, 10 years after that overlooked album, he’s put ‘em back together again and released the shamelessly punky, Lemonheads, the punchiest Lemonheads album in a long while.

This time around he’s enlisted the aid of men of steel, men of force, men with history – say it slowly and sound awed: Bill Stevenson on drums – his CV has three words on it that should scare you – Descendents, Black Flag; and on bass Karl Alvarez, also if the Descendents.

“Bill and Karl were my first choice,” he says, in his mumbling kind of way. Evan tends to lurch through sentences following his thoughts as they drop. Either that or he’s bored. I wanted to make a record Descendents style so I decided to go to the source. They were obvious first choices.”

That desire to make such an album was largely informed by another experience – fronting the legendary, and reborn, MC5 – arguably one of the three most incendiary bands of the 1960s - on its 41-show 2004 tour of the US. “That’s the reason I wanted to start the band up again,” he says. “It was incredible and great fun. I had the best time I have ever had. Their guitarist, Denis Tek, is the model human being. When he’s not out there playing guitar he’s a doctor. He’s a renaissance man – when he’s not blowing minds he’s saving lives. He’s also a very distinguished gentlemen.”

It’s tempting to ask whether Tekkie gave him a sling for that, except for the fact that it’s largely accurate. Tek is a knight in punk-stained armour. Dando got to be the lead singer because the man with the almost perfect rock voice, former Screaming Trees frontman, Mark Lanegan, got into a “weird’ fight over the phone with MC5 founder and noted producer, Wayne Kramer. So Dando stuck his hand up and said I’ll do it. It capped off a renaissance that had begun with his marrying Newcastle-born English supermodel and musician, Elizabeth Moses in 2000, which was followed by 2001’s Live At The Brattle Theatre/Griffith Sunset, and his marvellous 2003 solo set, Baby I’m Bored: “That did well in England. It’s my sleeping giant. It might get re-released. I think it’s really good too! It made a lot of critics’ year-end top 10s but credibility doesn’t pay the bills.”

He even toured last year with various bass players including Ms Hatfield, and drummers including Mr Stevenson, Chris Brokaw from Come and Dinosaur Jnr’s George Berz.

Twenty years after forming The Lemonheads with two high school buddies in their senior year at Boston’s tiny Commonwealth school, Dando is a survivor, not that it’s a surprise – men of such talent rarely fall completely away. He’s won his wars.

”It’s been an epic journey. It’s interesting to be doing the same stuff after all this time. It says something about what I have been able to achieve over the years. To be honest I’m just grateful to have the new album in the can and coming out. I’m enjoying being in the band again.”