A Hit Of Heroin Left Evan Dando Face Down On A Plate In A Restaurant

“Oh my god, I cannot believe that he didn’t cancel these interviews. I’ll do it, but...” Are you sure? Happy to do it another time if you can’t be bothered. “No, well, it’s more than that,” The Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando explains. “We’re in the middle of writing a song right now, me and Tom Morgan. But you know what? It’s fine. Stay put. Why not? We’re having a good time anyway, so let’s do it.” The songwriting session’s going well? “Yeah, it’s going great. We’ve got, like, seven songs done already.”

Dando is definitely in high spirits once Morgan has given him his blessing to go ahead with this interview. After proudly pointing out that he kicked the heroin habit a year ago, Dando adds, “I still like doing coke. I’m not an idiot, you know, I can still get high, but I do not do heroin anymore. It takes your soul away, it really does... I can’t say that I’m sorry I did it, but I didn’t mean to do it as much as I did it. 

"A lot of my friends have overdosed by snorting."

“It doesn’t matter how you take it. Everyone says, ‘Oh, as long as they’re not shooting up’ – it doesn’t matter. A lot of my friends have overdosed by snorting it because they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, you know? That’s the thing with heroin. But luckily I was always careful.” So has Dando ever nodded out? “I’ve done the whole face in the tagliatelle in the fancy restaurant, yeah. I’ve done all that,” he confesses.

Dando seems like the type of dude who would make light work of a beer bong. “Can I do a gravity bong? [Makes descending whistling noise] Sorry, what? Those things are heavy. That’s an Australian thing, you’ve gotta be really tough to do those. A gravity bong.” What’s a gravity bong? “You take a gallon, whatever, water thing, you cut it in half, right? And then you have a bucket somehow...” Are those the same as a bucket bongs? “Oh, yeah, bucket bongs, right. It’s a gravity bong, a bucket bong, yeah! Those are hardcore, but y’all are hardcore heaps out there.” They really fuck you up, don’t they? “They do, yeah. It’s too much for me, you know. I’ll stick to smoking a joint or, like, a oney [small smoking pipe that delivers approximately one lungful of smoke per loaded bowl]. I do like weed, man, there’s nothing wrong with it anymore. I used to get so paranoid.”

"I mean, come on, it’s just weed. It’s a good thing."

On the legalisation of marijuana in various states of America, Dando observes, “I mean, come on, it’s just weed. It’s a good thing.” So how does he feel about the fact that there’s an official Bob Marley marijuana blend on the way? “You can take that with a lot of grains and a splinter of salt, because all those kids of, like, Peter Tosh and Bob Marley – and I’m gonna get killed for saying this – but they kinda rule the place and, I dunno, it makes me uncomfortable. ‘Cause Bob Marley was all about – he was a tough dude, but he was a really positive person, and, in my opinion, a lotta the things that Peter Tosh’s kids and Bob Marley’s kids are doing are very crass or very gangsta. I mean, there’s a Bob Marley energy drink [Marley's Mellow Mood natural relaxation drinks].

“Whatever. I like reggae. I spent a lot of time in Jamaica. The past winter, I got off smack. Me and my wife [Elizabeth Moses] split up and I went, ‘Oh, god, I can be a full-time junkie now!’ and then I was, like, it wasn’t that great in the end. You know, in my 20s it was all fine: It wasn’t ever like I had a really bad habit, but, like, we’d just do it, you know, once a week or something, and everything was fine.”

"When it [the Twin Towers] started to fall, our building started shaking."

Dando and his wife lived in a nearby apartment building when the twin towers went down. “Oh my god,” is his response when the subject is brought up. “Woah, yeah, I’ll never forget that. I mean, it was not reality. It was just so weird and, you know, my wife and I, we always thought we were gonna – totally knew [if] we were gonna die it was that day...

“When it started to fall, our building started shaking and the smell in the elevator, like, ‘Honey, go get a camera, would ya? Like, something weird might happen,’ and, of course, once we get into the elevator to go down to her apartment, the second plane hit. We were that close the electricity went out in the building. Yeah, it was so horrible.”

"Like, I saw all those people die – all at once, in that one place – but I was like all, ‘Yes! I popped my cherry!’"

Afterwards, was it a case of feeling like they were spared for some higher purpose? Dando may not be all that keen to ponder this concept, but rather another thought is triggered: “Check this out. It also got me off a fucking drunk and disorderly in New York. They called me up, ‘Mister Dando, in light of today’s historic...’ At my court date they said it. I got all cocky for a while I was like, ‘Man, no one can fuck with me,’ you know. I don’t know what happened to me for that year.

“I didn’t get sad about it for a whole year ‘cause I was just, like, you know, I’d gotten outta trouble with the law, and I lived, and I didn’t understand how sad it was until a year after. About a year after –  it happened around September 11, 2002 – I was watching The Man Who Wasn’t There, right. Do you remember that movie? It’s a Coen Brothers [film] and they have all the dangers and smashes in it. You know, Scarlet Johannson’s in it. I was watching it, just on a video, and it stops – because I’d fallen asleep towards the end and it stopped. And the end is all Beethoven – just the piano and the credits, the piano sonata. Okay. It’s hard for me to talk about, but it’s like, wait. The static came up, tssssssh, you know when the video tape ends? Tssssssh, remember that shit? Anyway, I started hearing the Beethoven sonata in the static in my sleep and then, all of a sudden, I burst out –completely violent tears, like, crying and screaming. Like, I saw all those people die – all at once, in that one place – but I was like all, ‘Yes! I popped my cherry!’ Seeing a plane crash in a really cool way. I was just, like, really blasé about it. But then it took this weird thing happening, to get this aural – a-u-r-a-l – hallucination of sorts that fuckin’ slammed it home to me...   “All I know is that in my sleep I could hear the Beethoven sonata in the static and something in that brought it home to me. Very strange.” 

As well as getting “outta trouble with the law”, Dando recalls some other ways the couple were compensated: “We got a new vacuum cleaner and they gave us 14 grand. We were leaving anyway, you know. I hated America anyway, all that stuff. I was like,” he pauses. “No, let’s stop there because I do love my country, but we’re in trouble over here, you know? It’s bad times in America.”

"Um, it really only happened a couple of times and mostly [from] just being really fucked-up, drunk, and on mandrax and stuff."

Post- 9/11, it’s pretty easy to get kicked off a plane (or indeed not let on in the first place). Remember one of Violent Soho’s acceptance speeches at this year’s Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards? It was revealed when the band collected their Best Independent Album gong that guitarist James Tidswell nearly didn’t make it to the ceremony because flight attendants were hesitant to let him on the plane thanks to his Painters & Dockers t-shirt that read “Eat Shit Die”. He was eventually allowed to board the aircraft after turning said garment inside out. Dando was no stranger to being chucked off planes back in the day. “Um, it really only happened a couple of times,” he counters, “and mostly [from] just being really fucked-up, drunk, and on mandrax and stuff, and taking Polaroid pictures. And the worst thing to do, from someone who knows, is if someone comes to say, like, ‘Dude, man! Be cool.’ Don’t ask them their mother’s maiden name. ‘Cause that was always my thing, my go-to to piss people off. Like, that will get you kicked off a plane.”

The Lemonheads released a double A-sided single in 1997, Balancing Act/Galveston (a Glen Campbell cover). Campbell’s struggle with Alzheimer’s is captured in his recent documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me. Has Dando seen it yet? “No. I love him, though,” he praises. “I’ll tell you this: my dad had a phase where he looked just like Glen Campbell and I can send you the picture to prove [it]... Okay, Glenn Campbell. So I should see that movie?” After telling Dando Campbell released the final song he’ll ever record, I’m Not Gonna Miss You, panic sets in: “Oh, shit. Is he dead? Is he alive?” Once

Dando has been reassured that Campbell hasn’t passed, we discuss dementia: “Old timer disease? Yeah, you know. It’s something that happens to all of us. Eventually.”  

The conversation then deviates to shine a light on Brian Wilson. “You know what? Brian Wilson is not as out of it as people think,” Dando opines. The Lemonheads were on the same Norwegian Wood festival bill as Wilson in 2007 and Dando found The Beach Boys co-founder to be “totally polite and normal and cool”. “He was talking to my wife for, like, half an hour so I just left them alone, because [she was] just over the moon – so excited.

“And also, you know what? I heard his soundcheck and we could hear him say, ‘I need more strings in my monitor, please.’ Of course he wants more strings in his monitors! And that was one of those things where, you know, the dude was all like, ‘Hey, man, do you wanna go and say hi to him after soundcheck?’

‘I don’t wanna go. I talked to him before, I don’t wanna go and talk to him after his fuckin’ soundcheck,’ you know? Like, ‘Thanks anyway’.”

On whether he has a favourite Beach Boys song, Dando offers, “Well, I know I’m pretty standard but I really like Don’t Worry Baby and I like God Only Knows. And I love I Can Hear Music. You know that one?”

"I’ve had a history of being a troublemaker.”

When asked to share some tips on how to smoke a cigarette while playing guitar without squinting or getting smoke in your eye, Dando jests, “I can’t really give you suggestions, because you’ve gotta be cool as fuck, you know, like me.” Another party trick, his “impression of infinity”, sounds like a whistling windstorm.  

“I’ve had a history of being a troublemaker,” Dando allows. “I’ve really had my fun. I like being a fly in the ointment, but I also wanna just be normal sometimes too. I’m really proud of myself. I’m still here, man, and people need to remember that, like, ‘Fuck it! Who cares if he did that stupid cover of Mrs Robinson,’ [laughs] which I FUCKIN’ hate too.” Dando then estimates having played the aforementioned, loathed cover “tops 15 times, ever, live and with guns to our heads because of the label – we never play it live”.

Then Dando gets excited. “Hey, check it out! One important thing was, on Alison’s Starting To Happen – you’ll hear it, the part when it goes, ‘Doo-doo-doo-doo, BEN!!!’ We sampled that; because Ben Deily left the band, it was about that. And The Graduate was one of my favourite movies and so, we’d already sampled it before that cover was even thought of. Isn’t that weird? The Graduate was sampled on Shame About Ray. It’s fuckin’ NUTS!”

We discuss whether or not sampling was popular in the ‘80s, which leads to Dando’s observation: “Paul’s Boutique, the ultimate sample record, came out in ’89.” And, of course, Dando just adores Beastie Boys. “I fuckin’ LOVE Beastie Boys. Remember? Ben Lee sang about it, “He loves Smudge and Beastie Boys” [laughs]. Remember that song? That was on Ben Lee’s first record.” He picks up his guitar and proceeds to sing I Wish I Was Him, Lee’s tribute song to Dando, concluding with a loud strum.