The Lemonheads' frontman Reflects on Substance Abuse: 'Some People Were Meant to Take Drugs – and I Was One'
The musician rolls up a sleeve and points to a line of small dents running down his forearm, faint scars from decades of heroin abuse. “It requires so long to develop decent injection scars,” he says. “You do it for a long time and you think: I can’t stop yet. Maybe my complexion is particularly tough, but you can barely see it now. What was it all for, eh?” He grins and lets out a hoarse laugh. “Only joking!”
The singer, one-time alternative heartthrob and key figure of 90s alt-rock band the Lemonheads, appears in decent shape for a man who has used numerous substances going from the age of 14. The songwriter behind such acclaimed songs as My Drug Buddy, he is also known as the music industry's famous casualty, a star who seemingly achieved success and squandered it. He is friendly, goofily charismatic and completely unfiltered. Our interview takes place at midday at a publishing company in Clerkenwell, where he questions if it's better to relocate our chat to the pub. In the end, he sends out for two glasses of apple drink, which he then neglects to consume. Frequently losing his train of thought, he is apt to veer into wild tangents. No wonder he has stopped using a smartphone: “I can’t deal with the internet, man. My thoughts is too scattered. I just want to read all information at the same time.”
He and his wife his partner, whom he married recently, have flown in from São Paulo, Brazil, where they reside and where he now has three adult stepchildren. “I’m trying to be the foundation of this recent household. I avoided domestic life much in my life, but I’m ready to try. I'm managing pretty good so far.” At 58 years old, he states he has quit hard drugs, though this turns out to be a flexible definition: “I occasionally use LSD occasionally, perhaps mushrooms and I’ll smoke marijuana.”
Sober to him means not doing opiates, which he hasn’t touched in almost three years. He decided it was time to quit after a catastrophic gig at a Los Angeles venue in 2021 where he could scarcely play a note. “I realized: ‘This is unacceptable. The legacy will not bear this type of conduct.’” He credits his wife for assisting him to cease, though he has no remorse about using. “I think certain individuals were meant to take drugs and one of them was me.”
One advantage of his comparative clean living is that it has made him productive. “During addiction to heroin, you’re like: ‘Forget about that, and that, and that,’” he explains. But now he is about to release Love Chant, his debut record of new band material in nearly 20 years, which contains glimpses of the lyricism and catchy tunes that propelled them to the indie big league. “I’ve never really known about this kind of hiatus between albums,” he says. “It's a lengthy sleep situation. I maintain integrity about what I put out. I didn't feel prepared to do anything new before I was ready, and now I am.”
Dando is also releasing his initial autobiography, named stories about his death; the title is a reference to the rumors that intermittently spread in the 90s about his premature death. It’s a wry, heady, occasionally eye-watering account of his experiences as a musician and user. “I wrote the initial sections. That’s me,” he declares. For the rest, he worked with ghostwriter Jim Ruland, whom one can assume had his hands full considering his haphazard way of speaking. The writing process, he notes, was “difficult, but I was psyched to secure a reputable company. And it gets me in public as a person who has written a book, and that’s all I wanted to accomplish since I was a kid. At school I was obsessed with James Joyce and Flaubert.”
He – the youngest child of an lawyer and a former model – speaks warmly about his education, maybe because it symbolizes a period prior to life got difficult by substances and celebrity. He went to Boston’s elite private academy, a progressive establishment that, he says now, “stood out. It had few restrictions except no rollerskating in the corridors. In other words, don’t be an jerk.” It was there, in religious studies, that he encountered Ben Deily and Ben Deily and started a group in the mid-80s. His band started out as a rock group, in awe to the Minutemen and punk icons; they agreed to the local record company their first contract, with whom they released three albums. After band members departed, the Lemonheads largely turned into a one-man show, he hiring and firing musicians at his discretion.
During the 90s, the band signed to a large company, Atlantic, and dialled down the noise in preference of a increasingly melodic and accessible country-rock style. This change occurred “since the band's iconic album was released in ’91 and they had nailed it”, Dando explains. “If you listen to our initial albums – a track like Mad, which was recorded the following we graduated high school – you can hear we were attempting to do what Nirvana did but my vocal wasn't suitable. But I knew my voice could cut through softer arrangements.” The shift, waggishly labeled by critics as “a hybrid genre”, would take the act into the popularity. In the early 90s they released the album It’s a Shame About Ray, an flawless showcase for his writing and his melancholic vocal style. The name was derived from a news story in which a clergyman lamented a young man named the subject who had strayed from the path.
The subject wasn’t the only one. At that stage, the singer was using hard drugs and had developed a liking for crack, as well. With money, he eagerly embraced the celebrity lifestyle, associating with Hollywood stars, filming a music clip with Angelina Jolie and seeing supermodels and film personalities. A publication declared him one of the fifty most attractive individuals alive. Dando cheerfully rebuffs the idea that his song, in which he voiced “I'm overly self-involved, I wanna be a different person”, was a cry for assistance. He was having too much enjoyment.
Nonetheless, the drug use became excessive. His memoir, he provides a detailed account of the significant festival no-show in the mid-90s when he failed to appear for the Lemonheads’ allotted slot after acquaintances suggested he accompany them to their hotel. When he finally did appear, he delivered an impromptu live performance to a unfriendly audience who booed and threw bottles. But that proved small beer compared to the events in the country soon after. The trip was intended as a break from {drugs|substances
