Honesty is a surprisingly rare commodity in memoir-writing. Luckily for fans of Evan Dando, the Lemonheads co-founder puts no stock in keeping his friends’ secrets safe, whether he’s lovingly recounting drug-taking escapades or oversharing about childhood pals so wealthy they had Rembrandts in their houses.
Dando grew up in Boston, as handsome as he was privileged, and attended a liberal school where he was given free rein to do as he pleased. That sense of consequence-free adventure continued when he, along with friends Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz (the one with the Rembrandt), formed a band in 1986, their scuzzy lo-fi aesthetic finding a match in college radio.
It took a while to mature, but the Lemonheads had an innate sense of melody. A high point came with It’s a Shame About Ray in 1992, a bona fide classic. With Deily and Peretz having exited the band, Dando surfed the waves of celebrity alone with gusto. Keanu Reeves, Keith Richards, Kate Moss, Liv Tyler and Juliana Hatfield are among the names who play side-parts in this story.
For a time, Dando had indie pin-up status (People magazine named him one of the 50 sexiest people alive). It would get him into trouble. After Nirvana broke through in 1991, it was popularly thought Dando and Courtney Love had slept together, which upset Dando. (He saves a cutting line for Love: “I wasn’t at all attracted to her physically.”)
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Heroin use – and its aftermath – casts a long shadow over the narrative. Wrecked rental houses, apartments left in squalour, sojourns in jail or court, Dando’s life was as dishevelled as his hairstyle. His friends often paid the price (you feel for Keanu Reeves when you hear how Dando moved into his mansion while he was away, lost the remote control for his front gate, and joyrode his Porsche). “I would lose sight of the fact that other people have feelings too,” Dando writes.
A collaboration with ghostwriter Jim Ruland, there are long phases where the book feels more like assiduously collected research than genuine recollection, but here and there the narrative sparks to life. These days Dando is sober(ish) and living in Brazil with his new wife. For a man who has lived the life Rumours of my Demise recollects, it seems borderline miraculous.
