Interview with Evan Dando by Daina Darzin
from Rolling Stone 17th November 1994
Evan Dando Tries Everything
Lemonheads frontman on Swaggart, coke-smuggling and more
Interviewing
Lemonheads singer and guitarist Evan Dando feels like administering
a final exam in, say, economics to a graduating student who can't wait
for school to be out. Dando is a wind of short-attention-span theater:
He talks on the phone, reads Melody Maker while answering questions
and kids around with his friend Epic Soundtracks. It's all just so slacker,
a label that Dando simultaneously embodies and transcends.
Marrying pop charm and punk attitude with a natural grace, the music
of the Lemonheads appeals to fans of college radio and teeny-boppers
alike. Dando ranges from being sweet and -- if only momentarily -- attentive
to giggling at his own jokes. He proudly displays a metal plate engraved
JIMMY SWAGGART MINISTRIES.
How
did you get this?
We were playing a gig on his PA in New Orleans.
He
rents out PAs as a sideline to his ministry?
The Killer's cousin is a bit of a rocker himself. Isn't that cool? I'm
putting it on my guitar, right here.
[Dando proceeds to play an entire song on said guitar. The instant his
publicist leaves, Dando mimes beating me to death.]
I am being killed by a guitar . . . . Death rattle. [He plays a power
chord.]
But
then you'd get even more publicity, and you already hate it.
I'm not into it. Luckily I don't do interviews anymore.
Has
the business end of music changed? Looking back to the '60s?
I have this feeling record companies used to have more music lovers
working for them. Rather than all bankers the way it is now -- mostly
bankers.
Did
that change the music any?
I went and bought this the other day. Forty-eight pencil sharpeners.
[He shakes the box.] I'm into pencils. What do you need when you have
pencils? Pencil sharpeners. I got into the country with hash oil in
my pencil . . . my method for smuggling drugs is: Forget it's there.
I fold my clothes really carefully and put my coke in my hairbrush.
And when the customs officers open my bag, I . . . well, I used to have
hair, so I'd start combing my hair out with my hairbrush. [Deadpans]
. . . it works.
What
attracts you to vinyl?
You can hug an album, have physical interaction with it -- CDs, it's
done by other magical electronic things.
You
think it's coming back?
It's alive and well, and it's very selective. Wouldn't you say that
the U.S. government is a satanic cult?
No,
you said that.
Oh, that's right. [Into the phone] So, come over. I'll call him. What's
the number? Keep going.
Do you
ever listen to the stuff your parents listen to?
That's mostly what I listen to: Talking Book by Stevie Wonder, all the
early Isley Brothers stuff, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles, the Stones, Eddie
Kendricks' solo records, jazz. My parents were establishment hippies.
My dad was a lawyer, but he was very into the fact that Massachusetts
didn't vote Nixon in. He was very fringey, and I don't mean buckskin
jackets. My mom was like a model. She, like, traveled around being a
'60s pseudo-glamorous person. Susan Dando.
Since
you had cool parents, do you feel less separate from that generation,
or is there still a difference?
They'll still be your parents. You still feel separated from them.
Even
though you listen to the same music?
Yeah, there's connection there. So -- less separated. But they still
made me, so they look at you funny. [To Soundtracks] Could you just
answer some questions as me? But she'll expose us, won't she?
Where
were you 10 years ago? Where was your life at?
I was still a punk rocker. I was seventeen. That seems silly, doesn't
it: 1984. I was still into punk rock? I had dyed blue and white hair,
I went to high school and I'd just started my band. It wasn't called
Lemonheads yet. We played Black Flag covers and Angry Samoans and Minor
Threat covers. Just generally tried to play fast.
What's
the main way you're different now as a person?
I'm less cool.
What
haven't you done yet that's real important to you?
More PCP. Seriously, I've only done it once, when I was, like, sixteen.
I did it by accident. I took a hit of a joint, and it was minty tasting.
Weird.
How
do you feel about the fact that your band kind of made it on a '60s
song, "Mrs. Robinson"?
Our hearts were in the right place because we did it not 'cause we like
the song particularly, but because we like the movie a lot. We just
did it to be released with the videocassette -- it wasn't meant to be
a single. And then our label thought, "Hey, this is a hit,"
and they released it. So at least it was by accident. [But] I know if
I was a Lemonheads fan, I'd go, "Oh, no, why'd they do that?"
Good thing I'm not a Lemonheads fan. [Laughs.]
You're
not?
Nah. I prefer Killslug.
Do you
ever feel like changing your music radically?
Every time I go into the studio, I try to make a record that's closest
to what I would someday want to make: music that I'll really be proud
of. It's hard for me. I feel I'm still working toward something.
Does
that imply you weren't proud of the stuff you did before?
Yeah. I don't mean to say that, but it does imply it. [Giggles] Yeah,
it's true. [My old stuff] wasn't developed. It was very sophomoric.
Do you
ever think that what happened to some '80s bands -- double platinum,
then a total bomb -- will happen to you?
Like Poison and Warrant? They had it coming to them, but I loved them.
I loved Poison and Warrant.
No,
you didn't.
No, I got into them.
No,
you didn't.
I did! [Dando gets another phone call and turns off the tape recorder.]
What's
the worst thing a reporter ever asked you?
I hate it when they ask for the worst album of 1993. It's so stupid
to dis other bands. I have this theory about music: Whenever people
get together, rehearse something and play it in front of an audience,
it's always sort of heartbreakingly beautiful even if it isn't very
good.
Do you
resent that people take this as a competition?
It is. To the death . . .
Like
"Death Race 2000." Who do you measure against?
Billy Corgan. I just get pissed off 'cause he's better looking than
I am.
What's
the worst part of the business?
I did it, like, straight for so long, I was buying the whole program.
Maybe I was insecure or something. I thought, "This is great. I
get to travel around the world and play music for people." So what?
That I have to yammer on the phone all day and have my picture taken?
OK, I can deal with that. And then I realized, "This isn't [helping]
me. It's getting in the way of my own fun." So I stopped.
What's
fun for you?
I like roller coasters and swimming in the ocean. I like girls. What
an evil thing to call girls: fun. I like flirting.
Does it bother you that it's sort of become politically incorrect now?
Flirting?
Fuck 'em. I don't care. Flirting's harmless. If you have to follow a
code of political correctedness, you're not being politically correct
anyway. It's gotta be spontaneous. You just gotta be, like, cool and
a good person. Once you get worried about what you're doing, you're
just a robot.
Is there
anything in politics that you feel strongly about?
I think the way the government handles drugs in this country is really
hypocritical. It's a natural human impulse to want to try them. Why
deny that?
What
else would you like to change if you could be God for a day?
I'd drive into the next town on my dune buggy and kill everyone who
isn't beautiful.