Evan Dando begins his new memoir, “Rumors of My Demise,” in February 2021, back when the Lemonheads frontman was strung out on drugs and residing in a grim trailer on Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts.
“I was in horrible shape, losing teeth,” he writes, “and living off cheeseburgers — which I could barely chew — Marlboro Reds, purple Powerade (two for the price of one at Cumberland Farms), and a $200 daily drug budget.”
It had been a protracted fall from grace. In 1992, the Lemonheads achieved modern rock radio success — and Dando reached Gen X sex symbol status — with the release of the group’s fifth album, “It’s a Shame About Ray,” highlighted by a melancholic title track and a jaunty cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” that was tacked on to later pressings at management’s insistence. Its follow-up the next year, “Come on Feel the Lemonheads,” featured the jangly gem “Into Your Arms,” originally by the Australian duo Love Positions. The remake spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard modern rock chart.
In 1996, the Lemonheads put out their major-label swan song, “Car Button Cloth,” which was coolly received by both critics and the public. The band went on an extended hiatus in 1997, re-emerging in 2006 with a self-titled album. The group’s last two LPs — “Varshons” in 2009 and “Varshons II” a full 10 years later — were both covers records.
Dando, the only constant in the Lemonheads, a “collective” that has counted dozens of members over the years, said the creative drought was the result of a heroin addiction dating to his mid-20s. “It makes your conversation between your heart and your head stop, and your conversation between the world and you stop,” Dando, now 58, said in an interview in July. “And there’s all these reissue tours to go on anyway.”
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