ONLY EVAN

Dando. D-A-N-D-O , I spell the name out for the puzzled girl at reception. He s from a band, I venture, trying to be helpful, The Lemonheads. Never heard of them, she replies.
I m standing in the reception area of the Temple Bar Hotel where I m due to meet Lemonheads frontman, pin-up and oddball supreme, Evan Dando, but so far I m having no luck finding him. Even Dando, staying here? the other young lady at reception turns towards me. Believe me, I d know if Evan Dando was staying here.
Therein lies the crux of Evan Dando s persona. Either revered as a slacker sex god or as familiar as the Dynamo Tbilisi goalkeeper (name with Jonathan O Brien) (Irakli Zoidze J. O B.), success on a world scale has eluded Evan and The Lemonheads. This is perhaps due to the fact that the long-haired idol is more famous for being as Looney as anything that those wacky Warner Brothers could have fitted into their Tunes, than for his music. Drug excesses, alleged trysts with Courtney Love, a shambolic association with Oasis which saw him follow them on tour across Europe, all contributed to Mr Dando taking up more than his fair share of tabloid inches, particularly in the gossip columns.
Then, seemingly tired of the course his life was taking, Evan disappeared from the sight of Joe Public for quite a while, only to reappear last year with the rather fine third Lemonheads LP, Car Button Cloth.
Having located the laconic pin-up in the nearby Bewley s Hotel, he seems amiable and receptive, and not at all the eccentric he is painted to be. That is, until he starts to speak.
Indeed, Evan seems quite nervous and ill-at-ease throughout the duration of the interview. He constantly plays with his hair and refuses to look me in the eye. At one point he removes himself from the chair and settles on the floor, at a 900 angle to both myself and my tape recorder. Having said that, he is both courteous and friendly. But he seems unsettled, even with my ice-breaking opener, enquiring as to why he decided to take a sabbatical from the public eye.
I needed to rediscover normal life, whether I wanted to or not, he drawls, sounding as laid-back as he looks.
I came off tour, right, and I was going to go to Spain to visit this girl. But I missed my plane and I called her, and it turned out that she had gotten back together with an old boyfriend. So it was a good thing I didn t make my plane. On the other hand, I had gotten a ride to Amsterdam with Oasis from this concert we all played, and I didn t like the idea of going home.
I had been on tour for two years and three quarters straight . . . well, we made an album in there somewhere . . . so I just went on tour with those guys (Oasis) and helped lug the gear and stuff with those guys and just really fucked up on drugs. It s really hard, because if you ve ever toured with a band, when you stop it s depressing because there s no new thing to do every day. You go somewhere and play, and go somewhere else the next day and play. I just wanted to keep doing that.
Oasis were going to Japan. I wasn t going to go that far, so I went to Australia instead, he smiles, geography obviously not being his forte.
Even if he isn t the most coherent man on the planet, Evan still seems a lot better than he was a few years ago. I remember one particular interview for a British inkie where he had to literally write down his answers to questions, having almost destroyed his vocal chords from narcotic intake, so much so that he was advised not to speak for a couple of weeks. So is he clean now?
Um, you know, I don t make any rules about it, except for heroin . . . because it s so clear that it s bad for me. It messes me up. I try to stay away from hard drugs. I still like to get out of it now and again, I just tone it down a little bit, he says.
He did go into rehab, however . . .
Yeah, for 10 days, he admits, just to appease my parents and my sister. It didn t do anything. When you wanna get a handle on your drug problem, you have to do it yourself. At least, I had to do it myself. Rehab didn t help me very much.
At this point, Dando seems somewhat agitated. He reached down and removes his boots, displaying a fine pair of bare feet. Excuse my feet, I haven t got any socks, he says. I m not sure whether he hasn t any socks at this moment in time, or whether he doesn t actually own a pair of stockings. However, it s not something I dwell on.
Juliana Hatfield is a long-time friend of Evan s, and a one-time member of The Lemonheads. I wondered if he still sees her?
Yeah, we re friends. I see her occasionally. We did one concert together last summer. We still hang out together, he says. She s getting her record together and taking a while doing it. She s having some contract negotiation problems right now. Her record s ready to go but it might be a little while before it comes out. It s really good, though. I heard it.
How come they never got together as a couple?
We were never meant to be a couple, he answers. We re just really good friends.
What about Courtney Love? Does he still see her?
Yeah, I went away with Frances and Courtney and my manager, he says. Yeah, I see her. We all hang out together. She s doing really good.
Subject politely but firmly closed.
There was a time it seemed that Evan had taken up permanent residence in the tabloid gossip columns, between appearing at gigs stoned out of his face and his friendship with Courtney Love. Now, though, he seems to have left it all behind, and is obviously relieved. But does he ever regret his wild years?
No way, he says immediately. Umm, you know. I think that many of us have behaved the way I have in bars. They just haven t been under such close scrutiny. I was just another person getting fucked up. It just happened to be that I was in a band.
Evan, however, still managed to build up an image of a crazy celebrity who was more than a few bassoons short of an orchestra. He admits that his personal image may have overshadowed the attention his music deserved.
I suppose it might have, he admits. It s funny, that. The people who know, the know, and the people who don t, they don t. There s nothing I can do about it really.
With five months on the road behind them, The Lemonheads are now at the halfway point of their world tour. Evan readily admits that touring can become tedious after a while.
There are times when you go Wow, man. I could go home and make another record. I m really bored of this . But then, you remember that it s one of these nuts and bolts business things, too, he says.
My record label is not in the best shape right now, anyway. But if I bale early on this record, they won t care as much about me as an artist on my next project. I wanna be taken seriously on my next record. So if I go out there and tour for a solid ten months, I m giving it my best try.
I ve always been a very hard-working rock n roller, he adds. I live being a singer. It s hard work sometimes, but it s gotta be done.
I put it to Evan that this statement contrasts hugely with his media image as a slacker supreme, a picture which he treats with the utmost contempt.
Nobody who was labelled that way was not hard-working, he states. Think about the people they labelled that, like J. Mascis and Kurt. All those guys toured and toured, and were very, very devoted to what they did. They just looked a little funny, that s all. It had nothing to do with the work ethic, they d just rather not go to work in a bank.
And what about Evan himself? Could he ever envision working in a nine-to-five occupation? The answer is an emphatic no, although he confesses that he might not be a Lemonhead forever.
I m not going to keep playing loud rock n roll for too many more years, he says. I m going to be 30 soon, so I wanna surrender gracefully the things of youth, which rock n roll must be.
He has already tried his hand at acting, which he loved, so he could be back on the silver screen before too long, not surprisingly. What is surprising, however, is that Evan also fancies himself as a bit of a scribbler.
When I was a kid, my dream was always to be a short story writer. Ireland was my main inspiration, thought James Joyce and that book, Dubliners. Dylan Thomas, in turn, was influenced by James Joyce, and those are my two favourite writers, he says with real feeling.
But then I was thinking, maybe I should wait and do something else for a while to get some experience before I start pretending I can write anything, he continues. Because young writers, they re a little too romantic sometimes. But really old rock n rollers, there s nothing in there for me. I don t think I want to do it past 35. n