When indie music broke into the mainstream in the 1990s, very few frontmen could balance the slacker saint archetype Evan Dando could. To understand him you have to understand the story of the band that defined him: The Lemonheads. Who better to tell the story than the man himself? With the help of author Jim Ruland, Dando recounts how he stumbled his way to success in a few hundred pages with his book, The Rumors of My Demise.
Dando has a way of failing upwards. The Lemonheads formed because he was held back a grade, which resulted in him meeting his bandmates. While there was a divorce between his relaxed parents, he seemingly had a normal childhood, with the exception of an obsession with Charles Manson and bouts of sleepwalking and night terrors that left him mostly unscathed. He attributes some of his drug use to numbing and preventing these episodes.
As you make your way through the book, you get a portrait of a musician who wanted everything but the status of a rock star; yet Dando still used it to his advantage. Throw a rock and you could hit a lead singer of a rock band in the early to mid-1990s who had this same sentiment. Each of them dealt with it in different ways.
It’s not a book about ’90s rock if it doesn’t mention Kurt Cobain in some way, but Dando’s crossover with the Nirvana frontman is very significant to both of their stories. He mentions the press always covering him, but I must have just missed that because I remember very little of MTV’s coverage of Dando. By his account, it was mostly waiting for his eventual overdose as he was known for talking casually about his drug use, assuming he was the next in line to die after Kurt.
Some moments could be considered name-droppy if they weren’t relevant to the story, but is that the fault of Dando or the direction his career took, and the overlap from other industries? These moments feel authentic, though. When all is said, it feels like he’s a guy who will talk to just about anyone. Still, the names get bigger as he crosses paths with Johnny Depp, River Phoenix, and other celebrities of the time.
The many iterations of the band make it clear that the Lemonheads are a music collective with Dando as its constant member. He goes over the songs on each of the albums and shares stories behind who he wrote them with. Despite the band’s ever-growing status, they were always somewhat punk rock adjacent. Dando recounts stories of touring with bands like Gang Green, the Angry Samoans, and Fugazi, as well as sharing the bill with the Pixies on numerous occasions.
He has a very zen way of reflecting on his life. Dando does a great job of balancing what was going on in his head and the world around him. These tie together well. The book is well-paced. Stories from his childhood are sprinkled throughout the book and sometimes feel a bit hazy, but they give context. The audiobook is read by Evan Dando; his voice miraculously still somewhat remains after everything he’s done to himself. A life of low to zero consequences and learning the wrong lessons seems to be the biggest enabler for Dando.
It’s no secret that this book was ghostwritten with Jim Ruland, who consistently puts out great work on interesting subjects. Evan Dando’s life is no exception. Structuring time jumps between his adult life and childhood can sometimes be a gamble if it’s not handled well. The Rumors of My Demise handles this immaculately. It is a great addition to other books written about musicians who caught fire in the early to mid-1990s. The Rumors of My Demise waivers between brilliance and burnout, but like its subject, it sticks the landing.
The Rumors of My Demise by Evan Dando is available at Simon and Schuster now.