For decades, the line on Evan Dando is that he is a talented mess: he tanks shows, burns bridges, and nurses addictions. He last made big headlines when he was kicked off Jawbreaker’s high-profile tour celebrating their canonical Dear You.
This fall, Evan Dando is back in a big way, with this memoir and the first record of new Lemonheads songs in decades. Addicts often write their memoirs when they have gotten clean, eager to share their lessons learned and to do an apology tour for their bad behavior, but Dando has never been one to just fall in line and meet expectations, and Rumors of My Demise follows that tendency. Dando recounts his rise and falls with a wry sense of humor and a dogged determination to do things his way.
As you might expect if you are familiar with him, there are lots of stories of misbehavior and poor decisions related to addiction, but there are plenty of tawdry tell-alls to choose from, so a memoir needs more than that to warrant a recommendation. Fortunately, Rumors of My Demise has more than a laundry list of shocking moments and cameos from famous people. Dando isn’t afraid to share some unsavory stories, but to be fair, many of them were already out there.
The Lemonheads rose fast on the strength of their 1992 classic It’s a Shame About Ray. While Dando never ascended to the Kurt Cobain-level generational icon status his label hoped for, his songs have stood the test of time, influencing new generations of musicians, getting covered, and being name-checked.
Evan Dando’s history of abusing substances is probably the thing he is best known for aside from his music. To his credit, he doesn’t blame others for his issues. He is matter-of-fact in his assessment of his situation and notes that addicts are never “recovered”, but are either currently using or not using.
However, like another alternative rock icon, Dando had some health issues early in life that may have contributed to his habit. From an early age, Dando suffered from sleepwalking and self-medicated to deal with that, which is not exactly unheard of, but it hasn’t been part of the narrative until now. He also acknowledges that while he is not using crack or heroin anymore, he is not exactly “clean”.
The Lemonheads’ 1990s run is the most compelling section of Rumors of My Demise. One of the bands tipped to be The Next Nirvana after the acclaim for It’s a Shame About Ray, and buoyed by Dando’s good looks, Atlantic expected big things from them. The label was determined to make Dando a pin-up, much to his chagrin, and that led to some people not taking the Lemonheads seriously.
That’s a shame (pun intended), because Evan Dando his a talented singer and songwriter. It is an interesting contrast to the way artists with talent and sex appeal manage their social media presence these days. I found myself wondering how that era of the band would have played out if they had gotten their big break in the 2010s instead of the 1990s.
Follow-up album Come On Feel The Lemonheads (1993) did very well, but wasn’t the multiplatinum smash the label expected. The explosion of alternative rock raised the stakes so substantially that only a blockbuster would suffice.
There’s also a section in Rumors of My Demise where he was touring with Courtney Love, and she is one of the few people Dando takes to task. She is framed as a villain, supposedly using Dando to taunt Cobain, even though he did cop to enjoying hanging out with her, despite the drama.
Evan Dando almost turned out to be the next Kurt Cobain, as his addictions spiraled out of control.
One memorable story from the book is that Dando went ahead with interviews to promote Come On Feel the Lemonheads even though he was unable to speak. He wrote down answers to questions and shared that smoking crack is the reason he was unable to talk.
This incident later inspired 1996’s Car Button Cloth standout “If I Could Talk I’d Tell You”. Dando readily admits that he overshared with the press and that it cost him, but it is also apparent, as he recounts this era of his career, that he wasn’t interested in taking advice that might have been helpful to him.
By the end of Rumors of My Demise, Dando has settled into a new chapter in his life, living in South America. However, this is not before recounting failed relationships, spirals of addiction, and his coming to terms with the popularity of his cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic “Mrs. Robinson”, which was added to It’s a Shame About Ray after its release.
He seems to have come out on the other side; if not fully settled down, he is at least a little more reflective. As an entertaining account of the 1990s music scene, Rumors of My Demise is a fast-paced, occasionally harrowing sprint. Despite it all, you find yourself rooting for him.
Evan Dando’s newest release, 2025’s Love Chant, isn’t quite at the level of the classic run of records, but it’s a scrappy collection that proves Dando still has his chops. It’s not hard to imagine him pulling off a late-career masterstroke.