LEMONHEADS

Rip It Up, Issue 187, 1 February 1993, Page 10

LEMONHEADS

THE LEMONHEADS arrive here soon for a nationwide orientation tour. Shirley Charles speaks to the man Sassy magazine called "His Royal Spunky Hunkyness", head Lemonhead EVAN DANDO, while he eats a K sandwich...

Evan Dando is very much like his music, kinda laid back, kooky and has lots of melody. He's also interested in shoes (apparently) and has been known to sport a smashing pair of yellow jammas on stage and he's also been a cover hunk recently for such magazines as - Interview, Spin ■. and Melody , beaker; The Lemonheads are , currently in Australia working dri new songs, they've recently been) around the States twice, to Europe and are heading off to Japan soon and then will be here, so what are you doing in Australia at the moment? • \ r . •

"We're doing a video here, we're redoing the 'lts A Shame About Ray' video and then we're doing a video for 'My Drug Buddy'."

Do you enjoy the lifestyle that you lead, travelling around? "The lifestyle? Yeah 1 love it, I'm a Pisces and stuff, I don't believe in much of that stuff, but I know that I really like to travel, we've toured five and a half months, then I had a month off here, now I'm just going round and round [the world that is] I hate staying in the same place."

I've read that you love Australia, do you think that you'd ever move there someday?

"Mmmm hmmm, 1 want to, you know, somewhere down here, New Zealand or Australia, I don't really know where I want to go, I've got lots of friends in Sydney, so ... " Have you seen much of New Zealand?

"Mmm, I didn't see enough, I had some really good white wine and got really stoned, that's all, we drank good wine, got stoned, played a show and left, but I'm really excited to come down this time, we're really doing a lot of it this time." You haven't been to the

South Island? "Oh right? We’re doing the South Island. I'm excited." So you acquired your new bass player Nic from Australia? ! "Mmmm hmmmm, he's the coolest." '4 How did you come across him? ;. , \ . "Well, our first tour of Australia he was playing with the Hummingbirds, he's from Canberra .. . . he's just, he can do really cool things, he's just really fun to play with and he wrote the song 'Kitchen'." / 1 Was being in Australia last time an important or inspira-

tional time for you? "Mmmm, definately, meeting this guy Tom Morgan from this band Smudge, that was very important because for some reason we can write together really well and now on the new record most of the songs are written by Tom and I.”

Are you still based in Boston?

"Uh-uh, I have no base, I just have a bag .. . So what would you be doing if you weren't a Lemonhead? "I'd probably be some kind of fisherman or something, maybe I'd surf a lot, I used to surf when I was a kid a lot but I've grown away from that. If I didn't play music I'd probably ski and surf all the time." A lot of bands that come from overseas miss out on the culture and the local music scene and stuff by not moving out of their hotel rooms — are you into going out and experienc-

ing different scenes? "Absolutely yeah, 1 really like to take advantage of the luxury of being able to travel around and if you don't work at it and get up early and go out you miss out, you might as well not be travelling at all, but if you've been on tour for a long time you just want to sleep some of the time, but yeah I make a big effort to go out and check stuff out, sometimes it's like if you drink and party too much, you don't have a chance to take . . . you just get thrown in the van in the morning, but if you don't drink you can get up early, so sometimes it's a help not to party." Is selling a lot of records important to you? "Um, kind of because um, that's the only way you know that people are listening to your

music." Do you need to sell a lot of records in order to survive? "Mmm hmm, probably because, I don't know, we're selling a lot of records in the States, sometimes we loose money from touring or videos so we have to sell some to make it worthwhile for the record company and keep them interested in us and it's really connected to having a satisfying artistic career when you're in a band, you have to sell a certain amount of records otherwise it's just bullshit, you feel bad, it's kinda like a necessary thing, I don't think it's the most important thing, because we just do it anyway, you know, I just like to sing and play the guitar, it's fun, it's a fun kick to sell records, cos you know more people are hearing your music, which is a nice thing. . . it's a strange connection we have here . . . " [the phone]. Yeah, Im having to shout at

you down a speaker phone., - ' "Oh, I'm on a speaker phone? Rarahrah!" (Rahs loudly) : Did you enjoy recording in LA? ; - "Yeah, it's trie best place to record, we're gonna be there this spring, it'll be interesting to see what happens, there will probably be more crazy riots and stuff. ..I hope not." ’ You were there last time, when the riots were happenin? : re . ... : j "Yeah, we brought Nic over from Australia the day after the riots ended and there was still a curfew and stuff." • So is LA your ideal place to record? ; "Yeah, just cos I met these amazing connections to the 60s, these guys the Robb Brothers." ! Didn't they live next door

to Charles Manson? "Yeah, they hung out, they moved next to the Manson Ranch but more than that they opened up for the Byrds and they played in Little Richards band and Del Shannon's Band and they knew all the Beatles and the Stones and they have the best stories, they like music and stuff, and they like us, so it's the best thing."

So how did Gunnar Nelson come to do some of the backing vocals on 'Alison's Starting To Happen'? "Well he was just there at the studio, the Robb Brothers were great friends with Ricky Nelson [Nelson's famous Daddy], so Nelson were doing their record there at the Robb Brothers studio and at the time Gunnar was producing a metal band and he noticed my guitar and he wanted to play it and we got to know each other that way and I thought it would be really

funny if he'd come in and do some vocals and he turned out to be really talented." So was he cool or what? "Oh, he's nice you know, I think he's a really funny guy." So what did you think about appearing in Sassy magazine? "Oh whatever, it's funny, I think it's fine if it helps get our music heard that's all, like I hope our music would appeal to young girls, isn't that what rock 'n' roll's about [sighs then laffs], nah it's fine with me, it's really funny, now I'm on the cover of Interview [enthusiastic]." . Really? (Me = impressed)! "Yeah, and the cover of Spin and Melody Maker so it's getting much more out of control, but I think it's funny." Is it just you, or the band? "Just me." Oh. (me adopts American Accent). Male Model? "Yeah, my mother was a model."

Well there you go then. "Yeah, well you do it however you can to continue, I really like what I'm doing and I'll do whatever it takes, so that there's some way for me to continue doing it, you know, it's a weird feeling being like 'O.K, I'll do whatever they want' but for a while I will, but I feel like I'm gonna be able to have more of a say over what I do if I go through all of these motions of doing all these things." So tell us about the Interview sesh. "Well they really liked our band, so they took me down to Miami and Bruce Weber took pictures of me, and I had to take off all my clothes and get into a bathtub full of lemons and water [giggles and guffaws] but you can't t§ll I didn't have any clothes on, but I don't know .. . the cover's pretty funny." So what do you see yourself doing in five or ten years time? "Well five years down the line I hope to be still making records, then eventually I'd like to write short stories, but I think writing's something that older people do better, so I'll wait for that..."

SHIRLEY CHARLES