BOOK CLUB: Evan Dando’s Memoir plus the new Lemonheads album with Producer Dylan

Evan Dando is back with a long-awaited memoir and a brand-new Lemonheads album, and there’s only one guest who could do them both justice: the artist formerly known as Producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert. In this episode, Yasi and Dylan dive into their takeaways, learnings, and surprises from the book, Rumors of My Demise and also discuss the first original Lemonheads album in 19 years, Love Chant (it’s good!). CREDITS: Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalek Guest: Dylan Rupert Producer: Rob Sundermann Video Editor: Kevin Pooler Audio Editor: Adrian Bridges Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Theme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:26Speaker 01

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• 0:54Speaker 02

  What's with this band anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, Band Splain?

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Band Splain, Band Splain, Band Splain. I really hate this band! Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Band Splain, Band Splain, Band Splain, Band Splain. Band Splain!

• 1:33Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Band Splain Whoa. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is a little different. Today, we're having book club, you guys, and we are discussing Evan Dando's new-ish memoir, Rumors of My Demise, as well as the new Lemonheads album, Love Chant. You guys are my guests today. Here, back from the dead. Shouldn't actually die. But anyone who leaves this show is dead to me. The artist formerly known as producer Dylan, Dylan Tupper Rupert, welcome to the program. Host of acclaimed podcast Music Person on the TalkCast Network.

• 2:15Speaker 04

  Yes, so true.

• 2:16Yasi Salek?

  Moving, shaking, booked, busy, how have you been?

• 2:19Speaker 04

  All of the above, all of the above. This is maybe now my time to plug the Patreon in which no one has fulfilled the pay my rent tier and that is more than available for anyone out there who really likes music podcasts.

• 2:34Yasi Salek?

  Normally, people do a little chit chat before we do like the Mandarin plug, but I'll allow it.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  You gotta get things in, everyone's telling me, before the 20 seconds of the social clip cuts off. You gotta, you know, put the bye.

• 2:46Yasi Salek?

  I see, I see.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  At the very beginning.

• 2:47Yasi Salek?

  Got it, you've been, you've been having social media training.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  I've been trained, I'm just doing best practices.

• 2:53Yasi Salek?

  Producer Dylan, what have you been up to?

• 2:55Speaker 04

  Making that podcast.

• 2:56Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 2:56Speaker 04

  And putting on some music festivals.

• 2:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Dylan Fest.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  Called Dylan Fest.

• 3:02Yasi Salek?

  As it is, both officially and affectionately known.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Someone asked me recently, why did you call it Dylan Fest? I didn't answer because...

• 3:11Yasi Salek?

  It's a fair question. I don't think they were like, where did the name come from? They were more like, why would you name it?

• 3:19Speaker 04

  Why did you do that?

• 3:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:21Yasi Salek?

  And you were like, well?

• 3:22Speaker 04

  It's like, you look deep into your heart and think about what you would name your music festival.

• 3:27Yasi Salek?

  That's a good point.

• 3:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. We all know it would be a Yossi Fest.

• 3:32Yasi Salek?

  It doesn't have a real ring to it, Yossi Fest, though.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, but there's like a different suffix I think you could add and it would really...

• 3:39Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yossi Berry.

• 3:41Yasi Salek?

  Yossi Berry? That's so bad. That's really bad.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  What are other London ones?

• 3:47Yasi Salek?

  We're gonna need to, we're gonna need to workshop this a little bit.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  We'll workshop it, we'll workshop it. Let me know when you're ready.

• 3:51Yasi Salek?

  Well, Producer Dylan.

• 3:54Yasi Salek?

  It's a real treat to have you back.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  I'm so honored. I can't believe we're still, all these years later, talking about the inner life of Evan Dando. How much is there?

• 4:04Yasi Salek?

  Or lack thereof.

• 4:06Yasi Salek?

  No ambition, just vibes. This book has been a long time in the making. It was co-written by Jim Ruland, who's very cool. He's written several other books. One, Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST, which I'm sure we'll have to read for one of my episodes. Do What You Want: The Story of Bad Religion, which he co-wrote with Bad Religion. And also, he co-wrote Keith Morris's book, My Damage. He's written some novels as well. I've not read them yet, but I'll be checking those out. Why do you think Evan Dando wrote a book?

• 4:41Speaker 04

  Well, usually, my first thoughts would be people such as your manager are telling you to do that.

• 4:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  That's kind of the vibe this book is giving.

• 4:51Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Also, I think especially, like, when did he start writing it? Like, four years ago?

• 4:56Yasi Salek?

  So long ago.

• 4:57Speaker 04

  Really?

• 4:58Yasi Salek?

  It was, when did we do the Lemonheads episode?

• 5:02Speaker 04

  I feel like we did the Lemons episode, like, right before, just, this always happens, the band's playing effect.

• 5:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  Right before, there's like some big reunion thing.

• 5:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  We created the-

• 5:14Yasi Salek?

  I think it was, like, the beginning of COVID that he-

• 5:17Speaker 04

  It was, yeah.

• 5:18Yasi Salek?

  Because there was that New York Times profile, that great New York Times profile, my friend of the pod, Daniel Arnold. Anyways, during that profile, they talk about, I believe, that he's writing a book. I remember we knew about this from a while ago.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  Yes. It was kind of just, like, simmering in the ether. I kind of have this conjecture that it probably wasn't this calculated. But, you know, he, he had a run of difficult shows.

• 5:45Yasi Salek?

  Oh, which are, which are mentioned.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Which are mentioned.

• 5:47Yasi Salek?

  Which I was at both of them.

• 5:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, we went to one together and other separately, but were together in the room. And so it was, like, interesting to read about how that, you know, affected his trajectory, shall we say? But I'm like, when you have shows- For the record, The Lemonheads, one of my all time favorite fucking bands.

• 6:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  This is known. Like, those were some really difficult shows to watch. And they sent him, like, back to rehab and kind of like in a new chapter of his life. No pun intended. And I think maybe the convenience of having like a memoir to put out the bigger story at that point of his life was a good choice.

• 6:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think, listen, it's a great timing. Again, I guess we haven't properly set this up. Evan Dando is the lead singer and sort of main engine of the band, The Lemonheads, who had the peak of their popularity in like the mid 90s. Particularly with their cover of the Simon and Garfunkel song, Mrs. Robinson, much to the chagrin of Evan Dando, which, understandable.

• 6:59Yasi Salek?

  Also, he was, you know, Alterna Hunk and Dee Heartthrob. We love them. We spent a lot of hours working on our Lemonheads episode.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Well, I think I really look at that time both fondly and with great concern. Because I think both of us, that was like our parasocial pandemic. Mind-losing experience.

• 7:25Yasi Salek?

  I was like talking about Evan Dando in therapy for like six weeks and my therapist was like, we didn't move on. She did not say that, but I think she was thinking it.

• 7:33Speaker 04

  We were deeply locked in.

• 7:36Yasi Salek?

  As it always happens, you know, when I get deep in a band's plane, it's always reflecting my own psyche back to me. That's just how it works. But my psyche was not well during the year 20.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  So it found its perfect match.

• 7:49Yasi Salek?

  Right. Was it 2021?

• 7:50Speaker 04

  I think it was 2021.

• 7:52Yasi Salek?

  With our guest, Chris Black, another deep Dando head. Well, I'm gonna tell you why Dando wrote the book because he was asked this by The New York Times this year. And he said, "To tell you the truth, I didn't have any way to survive. And so I had to get a little money. That's what they don't want me to say, but I'm sorry. I tell the truth." And what do we love about Evan Dando?

• 8:10Speaker 04

  He tells the truth to the press.

• 8:12Yasi Salek?

  To the press.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  Specifically to The New York Times.

• 8:14Yasi Salek?

  To The New York Times, anyone who...

• 8:15Speaker 04

  Interview Magazine.

• 8:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we love that. Do you, before we like dive into this, this tome, this text, do you in general enjoy rock biographies? I was gonna say bios and then I changed midway to say biographies. And then it came out weird.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  I am not sure. I can feel like there are so many in which you can feel the ghostwriters questions.

• 8:42Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  And like when you, I mean, it's not the same to write, like ghostwrite someone's memoir as it is to write like their press bio or whatever. But you know when like you do those for work and you can like look at someone else's work and like work backwards from the questions that they asked and like the beats that they have to hit.

• 9:03Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  I have that unfortunate affliction where like I feel like I have this X-ray vision of how the book is put together.

• 9:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  And it kind of takes away some of my, what might feel like genuine about his thoughts coming out, but also I'm like, his mind is all over the place.

• 9:21Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  And like working on a different frequency than I think you or I, or most people. Yeah, I'm being really generous and I love him so much. But yeah, I mean, I, do I like them wholesale? I like great ones. I like ones, the ones I love.

• 9:39Yasi Salek?

  What, what to you makes a great one?

• 9:40Speaker 04

  What makes a great one? Yeah, like what I love about a good one is I learn more about like, not like a list of their inspirations, but like the actual dynamics of the people in their life and like what they got out of these relationships. Cause like it's one thing to know about famous person here and famous person here and it's cool that they're friends.

• 10:03Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  But every dynamic is different between two people and I feel like there are so many people in this book I wanted to know more about like Evan's dynamic with them.

• 10:11Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Not just that it was like two interesting people in a room together.

• 10:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  Like what were they getting out of each other?

• 10:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 04

  So I kind of feel like I was missing that a bit, but that's, I just love like learning more about interpersonal dynamics that like you only would otherwise see as like photos on Tumblr.

• 10:29Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 10:30Speaker 04

  Fan blogs.

• 10:31Yasi Salek?

  From fan blogs, sure, of course.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, I think that's, that's one thing that does make, mark out a better rock. I mean, I think there's like so many different ways that one can be good to me, like.

• 10:47Yasi Salek?

  I like the ones where people are messy.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:51Yasi Salek?

  Like when they're messy bitches who live for drama. Often those ones, obviously I read a lot of them.

• 10:55Speaker 04

  Right.

• 10:56Yasi Salek?

  For my craft. Um, those are often the ones that are published just like a mere three to five years after said events have taken place. Cause people are kind of like still salty.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:05Yasi Salek?

  Well, yeah, and also then they're like a little loose.

• 11:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:07Yasi Salek?

  And they're often out of print now and you have to like go dig them up and be like, you said what bitch? Um, those are not necessarily good books, but they are.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  Information.

• 11:16Yasi Salek?

  Useful, yes. But I think like the best ones are obviously when the person is a good writer. I mean, it's so basic and but it's like the Patti Smith Just Kids is a boring example, but I'm sorry, it's beautiful. Because she's such a wonderful writer. The Viv Albertine books, because she's such an incredible writer, you know, like, and you get both. You get both the story, but you get these insights that they sort of drop in.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 11:46Yasi Salek?

  Looking back, where I think to like be insightful about your own life is also a whole other bag of chips, you know?

• 11:53Speaker 04

  You're not always gonna get that from your like especially male rock stars.

• 11:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Richard Hell one is quite good.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:00Yasi Salek?

  Um, I mean, there's so many good ones, but I, I did, I think if you're like a, a certified dando head. There's a lot of really interesting tids and bits in here.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  It's full of tids and bits, but you know what? I want to interject and say.

• 12:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 12:15Speaker 04

  Going through this whole book and making all my little.

• 12:18Yasi Salek?

  You read the whole thing?

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, with my big, big brain, with my big brain. I was like, I don't really think I'm learning any new fascinating trivia. It's full of fascinating trivia. It's just stuff that I think we already learned.

• 12:33Yasi Salek?

  We did a Lemonheads episode and most people haven't, so I wonder if, I wonder.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  But anyone can listen to it.

• 12:38Yasi Salek?

  I wonder if this, when they were writing this book.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  They were referencing?

• 12:41Yasi Salek?

  No, we put it out and they were like, god fucking damn it. I also will say before we get to it, I scooped this book on something really amazing, which I was so proud of.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  The Sebado thing?

• 12:50Yasi Salek?

  The Sebado song when Lou Barlow came on the now defunct 24 Question Party people and regaled. And I must, I must implore you to please listen to that episode if you are a fan of Lemonheads slash Sebado slash dinosaur junior. Because the way he tells the story is so good.

• 13:10Yasi Salek?

  It's so good.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  It's so good.

• 13:11Yasi Salek?

  Um, but anyways, I was.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  Wait, should we summarize it really quick?

• 13:14Yasi Salek?

  So it's basically that Lou Barlow was in Los Angeles, hooked up with Evan Dando and.

• 13:21Speaker 04

  At the chateau.

• 13:21Yasi Salek?

  At the chateau, got caught up in this like, I think they also went to the wiper room, got caught up in this wild Hollywood night. Did a bunch of different drugs. Yeah, smoked crack. I think did heroin. I mean, like, I can't listen. I'm simply.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Dando style bender.

• 13:33Yasi Salek?

  Dando style. Went, went dando mode.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  That'd be dando style.

• 13:38Yasi Salek?

  Go to, I don't, it's really bad. That's so terrible. This is why we sometimes miss you and we sometimes don't.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  I sip my matcha.

• 13:46Yasi Salek?

  I'm no more guy here. Um, and then he had to go, Lou Barlow had to go and do like a radio session at like.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 13:55Yasi Salek?

  Seven AM, like still like cracked out.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  Literally.

• 13:59Yasi Salek?

  Um, but he wrote the song, first of all, and then we found the radio session and we like clipped it. Um, but he, then he went and wrote the song Skull, the Sabido song Skull.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  One of the best Sabido songs ever.

• 14:10Yasi Salek?

  So, speaking of that, I want to get into like some of the nitty gritty of the book, but like. I think a lot of people's main question, I mean, it's right in the name of the book, right? Remers.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  Is he okay?

• 14:23Yasi Salek?

  Is he okay? Is he sober? You know, and he's, the answer is no. Not that he's not okay, but he's not sober.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  He's, yeah, he's not sober, but it's like he's off heroin.

• 14:34Yasi Salek?

  He's on heroin.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Drugs.

• 14:35Yasi Salek?

  Off bad drugs.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Bad drugs. Yeah. But I don't think there's any expressed interest in the book or what I know.

• 14:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 04

  Through our sources of Evan Dando lore. Um.

• 14:48Yasi Salek?

  Well, he told the New York Times, I don't believe God meant us to be sober. Why would monks make booze? He's making good, he's making good points.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  It's a good question.

• 14:58Yasi Salek?

  Body and blood of Christ.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  I think it's, you know.

• 15:02Yasi Salek?

  Why would we be gluten free? And why would we be sober? Are the main questions.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, not sober, but not on heroin or crack or any of the other things that really animate most of the activity in this book.

• 15:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, as you said, I just know that heroin is really satanic for me, which I think is a good way to put it. I think this book does, like, like I was saying, like, I think it has a lot for you if you are like a big Lemonheads and Evan Dando fan. It also has a lot for you if you're just like a fucking, what are those people called that like, a rubber necker? That just wants stories of fuck-upery?

• 15:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:43Yasi Salek?

  Drug fuck-upery, because there's a lot of that, too.

• 15:47Yasi Salek?

  One thing I found extremely sus, off bat, I watched every episode of Gilmore Girls and I didn't even like it. Sir. I'm gonna stop.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Wait, when did he say that?

• 15:58Yasi Salek?

  In the beginning, it's in the intro.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  I was really speed reading that one.

• 16:01Yasi Salek?

  He liked Gossip Girl better. So, to me, that is sus.

• 16:04Speaker 04

  Interesting, okay.

• 16:06Yasi Salek?

  I'm just gonna...

• 16:06Speaker 04

  I, I see how that could be sus.

• 16:09Yasi Salek?

  He was, he said he sat around injecting dope coke and speed and smoking weed all day and watched Gilmore Girls in those circumstances.

• 16:16Speaker 04

  He's just like us.

• 16:17Yasi Salek?

  She's just like us for real. Stars, they're just like us. I also do speedballs and watch Gilmore Girls every autumn with my pumpkin spice latte.

• 16:27Speaker 04

  Like Instagram, like, the, the thing that people see is like the TV and the mantle then behind it is just like strewn with like drug paraphernalia, rock bios.

• 16:40Yasi Salek?

  This is how Yasi makes the podcast. Speedballs. They already talk so fast on that show, I just can't imagine. Do you think, do you think maybe if you're on a speedball when you watch Gilmore Girls, they talk normal?

• 16:51Speaker 04

  It seems slower. I think it probably seems slower because your mind is working so much faster. Yeah.

• 16:56Yasi Salek?

  Interesting, we'll never know.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  I wonder what it's like listening to this podcast.

• 17:01Yasi Salek?

  If you have, if you've done speedballs and listened to bands playing, bang our line, let us know what that experience is like for you. He did say in the book also that he wanted to be a writer before he wanted to be a musician, that James Joyce and Dylan Thomas were above the skaters in his personal pantheon.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  I do remember that. It's interesting.

• 17:19Yasi Salek?

  He's, he is a pretty great lyric writer.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:22Yasi Salek?

  Like, really, really good lyric writer.

• 17:28Yasi Salek?

  Another great takeaway that I had. This is not takeaway, just a bit of lore. That, I mean, we knew that original, I think it was the bass player, Jesse Pretz, of Lemonheads, father was like the editor of the New Republic or whatever.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:44Yasi Salek?

  Because they come from, you know, Boston and they went to a private school.

• 17:49Yasi Salek?

  But that they were friends with the Gores. And that Tipper Gore was constantly mailing, like, offensive CDs to Jesse Pretz's dad to like get him to care about the parental advisory commission or whatever. And he would just give them to the kids and that's where their like CD collections came from. I thought that was kind of interesting.

• 18:11Speaker 04

  It's pretty brilliant. I, when I read that, I was like, this feels so

• 18:17Speaker 04

  improbable.

• 18:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 04

  Like, it's probably like, maybe there's a little bit of that, you know, but like, the story is so good.

• 18:23Yasi Salek?

  It's too good.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  It's too good.

• 18:27Yasi Salek?

  The part where he was, okay, I need to get on a little bit of his obsessions.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 18:31Yasi Salek?

  Charles Manson?

• 18:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:33Yasi Salek?

  Fair, normal.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  That, that type of guy loves that guy.

• 18:38Yasi Salek?

  Henry Rollins also, you know, but that he lived in a closet decorated with photos of Charles Manson and brought girls back to it, like, babe, what do you do? You go home. I mean, I guess if you look like Evan Dando, like, who fucking cares? You could have little pictures of like, open heart surgery and like, necrophilia all over your thing. And I'd be like,

• 18:59Speaker 04

  Dude, this is crazy.

• 19:00Yasi Salek?

  You went home with a guy that had photos of Charles Manson all over his closet?

• 19:04Speaker 04

  No. But my best friend's boyfriend, one of my best friends, told me, last night, I told him I was speed reading this book. And he said, he was like, Evan Dando cock blocked me once. And I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, once when I was younger, I took a girl home and I had like a Lemonheads poster in my room. And she was literally like, you like Evan Dando? Goodbye.

• 19:28Yasi Salek?

  Oh, that's not what I was expecting.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Not what I was expecting at all either.

• 19:31Yasi Salek?

  What do you think?

• 19:32Speaker 04

  Was she Kathleen Hannah? Was she a Riot Girl? Follow up question?

• 19:36Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:37Yasi Salek?

  Is he old?

• 19:39Speaker 04

  No.

• 19:42Yasi Salek?

  I want to know what the girls-

• 19:44Speaker 04

  What the baggage was.

• 19:44Yasi Salek?

  What was the flag?

• 19:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. That, that one really threw me for a loop. I was like, what,

• 19:51Speaker 04

  what would make you so upset about Evan Dando, like, if you're not a contemporary of him? Cause you get in this book, all of the things that people hated about Evan Dando at the time.

• 20:03Yasi Salek?

  What poster would have to be on the wall for you to be like, pack it up, pack it in bitch, we're out of here calling the police?

• 20:14Yasi Salek?

  My lift is here.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  This is hard off the top of my head because I'm really forgiving and I can really give people the benefit of the doubt and I make terrible choices because of that.

• 20:25Yasi Salek?

  Okay, maybe you need to journal some so that you can look for them in the future.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 20:31Yasi Salek?

  To be like, this is not-

• 20:33Speaker 04

  Maybe honestly, if I'm gonna be totally honest, I'm so happy when people are on their 12-step journeys, but to see another AA coin, I can't. I just don't wanna

• 20:47Yasi Salek?

  You're not trying to live that life.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  I'm not trying to live that lifestyle.

• 20:49Yasi Salek?

  I hear you.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  But happy for everyone.

• 20:52Yasi Salek?

  Would not have one of those.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Absolutely not.

• 20:54Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:56Yasi Salek?

  You know what's another good rock by I just thought about? That actually is weirdly a hybrid of what we were talking about. Whereas they were obviously interviewed, but they're so fucking smart and funny anyways. It is the Jesus and Mary Chain book. Because it's clearly, literally just them talking in response to the question. That's like how it's framed, but they're so fucking funny. I was like laughing out loud multiple times. Phenomenal. Also, I believe they read it in the audiobook. Dando reads the audiobook too. I listened to some of it.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  Whoa, how is his delivery?

• 21:29Yasi Salek?

  He's a great voice.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  Actually, on the new album, my primary takeaway was like his voice sounds great.

• 21:36Yasi Salek?

  Sounds phenomenal. Yeah. We don't want to skip ahead. We're gonna talk about the album, but.

• 21:42Yasi Salek?

  What about that he registered for the draft but didn't register to vote so he wouldn't go to jury, did he?

• 21:49Speaker 04

  It's one of those things where it's like, kind of with like the Manson poster thing, where it's like, we all knew a guy like that.

• 21:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  Like when we were nineteen. Someone who was just like doing these like little like mischief goblin tricks.

• 22:05Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  You know, to like try to like extend, like make all these little like jester like steps through life, you know, to try to like escape normalcy and you see him doing this, you know, in his late teen years as he goes into adulthood. And that's just like, I think the thing that he tried to do his whole life, take these little side steps.

• 22:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like kind of a natural born rebel.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. But like with the lowercase r.

• 22:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I did, yeah, I don't know like what.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  Like quite literally a rebel without a cause.

• 22:37Yasi Salek?

  Right, right, right, totally.

• 22:38Speaker 04

  Not a cause in sight.

• 22:39Yasi Salek?

  The cause was like vibes to do it, yeah vibes. I want to do whatever I wanted to do.

• 22:43Speaker 04

  No cause, just vibes. Because we learn he's very ambitious. So we have to.

• 22:48Yasi Salek?

  But like in the.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  Make new mugs.

• 22:49Yasi Salek?

  In the strangest way, my mug is gone and I didn't even have time to go purchase the tiny violin that I now know that they sell at the American Girl store, that I would thank you to the listener who DM'd me the link to the tiny violin that they sell at the American Girl store, presumably for one of the dolls. Yeah, it's perfect. And I need one of those to just pull out. But anyways, yes, I need new mugs.

• 23:18Yasi Salek?

  Was he ambitious?

• 23:21Speaker 04

  Well, okay, this was an interesting bit.

• 23:23Yasi Salek?

  Was he determined or was he ambitious?

• 23:25Speaker 04

  Determined and ambitious. I think he was, I actually think he was ambitious, but not that determined. I was really interested in him talking about his friends in Australia.

• 23:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 04

  Because like that was something that I wish there was more of in this book, that I think we were both really fascinated in.

• 23:45Yasi Salek?

  Oh my god.

• 23:46Speaker 04

  Episode, the Lemonheads episode about, where it's like that was like the site of his, that's like where his creative soulmates were.

• 23:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he had like a cultural renaissance there. Like he like really like this chemistry that sparked between these other songwriters and him and.

• 24:05Yasi Salek?

  It's, I mean, it's talked about. It's just not really like, we don't get into it.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  We don't get into what was happening like to him that made him so inspired by these external circumstances. And these people that were in these really cool bands and this really cool like indie rock scene in like New Zealand and Australia at that time. That was like just as rich and exciting as what was happening in America, but wasn't blowing up in the same way.

• 24:33Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  You know, um, but like, he was talking about how the people in that scene thought he was like cravenly ambitious. And he was like, compared to LA standards, I'm the loser slacker.

• 24:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Who like cannot get their career right. But to them, he was like.

• 24:53Yasi Salek?

  Well, I wonder how much of that was just that they had signed to a major label.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I also think that's just.

• 24:59Yasi Salek?

  That happened like Forrest Gump, Tralala style. Like most of the things in Evan Dando's life are Forrest Gump, Tralala style. Where he's just like, Tralala started a band.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 25:08Yasi Salek?

  Tralala, now we're assigned on Atlantic after, I mean, I think that's why I made the distinction where it was like, I do think, I don't think there was ever an ambition to like make a ton of money or be famous. But I think there was a determination to be in a band and make music. So it's like, he kept that going even when there was obstacles. Like even when the first lineup kind of falls apart, he keeps it going and forms a new lineup. And these are all reasons to make music and keep going, but they don't seem to be particularly tied to like having radio hits or making money. You know, like if he was like that ambitious, I'm not sure he would have wanted that Mrs. Robinson song, which, because that was a hit, but he didn't want it, you know?

• 25:50Speaker 04

  That's true. I do think though, he like talks a lot about, maybe not a lot, but at a few different turns, he brings up like wanting to fulfill this like rock and roll guy fantasy.

• 26:00Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  And I think like, there's that gap between the like professional ambition of actually like, I want to be a rock star with a career my whole life. And how do I take the steps to go there versus like, I just want to be Keith Richards?

• 26:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  And I think like by 90's standards, he got to follow that path and be a mischief goblin and debaucherous and like insane and like do the whole like. Take what the nineties allowed for him to be, which was like, be a little bit disaffected.

• 26:31Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  And let the company take care of the rest, but then you're like giving up all of your agency as a person.

• 26:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 04

  But I think it's like a fantasy based version of being really ambitious, because I think he wanted to be a rock star.

• 26:45Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, who doesn't? I mean.

• 26:49Speaker 04

  I'm fine being a producer.

• 26:52Yasi Salek?

  Okay, well, I'd prefer to be a rock star. This is the closest I'm gonna get.

• 26:59Yasi Salek?

  I'm the Keith Richards of podcasting. That's about as good as it's gonna get over here.

• 27:10Yasi Salek?

  I was like, also, again, like, even though it might not have been explicitly discussed or like noted, I was struck by like, how the women in his life

• 27:27Yasi Salek?

  did contribute quite a bit to a lot of what shaped both like

• 27:36Yasi Salek?

  his craft and like his perception and stuff like from off rip, like Juliana Hatfield was in music school. Didn't she go to?

• 27:45Speaker 04

  She went to Berkeley.

• 27:46Yasi Salek?

  Berkeley. So she's like this incredibly talented and skilled and studied musician. And there was just like a one toss off line that really stuck with me because it was her stopping him and being like, this, the song, the song that you're singing is not in your key.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:04Yasi Salek?

  And the thing is like, I remember a story that John Strome, friend of the pod, lawyer of the pod of you, former Lemonhead, former Blake Baby, told me a long time ago about when they would tour and they would do like, they would sit in the hotel lobby and pass the guitar around and sing songs and that Evan was extremely like.

• 28:27Yasi Salek?

  Um, strict about keys and he'd be like, that's the wrong key. You can't play it like that. And it's like, oh, you learned that from Juliana.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:37Yasi Salek?

  You know, like you weren't a trained musician and like, so that, and obviously they were like really close collaborators and he was in Blake Babies. So that was very interesting to me. I mean, we have Robin Stinkler, an Australian. So it's like one of the biggest hits is a cover um by, you know, a female artist. We have Winona Ryder being an early Lemonheads fan. She's so fucking cool.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:02Yasi Salek?

  Pre-major label, like being into the older stuff and putting Johnny Depp on to them, which leads to Johnny Depp recognizing Evan Dando in LA and creating this sort of like storied and gossip column.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Twenty-four hours, basically. Yeah, literally just come move in with me.

• 29:18Yasi Salek?

  I just thought, I thought it was interesting. And there's, I mean, there's more like, a lot of the songwriting, it like muse-wise, there's so many like, you know, Alice in the Wuthering Heights.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  In a platonic way.

• 29:29Yasi Salek?

  In a platonic way.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Like his, his female muses really do seem like friends that he's in awe of.

• 29:35Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  In this way, that's like very sweet and genuine.

• 29:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Speaker 04

  Um, and doesn't feel calculated.

• 29:40Yasi Salek?

  Which we love, or like creepy or.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  At all, or like it just, I think he saw interesting facets of these women's lives, you know? And he also talked about too, like growing up with a sister and he was like, it makes it easier to have female friends and like understand.

• 29:57Yasi Salek?

  And his sister too comes up so much. He was obviously so close to her and like so like respectful of her like opinion.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, he really deferred to her a lot. And I just was like, imagine being all throughout the nineties, being Evan Dando's New York City social worker.

• 30:14Yasi Salek?

  Social worker sister.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  Sister.

• 30:17Yasi Salek?

  And you're like, yep.

• 30:18Speaker 04

  Holy shit.

• 30:19Yasi Salek?

  That's my guy.

• 30:19Speaker 04

  Noble peace prize.

• 30:21Yasi Salek?

  Truly amazing.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  Purple heart.

• 30:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, her, the sisters, Holly is her name. Holly didn't know, her best friend is the one that showed him Graham Parsons.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  Right, yeah.

• 30:31Yasi Salek?

  Which like, we kind of associate Evan Dando with like, always having been this like, deep Parsons head. But it was later in life that Rob, Holly's best friend. I guess to your ambition point, I also wrote this down, that he had a quote that was like, "I'm not a natural songwriter, I have to work at it." Which can lead to forcing the issue. I remember when I was old enough to help my dad around the house, he used to say, "Don't force it." When I was trying to solve a problem with strength rather than finesse.

• 30:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:56Yasi Salek?

  Vibes, just vibes.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Just vibes.

• 30:58Yasi Salek?

  No strength, just vibes. No force, just vibes.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  No, no force, just finesse.

• 31:05Speaker 00

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• 31:58Yasi Salek?

  I'm going kind of all over the place because I made my notes as I was reading, but Bud Court being backstage at the DiManda Galas show? Okay, Harold. Go off Bud Court, the actor from Harold and Maude. Did not peg him as a DiManda Galas fan. That really is sad, it's just a small thing, but again, apparently I'm mentally ill. I've thought about it for years.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  What year did that movie come out?

• 32:21Yasi Salek?

  Babe, I don't know.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  She's almost a competitor right there.

• 32:24Yasi Salek?

  That's true.

• 32:26Yasi Salek?

  Nineteen seventy one.

• 32:27Speaker 04

  Interesting. Okay, so many years after.

• 32:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, this was.

• 32:31Speaker 04

  Like at least fifteen.

• 32:33Yasi Salek?

  Well, he was quite young in that, right? So I guess he would have been in his thirties at that point, probably. Um, I just thought of, it's just, just noted it.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  There is a lot of like, you don't, I don't know. I don't know if this is so evergreen. In my mind, I feel like there are peaks and valleys of this phenomena happening of young Hollywood and rock and roll and like actually like cool independent music having an overlap. Um, you definitely get that a lot in Dando's story.

• 33:04Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  Um, there are other moments in time where like those feel like those are separate cultural worlds and social worlds.

• 33:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 33:11Speaker 04

  But like, in this universe, young, crazy Hollywood is like the same social group as like young, crazy indie rock that's breaking through into the mainstream.

• 33:22Yasi Salek?

  I guess it's, it's, it seemed like it was like a personal choice though, right? Like, cause a lot of those bands did not participate in young Hollywood at all and would not hang out with Johnny Depp or go to the Viper Room. But then you have like Gibby Haynes.

• 33:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:39Yasi Salek?

  I just also, I'd just seen the Butthole Surfers documentary.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 33:43Yasi Salek?

  Famously of the Butthole Surfers. And there's a bunch, Johnny Depp is a talking head.

• 33:46Speaker 04

  Is Dando in the?

• 33:47Yasi Salek?

  Absolute jumpscare. Um.

• 33:49Speaker 04

  Documentary much?

• 33:49Yasi Salek?

  No, he's not at all.

• 33:51Speaker 04

  That's so sad, cause he's like, one of the main characters of this book.

• 33:55Yasi Salek?

  I know, I know. I know. You would have, you would have thought maybe, but no, I don't, they don't even barely, maybe they do mention him, but um, yeah, it was, it was just interesting to sort of think about that.

• 34:10Yasi Salek?

  And also thinking about Gibby Haynes and Evan Dando is like, sort of like.

• 34:17Yasi Salek?

  Two polarities. I don't know how to say it. I'm like, they all, there's a lot of like similar stuff going on, but there's something like more like deeply actually not of this world with Gibby Haynes where like, I don't think he cared at all that Johnny Depp was an actor. He might not even been aware that Johnny Depp was an actor. You know what I mean? He's like, this guy's fun. He plays guitar. Like, this is cool. He has drugs. You know, like, whereas like, I think Evan Dando's like, not a hundred percent like unaware

• 34:51Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 34:52Yasi Salek?

  of what's going on or of what, you know?

• 34:54Speaker 04

  There's a haze over his perception of things, but he definitely knows who is who in this world. And he's not clueless about like his place in it. Like, he's not a total art alien who just like landed.

• 35:07Yasi Salek?

  Right, exactly, exactly. Because there are also, he wouldn't really be in these scenarios, you know? But there is, I feel like there is a bit of like a tonal like.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, he's literally like.

• 35:22Yasi Salek?

  Like a human truck.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  Literally the human truck emoji, but like within crack.

• 35:25Yasi Salek?

  But I thought it was interesting, and it works actually a lot of the time where it's charming and you're like, yeah, totally. And then some of the time where I'm like, like, we, we text about this a little bit, and obviously this is a Courtney Love defending podcast. This is a pro Courtney Love arena.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's, there's tough sections of this book for a pro Courtney Love.

• 35:47Yasi Salek?

  Which, which is like. I'm not saying like perhaps what some of the things that were discussed were like not

• 35:58Yasi Salek?

  like that he didn't have points.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:01Yasi Salek?

  But I, I was, maybe you felt the same way. I was just a little off put by how they were discussed.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  That's how I feel. I feel like, um. We are no doubt talking about two absolutely wild human beings at like the height of their like both fame and powers and controversy and the whole world looking at them expecting something from them, obviously to much different degrees. But like, these kind of wild people put in a pressure cooker and we all know Courtney Love has so much insane lore and so much crazy shit happened, especially in the wake of Kurt's death. But I feel like the way that it was brought up in Evan's book, like, it was like he put a pause on all of his crazy antics and then he just talked about kind of how like off the handle Courtney was, where it's like,

• 36:52Speaker 04

  there's always with those, you know, wild dynamics people have together where there's like a co-conspirator element. And it's like, I felt like I didn't get any of that.

• 37:04Yasi Salek?

  Also, it's like, you've just, you've just spent like a hundred and fifty pages painting yourself as the world's most unreliable narrator. And now I'm supposed to believe every word that comes out of your mouth in this moral dilemma situation, which I thought was it. But again, of course, it's your book, like, this is not a criticism. I just, it was more just like.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  It sticks out.

• 37:25Yasi Salek?

  It just sticks out.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  Definitely sticks out.

• 37:26Yasi Salek?

  You know, because again, tonally, it doesn't really match the rest of the vibe towards like other people, particularly women, you know, like, I just thought it was really interesting. And also, there's just like a lot about Kurt Cobain, like.

• 37:41Speaker 04

  In a weird way.

• 37:42Yasi Salek?

  A bit of a weird way where I was like, oh, I didn't really, I didn't really know about that you were that into. But again, like, you know, Courtney is writing a book. I'm sure there's going to be all sorts of.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 37:52Yasi Salek?

  But I will say probably respectfully, the real estate that Evan Dando is going to take up in Courtney Love's book is going to be quite miniscule in comparison to the real estate that Courtney took up in this book. And that's because she's a bitch.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  True, true. Yeah, I think like you don't come away from that section.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  With questions of like, what's right, what's wrong, what's confirmed, what's unconfirmed? It's just like, you come away being like, I feel like there were 12 different stakeholders on this person's team who wanted this to come out a certain way.

• 38:25Yasi Salek?

  It's been written about a bunch, yeah. And the thing is like, and actually, again, Dan is very self-aware. And this, I mean, this is a ghostwritten book. Let's be, let's, you know, he said it from the beginning. So I'm not speaking to his personal character, per se, when I'm saying this. And he even said in the New York Times, but he said something to the effect of like, there's not enough bad shit in this book. Like, when you, when you, when someone writes a book, they're supposed to show all their bad sides. And I think he nailed it, where it's like, this, this is, there's, there's not a responsibility taken here, there is a finger pointing, you know? That in the end does make you look bad, but not in the way that you're supposed to like mea culpa and, and show, you know? And I thought that, there was, there's just like one line that I was like, this is actually

• 39:10Yasi Salek?

  irresponsible, where it was like, she, she quotes her as saying, Evan, we're rich, we can take hits out on people.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:16Yasi Salek?

  And I was like, in the wake of all of the like, you know, Courtney killed Kirk malarkey and like, to put that line in there is like so irresponsible.

• 39:27Speaker 04

  It's a choice.

• 39:28Yasi Salek?

  It's a choice. Um, but yes, again, we are a pro Courtney Love podcast here, so. And then like, it's just like, some of it didn't, it just, yeah, I don't want to like, go down the.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  And, you know, like, this is more on a rock bio criticism note, like, like, I feel like all of my criticisms of this particular section are about like, the book and not Evan or Courtney or who did what. It's like, we were talking about earlier, what makes a good rock bio? And it's like, you just got it, like, you've been doing it in every other page, like, the 90s were psychotic and messy for all of you, like, just lay it all on the table. Like, you were messy, she was messy, this was going on, and like, adding more of your mess to contextualize it, makes it all make more sense?

• 40:19Speaker 04

  In a way that like, it's not landing in here, in a way that leaves you feeling like, not sort of like, huh, that's a little.

• 40:25Yasi Salek?

  There was like one line where, which I was happy it was in there, where he was like, oh, she's like the smartest, funniest person I've ever talked to, which I was like, yeah, like, there needed to be a little more of that, because like, again, you chose. Time and time again to spend time with her. So it's like.

• 40:41Speaker 04

  Co-conspirator, you know?

• 40:44Yasi Salek?

  But obviously, I think he was like quite preoccupied with Kurt Cobain thinking that he had done some

• 40:49Speaker 04

  Something his wife.

• 40:50Yasi Salek?

  Cheating or whatever, yeah.

• 40:53Yasi Salek?

  And then there's the part where he has like the out of body spiritual experience with the

• 40:56Speaker 04

  At rehab, yeah.

• 40:57Yasi Salek?

  With the ghost of Kurt Cobain.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then he gets his sweaters and.

• 41:01Yasi Salek?

  That's a whole.

• 41:01Speaker 04

  It's a whole thing.

• 41:03Yasi Salek?

  It's a whole, it's a whole thing.

• 41:05Speaker 04

  It's a whole thing.

• 41:07Yasi Salek?

  I did really enjoy, I didn't write them all down, but there are just many

• 41:12Speaker 04

  The one-liners.

• 41:13Yasi Salek?

  pun-based drug things. Like my favorite being the Nissan Crack Finder.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  Absolutely my favorite too.

• 41:20Yasi Salek?

  Number one, I think. But there were like so many like that where like every time they came up and I was like, this is, this is, there was like another one where they like called the, the Crack House in New York. They called it like something base or something.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  Face camp.

• 41:35Yasi Salek?

  Base camp.

• 41:36Speaker 04

  And there are all these rats and he was like, the rats were different colors. And it's like, or were you on crack?

• 41:40Yasi Salek?

  But Base Camp is so good because like you're freebasing. It's like so, I was like, you guys are, you didn't lose your, you didn't lose your wit.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  I literally have a, I have a note in here somewhere that's just like best one-liner of the book. Oh, I love, you know, I loved the story where it's like,

• 41:56Speaker 04

  he's just like, this is before, okay, this is right before they add Mrs. Robinson to It's a Shame About Ray, which if people don't know or remember, they added that cover to the album after it was already released.

• 42:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it was covered for something else. A soundtrack?

• 42:12Speaker 04

  It was covered for an anniversary soundtrack of The Graduate.

• 42:15Yasi Salek?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 42:17Speaker 04

  But yeah, he's, oh yeah, he's like always getting in trouble with Springer, which makes sense.

• 42:22Yasi Salek?

  That, okay, so there's a couple of things that just like bolstered my own research because I just don't know if you remember.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:27Yasi Salek?

  That I got deeply obsessed with Evan Dando's YouTube page around this time. He had a YouTube page where he was like uploading videos and one was just that Springer was storing his personal belongings in Evan Dando's dryer. And it like the title of the YouTube video was like, Springer's stuff is in my dryer or something. And I like became so psychotic. Obsessed with this. I was like, why is spring a stuff in your dryer? Why is he living in your, this is when he was living on Martha's Vineyard. And so to have this backstory was really.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  It fills in a lot of blanks. Yeah. And it, it answers a lot of questions that may make you think like, is this like a drug induced conspiracy?

• 43:03Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 43:03Speaker 04

  And it's like, no, they were like basically besties. Um, I just really liked this story where he was at a motel in Cleveland and he heard Come As You Are playing next door. And then he just went over to be like, hey, what's up? And it was like two beautiful strippers with a silver 22 pistol and a lovable little dog called Miss Thing and a ton of cocaine. And they just partied. I thought that was like a very sincere and sweet way to party with two strippers and a ton of love.

• 43:30Yasi Salek?

  Sure. Yeah. A real, one of those tralala moments.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  Literally tralalod into the room with the two strippers.

• 43:37Yasi Salek?

  Until just like beautiful.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  I think there's like two different stories of Evan having threesomes and that was compelling.

• 43:45Yasi Salek?

  Jawline. Did so much work.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. Speaking of, there was a line where he was like, in the press, they just want to talk about my looks. And he was like, they said something about my jawline. What does my jawline have to do with it? And it's like, what does your jawline have to do with it?

• 44:01Yasi Salek?

  Doing so.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  What does oxygen have to do with air? It's the thing. It's the thing that makes the thing.

• 44:06Yasi Salek?

  Doing a lot of heavy lifting. It did a lot of heavy lifting. I mean, their songs were gorgeous.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:10Yasi Salek?

  But so were Buffalo Toms.

• 44:11Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:12Yasi Salek?

  You know?

• 44:13Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 44:13Yasi Salek?

  And I'm not saying anything about the jawline of Buffalo Tom members at all. I think they're totally handsome men, but like, we're dealing in a different world.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  Just like get a grip. Yeah.

• 44:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  Stop deflecting. Just own it.

• 44:25Yasi Salek?

  Well, I guess that, and again, this is I do think we learned a lot about this person and about the life, like, because I, you know, one thing that makes a great biography in general is like,

• 44:41Yasi Salek?

  Sort of like illuminating the hardship. Like, everyone has some central hardship or trauma, right?

• 44:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:50Yasi Salek?

  And.

• 44:52Speaker 04

  What is Evan's central?

• 44:53Yasi Salek?

  What is Evan Dando's central trauma?

• 44:55Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 44:55Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I think if.

• 44:58Yasi Salek?

  I think if I had to like guess, or maybe if you've asked him, or I'm not, I don't even know, but the, his parents divorce seemed to be the most like kind of centrally located one, which is not any, I'm not minimizing that because I do think that can absolutely be a central trauma. And we talked about many times on the grunge season, how like that created grunge music in many ways. Like the advent of divorce and single motherhood and stuff.

• 45:26Speaker 04

  Creating like that sort of angst.

• 45:28Yasi Salek?

  So that's not, but I guess I just want, would have liked more about it. Like to your point about the, like more, more like the inner world a little bit.

• 45:37Speaker 04

  The inner psyche. Yeah. I felt that way too. Like it is, again, like the whole looking at a text like this and then seeing sort of like the roadmap of how it was constructed because you were in the business of creating things like this.

• 45:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  Like, kind of led me to imagine the writer and Evan sitting down and like the writer really trying to figure out what that is for him. And maybe he, maybe Evan at this point of his self-awareness journey or his narrative journey.

• 46:06Yasi Salek?

  Interested in mining that at all.

• 46:07Speaker 04

  Because like honestly, some.

• 46:08Yasi Salek?

  Which is fair enough, you know?

• 46:09Speaker 04

  People just don't like that, you know, like.

• 46:11Yasi Salek?

  And you don't have to.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Life isn't.

• 46:13Yasi Salek?

  If I looked like that, I would never mine any of that.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  No need to mine.

• 46:15Yasi Salek?

  I would not know a therapist.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 46:19Yasi Salek?

  Absolutely not.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  But yeah, I also felt like I, I was trying to figure out what, yeah, like his core drive was. Whether or not that came from like trauma or anything. The one thing that I kind of thought about was. Like, I really hang my hat on the whole Australian connection.

• 46:38Yasi Salek?

  Just you're preoccupied. Your hat is off and hung.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  The hat's off and it's hung.

• 46:43Yasi Salek?

  In Brisbane.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:45Yasi Salek?

  I think they were in Melbourne.

• 46:45Speaker 04

  And Sydney as well.

• 46:46Yasi Salek?

  Sydney, yeah.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  But it's like, the whole Australian thing was like so impactful to him. Like, it really felt like that's where he felt at home or something.

• 46:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 04

  And he talked about, he talked about It's a Shame About Ray being...

• 47:05Yasi Salek?

  Well, that was a learning. I feel like we didn't actually...

• 47:06Speaker 04

  The Australia album.

• 47:08Yasi Salek?

  Well, also, the actual song, It's a Shame About Ray, we didn't, we actually, I think we had it as something else in our Lemonheads episode. But that he said it was actually a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald about a priest. That a priest was saying that about a student who get, getting kicked out of school, which then I was like, I'm sorry, is this considered news in Australia? What is the, what's going on in the news, the slow news week in Australia? Because we had it about something else, it was like a newscaster or something.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:37Yasi Salek?

  Saying, but anyway, I thought that was, but yes, it was, well, it's the Australian album because many of the songs are co-written by Tom Morgan of Smudge and/or Nick Dalton, I think. And then there's covers of Australia, but of course, it's the Australian album. Like, a lot of the creative input and like connection was taken from this time in Australia.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:56Yasi Salek?

  With these people.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:57Yasi Salek?

  Not just the time, not just the koalas and the kangaroos, but these literal, actual songwriters.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  Like his people.

• 48:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  And like I, one of my like follow-up questions for John was like, how did getting, I'm assuming these people got co-writing credits on this like bestselling album. It's like, how did that impact their life, if at all? And I also was just thinking like, he later in the book, he's talking about that record as like a record of this amazing time he had in Australia. Finding his stride creatively or whatever. But he also talks about like his increasing drug habit as a way to like capture, like cast these feelings in amber, you know?

• 48:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  And that felt a little uncovered to me, where like sometimes it's not just like this, you're trying to like numb the pain of this horrible thing that happened in the past, but more like you found something so special and you're trying to keep it going.

• 48:50Yasi Salek?

  Amplify it.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  Like, I thought that was, that felt like an underlying drive for a lot of his story. That was really kind of sad.

• 49:00Yasi Salek?

  The like not wanting to lose.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  That special.

• 49:03Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  Perfect moment where it's like you're just about to break.

• 49:07Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 49:08Speaker 04

  But you just found your creative people.

• 49:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  And in this magical land that's like very similar to where you're from, but different enough to be exotic. And like, it just felt like so much happened for him there. And he spent like the rest of his career trying to like chase that maybe.

• 49:24Yasi Salek?

  I wonder what happened if he had stayed there.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  I know. This is the fan fiction that someone else can write.

• 49:29Yasi Salek?

  That's somebody else. You know.

• 49:35Yasi Salek?

  I think like, again, I think this is a book is worth reading, particularly if you're a dandor or lemonhead's head. Lemonhead's head. Um, that's a.

• 49:44Speaker 04

  Lemonhead Alina.

• 49:45Yasi Salek?

  Roll off the tongue. But I hope they make, I kept thinking where I was like, oh, being explicit about. Like motivating factors, core traumas, like um, the engine of a person is quite difficult in text. Because it's, text has to be so straightforward. And I was like, I hope they make a documentary because if you make a movie, you can kind of hint at it or glance at it. Or just like. Show a VO moment over like a particularly like moving piece of.

• 50:22Speaker 04

  You can contextualize it more dynamically.

• 50:25Yasi Salek?

  And, and like give it that heft. So I was like, oh, I, I wouldn't, plus also so much of what he was talking about was so visual that I want to see all these people are so. I mean, Evan Dando's perfect jawline aside and perfect face aside, like so all these characters in the story are.

• 50:39Speaker 04

  Vivid.

• 50:40Yasi Salek?

  Interesting and vivid looking and like, also it's the nineties, so it's everything to people like us looks so cool and we want to see it. And I'm, I'm sure there's probably footage of a lot of this stuff or like when he talks about like the interview magazine cover, you want to see it, you know, like.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think like, you bring up a really good point where it's like you could have. Someone asking, here we go, producing for free. Um, so you could have someone like asking him a question about like, what do you think your core driving thing is? And he could just say like, I don't know. And it's the way that he's saying that based on the scene that came before and after that would give you so much. Feeling about what that could be. And this kind of reminds me about, we were texting about this a little bit. Um, and it's jumping ahead, but on his solo record, Baby on Board.

• 51:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, great album.

• 51:26Speaker 04

  Great album. It's full of, like, there's some good songs and then there are two great songs. Hard Drive and, um, All My Life. And those are Ben Lee songs.

• 51:37Yasi Salek?

  Friend of the pod, Ben Lee, yeah.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  Australian.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  And we were kind of texting about this, but like, this feels all related, where I was noticing Evan said in the book something like, uh, those were the two songs that Ben Lee wrote. I didn't write them, but he was a lot more self-aware and also more, had a more of an awareness about like who I was at that time than I was able to have at that moment. And it just made me really feel like Evan Dando, though he is like an amazing songwriter, like I really think he's a band guy. And I felt like having that like mirror of like Ben Lee writing a song for him that like, those songs feel like they are coming from Dando's inner voice.

• 52:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  And.

• 52:23Yasi Salek?

  In a way that most of the other music doesn't.

• 52:25Speaker 04

  That most of his music doesn't. Yeah.

• 52:34Yasi Salek?

  I think his gift is much more observational.

• 52:36Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:37Yasi Salek?

  In his songwriting, like, some of his best songs are quite, I don't want to say surface because that's not right, but like, they're observant of, of other people or seen, painting scenes or whatever. And he's so good at that. And there's emotion in that. But yeah, like, the inner world part almost has to be told by somebody else.

• 52:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:59Yasi Salek?

  You know, because that's not his style of songwriter, songwriting, or maybe of moving through the world.

• 53:05Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 53:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  Exactly. And it just made me be like, oh, maybe a lot of the things that he encountered in his life or what he was chasing was sort of like, he's someone that really is able to. Find himself in like a group, you know, and feel more himself maybe than when he's alone. But yeah, I just thought when he said that about just those two Ben Lee songs, I was like, damn. This, this feels like one of the most revealing parts about who he is as a person in the book to me.

• 53:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like almost like accidentally.

• 53:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. Just like a throwaway thing where I was like, interesting.

• 53:42Yasi Salek?

  I feel like I have his disapproving glance.

• 53:45Speaker 04

  Who? Oh.

• 53:46Yasi Salek?

  Gazing upon me.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  Sorry, I was about to do, see, I was about to fight someone for, I was like.

• 53:51Yasi Salek?

  Who would you think would be in the studio?

• 53:53Speaker 04

  Paddington.

• 53:53Yasi Salek?

  Oh, Paddington. No, Paddington is always supportive of everything I do or say. He's much like we're a Courtney Love apologist, showing Paddington as a Aussie apologist.

• 54:06Yasi Salek?

  This is the last quote I want to bring up from the book, because I thought, I did think this. Both like brought it back home for our takeaway, which I still think was pretty accurate with the no ambition, just vibes like. I think we've, uh, broken it down to finer points, but I still think it like kind of stands.

• 54:27Yasi Salek?

  He said, I've spent my whole life, this is near the end of the book, spent my whole life asking, why not? Why not turn the Lemonheads into a collective? Why not make a record with Gibby? Why not put out a record with nothing but cover songs? Why not do it again 10 years later? When you ask yourself why, it can shut you down real quick. It puts you in the fast lane, the second guessing yourself, because now you have to justify your decisions.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:49Yasi Salek?

  And I was like, that's kind of no ambition, just vibes.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  It's totally no ambition, just vibes. Why not? And I also, um, I was surprised it didn't come out more as a motif in this book. But I just flagged at the beginning, so I was like, this is so. It's, it's like cringe, but in a way where I'm like, okay, it's Evan, so it's charming. He was like, his like mantra as a child, um, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man.

• 55:15Yasi Salek?

  It did come up a couple of times.

• 55:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's kind of along the same line of thinking.

• 55:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Of just like, yeah, like mischief, mischief goblin with neutral intentions. They're like, he is, he's like causing craziness everywhere that he goes, but none of it is out of any like malice. It's just out of this like why notness.

• 55:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  That I think like the world in which he found himself, which was like the charmed rise of a successful indie rock band in the late eighties, which like there was a whole class of them, but that really only existed for like that many years.

• 55:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 04

  Um, just allowed him to be that type of person to the fullest.

• 56:05Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 56:06Speaker 04

  And like, who knows if someone could be dandoing out today.

• 56:09Yasi Salek?

  Right now, as we speak, I do think, I do think ultimately his whole thing about how his looks made it so the music wasn't taken seriously is like.

• 56:22Yasi Salek?

  I think it's a little off, but also I think like, again, the way like things ultimately work out the way they're meant to. It made it, his, his public persona being so vivid and so like sexiest people of the year magazine vibes and these covers and stuff created a career in which people cared about him and his music long past the expiration date of some of those other indie rock bands.

• 56:48Speaker 04

  For sure. Cause he became a nineties icon.

• 56:51Yasi Salek?

  He became an icon.

• 56:51Speaker 04

  Not just.

• 56:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  A rock guy.

• 56:54Yasi Salek?

  Was able to sort of, is able to like reincarnate so many times based on that.

• 57:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:00Yasi Salek?

  Case in point, this book, you know, so it's like.

• 57:04Yasi Salek?

  Thing I'm, one thing I'm never gonna do is fucking look a gift horse of attractiveness in the mouth. I would happily, God, give me Dua Lipa's face. Uh, you don't hear Dua Lipa being like, damn, I wish they would stop calling me hot, focus on the music.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  You don't hear somber.

• 57:22Yasi Salek?

  I don't need to hear somber ever again.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  I don't, I actually don't hear that frequency.

• 57:28Yasi Salek?

  Um, I kind of like the one song, if I'm being honest.

• 57:35Speaker 00

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• 58:00Speaker 01

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• 58:29Yasi Salek?

  Well, speaking of reincarnations, this part two of this is that we wanted to talk about the new Lemonheads album.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 58:38Yasi Salek?

  The first Lemonheads album since 2019, which that album was Varshaan's too, so it was covers. Also didn't realize Varshaan's one was produced by Gibby Haynes. Sorry to say that.

• 58:50Speaker 04

  You didn't say that.

• 58:50Yasi Salek?

  Not just produced, he also chose all the songs.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  Chose all the songs, yeah.

• 58:53Yasi Salek?

  That was very interesting.

• 58:54Speaker 04

  Gibby take the wheel.

• 58:56Yasi Salek?

  Gibby take the wheel, babe. But it is not Varshaan's too. And this is the full, like the first full album of original Lemonheads songs since 2006.

• 59:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:06Yasi Salek?

  It's been quite some time, nearly, nearly 20 years. It kind of didn't have to go so hard. It's pretty good.

• 59:12Speaker 04

  It's good.

• 59:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  It's good. There's some, speaking of little, silly little turns of phrase.

• 59:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 59:17Speaker 04

  Is it the first song? There's a lyric that's like Canary in a coma.

• 59:26Yasi Salek?

  Canary in a coma is so good. And that's the second song, Deep End. It's such a good song. Why is that song so fucking good? Co-written by Tom Morgan of Smudge.

• 59:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:35Yasi Salek?

  Smudge is such-

• 59:37Speaker 04

  It's a great band.

• 59:37Yasi Salek?

  Good band. Divin? Divin?

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Divin.

• 59:41Yasi Salek?

  Divin? It's a word we don't have here. I think it means sofa.

• 59:45Speaker 04

  Devon.

• 59:46Yasi Salek?

  Devon, or whatever. That song fucking goes, even though I can't pronounce the name of it.

• 59:50Speaker 04

  Smudge is great. Smudge is just like what you want.

• 59:52Yasi Salek?

  It's just what you want, babe.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  It's just what you want, from like 90s Australian indie rock, like a little jangle.

• 59:59Yasi Salek?

  Little jangle, little vibe, little motion. But anyways, yeah, I love Deep End. Juliana Hatfield does backing vocals on the song. Jay Mascis does the guitar solo. It's a real who's who cast of characters of the Boston illuminated indie rock scene. I think Deep End is a genuinely really good song. And I say that because as we've learned from countless bands playing episodes, it just don't be like that.

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Yasi Salek?

  It don't be like, we haven't put out an album in 20 years and this is our like 8th album, 30 years removed from our heyday, and it's gonna have really good songs on it. Sometimes.

• 1:00:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:41Yasi Salek?

  Not often.

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  Not often. Not often.

• 1:00:44Yasi Salek?

  Frequently. So I was really like, alright. I mean, again, it's not like, you know, it's not Radiohead.

• 1:00:51Speaker 04

  It's not a text to mine that like, you know, speaks to the midlife experience of this art. But like, in the pantheon of like Evan Dando just being Evan Dando, it feels very true to him in a way where I was like, just listening to it, I don't think anything like particularly jumped out at me as like, oh, this is inspiring the music critic in me to really wanna dig in. It just gave me this wash of feeling that I'm like glad Evan Dando's here is still dandoing out, you know?

• 1:01:19Yasi Salek?

  Doing what he was like meant to do.

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Yasi Salek?

  Just write catchy guitar-based music.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, and like, a lot of these songs, what I love about the Lemonheads is when they feel really casual. And that's what I love so much about It's a Shame About Ray.

• 1:01:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  And like, you just feel them tighten up a little bit the next couple albums, but like-

• 1:01:39Yasi Salek?

  I've been, Card Button Cloth is like really maligned and slept on. I think it's such a good album.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  But it like, it has a little bit of a different- It's like you're in a different room of the house or something, you know? It's like, I feel like it's a shame about Ray is like you're in the bedroom and the clothes are everywhere. And there's something like-

• 1:01:55Yasi Salek?

  You're in Australia.

• 1:01:56Speaker 04

  You're in Australia, vibing, just simply vibing.

• 1:01:59Yasi Salek?

  On the divan.

• 1:01:59Speaker 04

  On the divan. But something about that album that I also thought was really cool and endearing was, yeah, like the long list of collaborators and co-writers. And I think to my earlier point of Evan thriving, sort of like in the, the I-beams of people that really like see him as a musician he is, makes him sound more like himself. And yeah, it's cool, it's cool that a lot of people in his life really, I think, like, care for this person and like are supporting him as a musician as he continues.

• 1:02:35Yasi Salek?

  I think it makes it pretty clear that like, he's clearly like, you know, however you want to phrase this, and I don't know if the terminology is even like worth tossing out, but like a decent person, you know, ultimately. Like underneath all erratic behavior and mess and whatever, like the heart is good, you know? And then that makes people in your life that have been around forever like continue to show up for you because they believe in you.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Yasi Salek?

  I mean, John Strohm co-wrote one of my other favorites on here called "Together," and this is all I'm after. I love this song. I mean, the lyrics are so good on here. The strategy of time is that you can speed it up, you can slow it down.

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  It's good.

• 1:03:23Yasi Salek?

  It's really good. "In the Margin" is a banger. Really like that song. Co-written with another woman, Marciana Jones, who's married to the singer-songwriter Willie Mason. Adam Green is randomly on this album.

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35Yasi Salek?

  I thought that was interesting.

• 1:03:36Speaker 04

  That is interesting. I-

• 1:03:37Yasi Salek?

  Of Moldy Peaches.

• 1:03:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, of Moldy Peaches. I never would have connected them in my mind as kindred spirits, but then seeing those two names together, I'm like, yeah.

• 1:03:45Yasi Salek?

  Kind of makes sense. Yeah, yeah, totally. "Marauders," I really like too. It's like a rhythm like- I don't even know how to describe it. It's it's a very strange little, I wanna say seashanty, but that's not the right word. The lyrics near the end are like this. Turtle meat, chicken, corned beef, ham, duck, turtle meat, chicken, corned beef, ham, duck, and turtle meat, chicken, corned beef, ham, duck, and pigeon. Just kinda goes on like that for like a long time.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  Is that like Thanksgiving in Australia or something?

• 1:04:13Yasi Salek?

  Turducken? They have turtle meat for Thanksgiving. They only have Thanksgiving in Australia.

• 1:04:19Speaker 04

  They do in Canada.

• 1:04:20Yasi Salek?

  Well, you know.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  So it's like North America. Yeah, but like the next obvious thing would be.

• 1:04:25Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I see. You're just because of the queen. Cause of the monarchy.

• 1:04:30Speaker 04

  I'm just going culturally.

• 1:04:32Yasi Salek?

  You're just you're just going based on colonies.

• 1:04:35Speaker 04

  Australia also did genocide, so they, you know.

• 1:04:39Yasi Salek?

  I don't know that that what Thanksgiving's about.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  Originally.

• 1:04:42Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:04:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  Original story. Turtle meat for all.

• 1:04:47Yasi Salek?

  This this album, which again, I think is quite good, um, was produced by a guy named Apollo Nov, who I looked into, cause I was like, oh, I haven't really heard of this guy.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  Did they make this album in Brazil?

• 1:04:59Yasi Salek?

  They might have, because this guy's Brazilian and he

• 1:05:04Yasi Salek?

  most of his credits are on like Brazilian lounge music, but then in the New York Times, my father read, cause his wife, Evan Dando's wife, Antonia, is Brazilian and they live in Brazil now. Um, and her father is a musician, um, so she and her family connected Dando with Apollo Nov. And he said, you know, it's not a morose comeback album, because when people come off drugs normally, they'll put out a comeback album that's a bit wounded. Not as strong, not as energetic. And we made sure that it was bad to the bone. I love it. I love that.

• 1:05:37Speaker 04

  Imagining that in like a Brazilian Portuguese accent.

• 1:05:42Speaker 04

  On that, no, on that point, I think.

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  Evan Dando, his perspective on drugs and the role that they've played in his life is what I would call like drug neutrality. The way that people are like, talk about like sex positivity, sex negativity, like sex neutrality. Like, I think he, he has, I just sow you.

• 1:06:09Speaker 04

  Like, I think he really is just, it's neither here nor there, it's drugs about his habit.

• 1:06:15Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:06:16Speaker 04

  And I think like, a lot of this-

• 1:06:18Yasi Salek?

  There is something refreshing-

• 1:06:20Speaker 04

  There's something refreshing.

• 1:06:21Yasi Salek?

  About reading a book about drug abuse that isn't ultimately like moralistic.

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And it really is tales of what it's like to live with a habit this severe for so long.

• 1:06:35Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:06:35Speaker 04

  And there's a casualness to it that I don't think is in any way an endorsement, like-

• 1:06:41Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  It's definitely not drug positive.

• 1:06:43Yasi Salek?

  Would walk away from this and be like-

• 1:06:45Speaker 04

  Heroin sounds awesome. Yeah, definitely not.

• 1:06:47Yasi Salek?

  You had three purple Powerades and a cheeseburger a day when you had no teeth. And you lost your wallet and the guy at Rite Aid found it and then you played a little set-

• 1:06:55Speaker 04

  And you got arrested.

• 1:06:55Yasi Salek?

  And the Rite Aid, and they put it on the internet and you were like, oh, is that what I look like?

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:07:01Yasi Salek?

  Remember when that happened?

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  But, I do remember. That actually was kind of during the time of the episode that we did. But, um, you know, I think like, to the point of the album, like, it's not this like morose comeback, like, I've been saved vibe, like-

• 1:07:16Yasi Salek?

  That's not how he feels about it.

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  That's not how he feels. Like, I think there's also a refreshing candor to like, the banality of addiction too, in this memoir, that like, it would not make any sense if you suddenly had like an Evan Dando, I'm off drugs, like, come to Jesus album, you know? I think he just kind of came back to himself a little bit.

• 1:07:34Yasi Salek?

  Not paired with this, with this book.

• 1:07:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 1:07:37Yasi Salek?

  Part of which is like a full Groundhog's Day of like, various ways that you can fuck up-

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  Tedious.

• 1:07:43Yasi Salek?

  While doing drugs in like, insert city, insert crack den.

• 1:07:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, insert like-

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  Nineties celebrity or-

• 1:07:51Yasi Salek?

  Supermodel or whatever.

• 1:07:52Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 1:07:53Yasi Salek?

  Um, I mean, again, I do, like-

• 1:07:57Yasi Salek?

  And maybe this is like, I'm being optimistic. I, I have a sense that there's probably quite a well of self-awareness that's just like, like, much like Avondando had no interest in, he has no interest in going to AA, has no interest in writing personally revealing songs, probably has no interest in personally revealing that deep well of stuff either. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist, you know, like, like, I, I, I know, I feel like I'm being a detective, but like, you get a little glimpses of it in his lyrics. And like, in deep end, this is about, this is really about being an addict and not getting sober, but also not, you know, like, so you're showing all the symptoms,

• 1:08:39Yasi Salek?

  coughing up a ghost, going into treatment, better double down the dose. And there's one part where it's like, um, tell me, can you keep a secret while I keep your cigarettes? We can hold a meeting, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

• 1:08:58Yasi Salek?

  And it's like, oh, you're talking about AA meetings, you know, like, it's, it's just like, and like you said, canary in a coma, like, that is, it's a good turn of phrase.

• 1:09:07Speaker 04

  It's a very good turn of phrase. Yeah. I think like, he, the impression I get from his entire songwriting of, or whatever, and the book, that is also kind of refreshing, is I don't get this sense that he's under this like internal pressure to like narrativize his life. Does that make any sense?

• 1:09:30Yasi Salek?

  Like, like you always see on like X.com where people are like, oh, other people have an internal monologue? What's that like? And like, there's like some weird statistic that like 20% of people don't have an internal monologue? Tra la la.

• 1:09:42Speaker 04

  Tra la la, tra la la. Like right to the bookshelves, um, and like right to the studio.

• 1:09:47Yasi Salek?

  It's interesting that I, I'm feeling like such like a, a protectiveness or like a, like a not wanting to criticize this book where it's like, but like, you wrote a book about yourself. Like, that is an invitation to be perceived. It couldn't be more of an invitation to be perceived. So that kind of is part, like, I'm like, oh, I don't want to talk about him as a person. Like, that's literally what your book is about. It's not like I'm like, Conflating an author of fiction with their main character.

• 1:10:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course. Yeah. We're talking about the events of your life.

• 1:10:17Yasi Salek?

  But I can't help but be like, kind of like, oh, but Dando. That's just part of his charm. Like, he has a thing that makes you want to be like, oh, but not Dando, you know?

• 1:10:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:32Speaker 04

  I agree. I feel the same way.

• 1:10:34Yasi Salek?

  That interview didn't take till I have seven years off my life.

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know if I, that's on the top of my interview list, but I, the, the, usually the like, love of the person and the desire to speak to them is perfectly matched, but that one I let be off kilter for.

• 1:10:49Yasi Salek?

  Let it live where it, where it lives. Um, well, I guess, you know, I think we've pretty much covered it. Do you have any closing thoughts on? I, I guess I should mention, this is, nerds will care about this, I care about this.

• 1:11:07Yasi Salek?

  The Love Chan album was mixed by Bryce Goggan, who many people will know from, he did a lot of work with Pavement. He also produced Car Button Cloth and Baby I'm Bored. Also works a lot with Phish.

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  Oh, that will really excite a certain type of person.

• 1:11:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:24Speaker 04

  Couldn't be me.

• 1:11:24Yasi Salek?

  Could not be me. But I was like, hmm.

• 1:11:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. Drawn a bone. Or fish food or whatever.

• 1:11:32Yasi Salek?

  It's a good album. I say, I say, I say, take a listen.

• 1:11:34Speaker 04

  Car Button Cloth?

• 1:11:35Yasi Salek?

  No, Car Button Cloth is amazing. The outdoor type? No, it's a new album.

• 1:11:38Speaker 04

  Oh, the new album. Yeah, of course.

• 1:11:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Speaker 04

  What do, did you come away? Well, I feel like we both probably came away from this book with like, more questions than answers.

• 1:11:49Yasi Salek?

  I, I came away with being like, oh, what I, in my deep study of you and your music, gleaned is completely backed up by this book.

• 1:12:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Yasi Salek?

  Like, nothing was like,

• 1:12:06Yasi Salek?

  I, I wasn't like, wow.

• 1:12:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:08Yasi Salek?

  I was wrong about you here. Like, it, that, none of, no revelations for me personally.

• 1:12:15Speaker 04

  No revelations.

• 1:12:15Yasi Salek?

  Like,

• 1:12:16Speaker 04

  Just vibes.

• 1:12:17Yasi Salek?

  Just vibes. Just, just cool tidbits.

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Yasi Salek?

  Of, uh, gossipy information that I, again, people love that for rock.

• 1:12:29Yasi Salek?

  I did, I did love that.

• 1:12:33Yasi Salek?

  And he had this whole thing about like, he never wanted Kurt Cobain to think that he would have slept with Courtney or whatever, but then like, he dates Johnny Depp's ex-girlfriend. And it's like, I think he was kinda mad about it. And they're like, yeah, do you think so?

• 1:12:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Yasi Salek?

  I, I, I think, I hope he's happy in Brazil.

• 1:12:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Yasi Salek?

  I'm really grateful for the music.

• 1:12:56Speaker 04

  Evan Dando, stay in Brazil.

• 1:12:57Yasi Salek?

  Evan Dando, come to Brazil.

• 1:13:01Yasi Salek?

  Pick up the book, babe. Make, someone make a visual.

• 1:13:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:05Yasi Salek?

  Accompany me.

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  Do the doc, do the doc.

• 1:13:07Yasi Salek?

  I will not be throwing my hand up.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Yasi Salek?

  Per se.

• 1:13:11Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:13Yasi Salek?

  What's your, what are your top three Lemonhead songs?

• 1:13:16Speaker 04

  Oh, songs?

• 1:13:17Yasi Salek?

  Should we close it out?

• 1:13:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

• 1:13:19Yasi Salek?

  With a little, a little rankings?

• 1:13:21Speaker 04

  I think Rudderless is my favorite song. I think that's a perfect song.

• 1:13:25Yasi Salek?

  I think it's a perfect song as well.

• 1:13:26Speaker 04

  Sonically, like melodically, the buildup, the like, like lyrically, that is one of the most like encapsulating songs of the 90s to me, you know?

• 1:13:37Yasi Salek?

  Also, you know what? A really encapsulating, that is an oddly personal moment, to go back on what we said. Like, I do think it is a little more personally revealing than some of the other songs.

• 1:13:49Speaker 04

  Agree.

• 1:13:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:50Speaker 04

  Agree.

• 1:14:02Speaker 04

  And I love Malo Cup.

• 1:14:04Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 1:14:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's in my top, which is surprising.

• 1:14:06Yasi Salek?

  Interesting. Earlier.

• 1:14:08Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:09Yasi Salek?

  Earlier.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  He also said in this book, Lovey was his favorite album, which is interesting.

• 1:14:14Yasi Salek?

  Lovey's a good album.

• 1:14:15Speaker 04

  It's good. I was like, definitely not. I mean, it's a shame about Ray, I think is like, perfect.

• 1:14:20Yasi Salek?

  He might have some, he probably has some baggage around.

• 1:14:24Speaker 04

  The Atlantic, everything.

• 1:14:25Yasi Salek?

  Everything, whereas like, Lovey is like, the last time of golden teenage dreamhood of like, just playing shows with your friends in Boston or whatever, you know?

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  Um, what would my third be? I feel like I need to look at a list of their discography.

• 1:14:40Yasi Salek?

  Did you know there was a film called Rudderless from 2014 starring Billy Crudup?

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  No. Also, have you watched the, um, the movie he was in with Liv Tyler? Have you?

• 1:14:50Yasi Salek?

  Babe.

• 1:14:56Yasi Salek?

  Come on. Come on now.

• 1:14:58Speaker 04

  Okay. Period.

• 1:15:01Yasi Salek?

  If it, did an independent film come out in the, between the years nineteen ninety-two and nineteen ninety-eight starring Liv Tyler and the musician and I didn't see it? Couldn't be me, sis. Um, I think, I, this is like too hard of a question.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Yasi Salek?

  The top, Rudderless, I think also my favorite. I like come back to that so, so often. It's a darker song on that album, which is weird because it's a kind of a more of a light. A light feeling album. I love the outdoor type. I love If I Could Talk, I'd Tell You.

• 1:15:33Speaker 04

  I love If I Could Talk, I'd Tell You.

• 1:15:35Yasi Salek?

  Goes so fucking hard.

• 1:15:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. That song sounds cool. I really like the lightness of his vocal delivery and I also just love that line.

• 1:15:43Yasi Salek?

  The backstory because he spoke too much crack.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  Yes, and just said, if I could talk, I'd tell you. Like, I think that is so dando.

• 1:15:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Speaker 04

  That is dando. It, the book should have been called If I Could Talk, I'd Tell You.

• 1:15:59Yasi Salek?

  I know, it's good. You're so right.

• 1:16:08Yasi Salek?

  Just that honesty, just that directness, the guilelessness, I guess.

• 1:16:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a good word.

• 1:16:13Yasi Salek?

  Um, you don't see it much anymore.

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  Guilelessness, it, totally.

• 1:16:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:19Speaker 04

  Yes, I agree.

• 1:16:21Yasi Salek?

  Bring back guilelessness.

• 1:16:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, bring it back.

• 1:16:23Yasi Salek?

  I don't think you can. I think it's something like you're just afflicted with and you can't, uh, if you are, if you're aspiring to it, it is by definition guile. So, you just have to be born that way.

• 1:16:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, exile and guilelessville, guilelessness.

• 1:16:39Yasi Salek?

  I think you've been, I think you've been out of the game for too long.

• 1:16:42Speaker 04

  I can't do puns.

• 1:16:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, the, your pun game is, it's like a muscle. You must work it and you son crack finder. You gotta like meditate on such a thing. Um, well, producer Dylan, it was.

• 1:16:57Yasi Salek?

  It was a goddamn gorgeous, beautiful time to have you.

• 1:16:59Speaker 04

  Classic, classic.

• 1:17:00Yasi Salek?

  Had to bring it back.

• 1:17:01Speaker 04

  You had to bring it back.

• 1:17:03Yasi Salek?

  Check out Producer Lynn's gorgeous podcast, Music Person, available wherever.

• 1:17:08Speaker 04

  Literally wherever.

• 1:17:09Yasi Salek?

  Fine podcasts are available.

• 1:17:13Yasi Salek?

  Go on over to that Patreon, smash that pay her rent.

• 1:17:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, if you scroll to the end, you can see it.

• 1:17:18Yasi Salek?

  You can go ahead and pay the rent.

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  You can also pay me $5, but rent is kind of what I need. Actually, they're really good, and I just kind of did them like late at night, because I was like, why don't I have this up?

• 1:17:30Yasi Salek?

  Great Buffalo Tongue song.

• 1:17:32Speaker 04

  Haven't really like promoted it or anything, but I just have the $5 like, uh, help, you know, vibes. And then I have, I think like a $50 one, where I said I'd thank you in the credits. And then I have like a higher one, where I'm like, I will go to your Instagram and look for like, you could also borrow this one. Look for three to five nice things to say about you.

• 1:17:53Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you're selling compliments?

• 1:17:55Speaker 04

  I'm selling on-air compliments in the credits.

• 1:17:59Yasi Salek?

  So borderline OnlyFans that I respect it.

• 1:18:04Speaker 04

  I'm letting them expose themselves to me, not the other way around. And then the last one is pay my rent. Just you get nothing in return.

• 1:18:13Yasi Salek?

  She's so back.

• 1:18:15Speaker 04

  Just knowing that I get to sleep my head at night in my beautiful Los Angeles home.

• 1:18:19Yasi Salek?

  Your house is really beautiful. Well, I thought this was really great. I'm glad that we got to have a shared cultural experience once again.

• 1:18:26Speaker 04

  Once again. Thank you for thinking of me. I would honestly be so upset if you called anyone else, with maybe like two exceptions.

• 1:18:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I guess.

• 1:18:37Speaker 04

  You had called anyone else for this, I would have.

• 1:18:39Yasi Salek?

  You were top of the list.

• 1:18:40Speaker 04

  Blocked you, so thank you.

• 1:18:41Yasi Salek?

  Chris Black maybe. I'm trying to think of who else would have been good for it. Jon Strom, because he could have real-time fact-checked.

• 1:18:48Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 1:18:50Yasi Salek?

  Well, you guys, this was, this was fun.

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  This is beautiful.

• 1:18:54Yasi Salek?

  Come back next week for a new episode of Bandstand.

• 1:19:04Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandplain. Our guest today was Dylan Tupper-Rupert. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video animation and graphics are by John Richter and video production is by Kevin Poehler. Executive producers for Bandplain are Gina Delvack and me, Yasi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Clavon and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus and the guest of this podcast, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper-Rupert, and also Sean Fantasy, Michael Hardman, Casey Simonson, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDonough, Dana Myerson, Jessica Hopper, and my astrologer, Betty.

• 1:19:49Yasi Salek?

  Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple, like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive, or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting, and completely delicious. Simply, say yes to simple.

• 1:20:30Speaker 05

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means? It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello, broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt. It's dipping bread and soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we are so back. It's Panera season. Order now.