Former media darling
taking music seriously
Evan Dando didn't care much for media scrutiny back in 1993. Ah, those were the days. He was voted People's Sexiest Man Alive; made the cover of Interview magazine and held the title of "indie alterna-hunk" after his group, the Lemonheads, hit the alternative rock scene; and he was able to indulge himself to the point of riding the drug addiction wagon.
Now, after a seven-year hiatus -- during which he cleaned up and got married -- the 30-ish Dando is ready to commit to music, older and, hopefully, wiser, but with the same low-key rock melodies that won him adulation in the past.
Evan Dando
With local opening bands The Crud and middletonWhere: Tabu Nightclub, 478 Ena Road
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Tickets: $8 advance (available online at www.808shows.com), $10 at the door
Contact: hwnexp@aol.com
Dando has been touring mostly as a solo act, but put together a band before his well-received solo debut, "Baby I'm Bored," was released last year. Now on tour in Australia, he aims to reassemble a band once he gets back to Los Angeles, but before that, he'll be making a one-night stand at Waikiki's Tabu nightclub Monday.
But he hasn't forgotten the past. During a brief phone call from his Perth hotel room, he said media distraction "led me to try to sabotage my image. I did it consciously because I didn't feel comfortable. Then I turned to drugs and went through a couple of rough years."
Like many others, the events of 9/11 put him on the straight-and-narrow. He was on the roof of his building that morning in 2001 as the second jet hit the World Trade Center tower.
"I lived two blocks south from the World Trade Center, and watching it all happen was so surreal -- in fact, when I saw it again on TV, it looked more 'real' than when I saw it in person. But because of 9/11, I stopped drinking -- it was the last thing I was kind of hanging on to, but it was still f---ing me up."
DANDO WANTS to return to the recording studio by September for a follow up to "Baby I'm Bored." His singing and songwriting ability is especially evident in the album's second half, with such noteworthy tunes as "It Looks Like You," "The Same Thing You Thought Hard About Is the Same Part I Can Live Without," the Ben Lee-written "All My Life" and "Stop My Head."
Dando has proven to be a generous solo performer, playing not only his more recent material, but old Lemonheads favorites including the band's covers of Suzanne Vega's "Luka" and Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," plus "Into Your Arms," "It's a Shame About Ray," "My Drug Buddy," "Big Gay Heart," "Great Big No" and "The Outdoor Type."
"I'll play what people want to hear," Dando said.
This will make up for lost time. He and the Lemonheads were to share the bill with Blind Melon at 1992's Big Mele music festival at Kualoa Ranch. The Lemonheads bowed out at the last minute because he didn't want to open for what he considered a weak band.
Surrounded by friends and colleagues with equal indie cred (including Lee, producer-cowriter Jon Brion, guys from Calexico and Giant Sand, and Royston Langdon formerly of Spacehog), the recordings chosen for the album are just a few of several versions that also appear on import CD singles. One of those CD singles, features "Stop My Head" and "Shots I Fired," with the latter featuring Liv Tyler, who is married to Langdon.
"Liv and I are good friends," Dando said. "We first met when she was 16 back in 1994, and we both did this independent movie called 'Heavy.' She has this menacing, but still sultry, singing voice, and she sings on the chorus."
Dando also sings another Ben Lee ditty, "Hard Drive," on the new album. He's returning the favor for Lee, who, as a 14-year-old member of the Australian band Noise Addict, wrote and sung a song about Dando called "I Wish I Was Him." It's something Dando sings in performance himself, jokingly calling it "an ironic elegy, a pisstake eulogy."
"I just recorded a vocal for his album 'Mixtape,' which features different singers like myself, Neil Finn, Kylie Minogue and E from the Eels, doing his songs. I did a song called 'Breathe Her In.' The album should be out in about five months."
The Honolulu audience Monday should be pleasantly surprised to hear how strong Dando is on stage.
"Except for a dodgy sausage roll I had yesterday," he said, "I'm in good health now. I feel hardy and, since I don't subject myself to hard drugs, I feel 10 years younger."
Click for online
calendars and events.
