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Evan Dando rolls up a shirt cuff and indicates a line of small dents running down his arm, faint scars from years of opioid use. “It requires so long to get noticeable injection scars,” he says. “You inject for years and you believe: I'm not ready to quit. Maybe my complexion is particularly resilient, but you can barely see it now. What was the point, eh?” He grins and emits a raspy chuckle. “Just kidding!”

Dando, one-time alternative heartthrob and key figure of 90s alt-rock band his band, appears in decent shape for a person who has taken every drug going from the time of 14. The songwriter responsible for such exalted tracks as My Drug Buddy, he is also recognized as rock’s most notorious burn-out, a celebrity who seemingly achieved success and squandered it. He is friendly, charmingly eccentric and entirely candid. We meet at midday at a publishing company in Clerkenwell, where he wonders if it's better to relocate the conversation to a bar. In the end, he sends out for two glasses of apple drink, which he then forgets to consume. Frequently losing his train of thought, he is likely to veer into wild tangents. No wonder he has stopped using a smartphone: “I can’t deal with the internet, man. My thoughts is too all over the place. I desire to read everything at the same time.”

He and his wife his partner, whom he wed recently, have flown in from their home in South America, where they live and where Dando now has a grown-up blended family. “I’m trying to be the foundation of this new family. I avoided family often in my life, but I'm prepared to try. I’m doing quite well up to now.” Now 58, he says he has quit hard drugs, though this turns out to be a flexible definition: “I occasionally use LSD occasionally, maybe mushrooms and I’ll smoke pot.”

Sober to him means not doing opiates, which he has abstained from in almost a few years. He decided it was the moment to quit after a disastrous gig at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2021 where he could scarcely play a note. “I thought: ‘This is unacceptable. The legacy will not tolerate this type of conduct.’” He credits his wife for assisting him to cease, though he has no regrets about using. “I believe some people were meant to take drugs and one of them was me.”

One advantage of his relative clean living is that it has rendered him creative. “When you’re on smack, you’re like: ‘Forget about that, and this, and the other,’” he explains. But now he is about to launch his new album, his debut record of new band material in nearly two decades, which contains flashes of the songwriting and catchy tunes that elevated them to the mainstream success. “I’ve never really heard of this kind of dormancy period in a career,” he comments. “It's some Rip Van Winkle situation. I do have integrity about my releases. I didn't feel prepared to create fresh work until I was ready, and at present I am.”

Dando is also publishing his first memoir, titled stories about his death; the title is a nod to the rumors that intermittently spread in the 90s about his early passing. It is a wry, intense, occasionally eye-watering account of his adventures as a performer and user. “I authored the first four chapters. That’s me,” he declares. For the rest, he worked with ghostwriter Jim Ruland, whom one can assume had his work cut out given his disorganized way of speaking. The composition, he says, was “challenging, but I felt excited to get a good company. And it positions me out there as a person who has written a book, and that is all I wanted to do since I was a kid. At school I admired Dylan Thomas and literary giants.”

He – the last-born of an attorney and a ex- model – talks fondly about school, perhaps because it symbolizes a time prior to existence got difficult by substances and celebrity. He attended the city's elite private academy, a progressive institution that, he says now, “stood out. It had no rules except no rollerskating in the corridors. Essentially, avoid being an jerk.” At that place, in bible class, that he met Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz and started a group in 1986. The Lemonheads started out as a punk outfit, in thrall to Dead Kennedys and punk icons; they signed to the local record company their first contract, with whom they released three albums. Once Deily and Peretz left, the group effectively turned into a solo project, he recruiting and dismissing bandmates at his discretion.

During the 90s, the group contracted to a major label, a prominent firm, and dialled down the noise in favour of a more languid and mainstream folk-inspired sound. This was “because Nirvana’s Nevermind was released in ’91 and they perfected the sound”, Dando says. “If you listen to our initial albums – a song like an early composition, which was recorded the day after we graduated high school – you can hear we were attempting to do their approach but my vocal wasn't suitable. But I realized my singing could stand out in quieter music.” The shift, waggishly labeled by critics as “a hybrid genre”, would propel the band into the popularity. In 1992 they issued the LP It’s a Shame About Ray, an impeccable showcase for Dando’s writing and his somber croon. The title was taken from a news story in which a clergyman lamented a young man named Ray who had strayed from the path.

The subject wasn’t the sole case. By this point, the singer was using hard drugs and had developed a penchant for crack, as well. Financially secure, he eagerly threw himself into the rock star life, associating with Johnny Depp, filming a video with Angelina Jolie and dating supermodels and Milla Jovovich. A publication anointed him among the 50 sexiest individuals alive. He good-naturedly rebuffs the notion that My Drug Buddy, in which he voiced “I'm overly self-involved, I desire to become someone else”, was a cry for assistance. He was enjoying a great deal of fun.

However, the drug use got out of control. His memoir, he provides a blow-by-blow description of the fateful festival no-show in 1995 when he did not manage to turn up for the Lemonheads’ scheduled performance after acquaintances suggested he come back to their hotel. Upon eventually did appear, he performed an impromptu live performance to a hostile crowd who jeered and hurled objects. But this was small beer next to what happened in the country shortly afterwards. The visit was meant as a respite from {drugs|substances