Evan Dando and the Axis of Weirdness

“Hey, it’s the band. How you doing, guys? Where you guys at?”

Evan Dando walks around his house, practically unable to stand still, wearing a black Jerry’s Kids T-shirt. Though his dirty blonde hair is still straight and long, his goatee has hints of salt and pepper. 

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“The band” is the indie duo Taxidermists—Salvadore McNamara and Cooper B. Handy.

The Taxidermists formed when McNamara and Handy met on Myspace as pre-teens in 2007,  and they’ve been making music ever since. The group has released seven albums, including their latest, 20247, and has ingrained itself in the New England DIY touring circuit. 

In January 2012, McNamara spent two months touring with the Lemonheads as part of Meredith Sheldon’s opening act. McNamara brought along some songs from Handy’s LUCY solo music project that he and the Lemonheads frontman bonded over. Through their love of Handy’s music, McNamara and Dando discovered they both had family connections in Martha’s Vineyard and even had a few mutual friends, igniting an ongoing friendship.

A mutual admiration formed between Dando, McNamara, and Handy, with Dando’s appreciation of Taxidermists’ off-the-cuff analog musical output and vintage DIY ethos and the duo’s respect of Dando’s place in the ‘90s alternative rock scene. 

The Lemonheads frontman is in São Paulo, Brazil, where he moved in 2023 with his then-girlfriend-now-wife, the Brazilian videomaker Antonia Teixeira. 

It’s hard to make out what’s behind Dando as he holds his phone close to his face, sauntering around his spacious abode. But it’s evident the house is still a work in progress—some rooms seem finished, with office furniture and bookshelves neatly adorned with books and knick-knacks. Others are cluttered with a mishmash of stuff: random artwork, flags, posters, and Lemonheads paraphernalia. Occasionally, he’ll walk through a room painted a different color, like bright red or aquamarine, setting them apart from the mostly white interior accented by expresso-colored trim. 

The Taxidermists are currently on tour. McNamara tells Dando they’re currently in Austin for SXSW, and Dando asks if that’s where McNamara and Handy’s earlier band, the Snakepit is from.

“That was in Tuscon,” McNamara says

“Arizona…yeah,” Dando replies. “So you guys are on tour? You’re in Dallas? Where are you?”

McNamara reminds him they are in Austin.

“Right on, Austin. Keep Austin weird. Whatever. Portland and Austin, right?” Dando says. “Like, the axis of weirdness. But we’re here to talk about world events or talk about specific things? What are we supposed to do? Free-form, isn’t it? It’s free-form. Yeah, free form. Yeah…a little bit of jazz. We can do some snapping. We can jam. But anyway, is it early there?” 

There was no specific discussion about a “free-form” interview, but we’re all excited to see where this goes. 

Dando pauses to look at a few photos that appear to be taped to the wall in his house. “There’s these great old pictures of the Lemonheads’ first gig in London,” he says, pointing to the image. “And then those ones we’re opening for the Ramones.” 

Co-founded by Dando—the sole remaining original member—the Lemonheads formed as teenagers in Boston in 1986. Originally naming themselves the Whelps, the band changed its name, inspired by the popular sweet and sour candy, playing shows around the area, including opening for the Ramones the same year. They rose to fame in 1992 with their fifth album, It’s a Shame About Ray, and a uniquely power-pop cover single of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.” The Lemonheads disbanded in 1997 but reformed with a new lineup in 2005. 

in 28 years Dando has released two albums—2006’s Lemonheads and a solo record, Baby I’m Bored.

Dando shifts his focus to a large bay window overlooking his scenic backyard, mountains in the distance, the Brazilian sun shining in a cloudless blue sky over lush, green grass. There’s a hard-to-see bird statue in the distance. “We have everything here,” he says. “We have a pool and shit. We have….the gas station gave us that birdie, the big birdie down there with the sneakers…yellow.”

He refers to his studio downstairs where he’s “started making payments.” Dando is preparing to tour Australia and New Zealand in May with the Lemonheads, and for the first time in 19 years, the alt-rock icons will be releasing a new album, Love Chant, in October. 

The Lemonheads were a pillar of Gen X culture, and through the years have endured into legacy and legend. 

They talk about music influences. “Were you kind of pissed you missed it?” Dando asks of the ‘60s, specifically the Byrds. “Would you guys say you’re Generation Z?”

McNamara denies they’re Gen Z.

“I feel like there are some good bands,” Handy adds. “But I feel like a lot of the music we were growing up around, we got to a lot more later.”

“Oh yeah, right. That’s interesting. I do that, too,” says Dando. “We don’t postpone joy at the same time. What is it? Instant gratification takes too long…somewhere in the middle? I like arbitrarily deciding things and then just going with it. That’s what I do. Because it is fun. Sometimes it really works. If you believe in stuff, it’s like you can make it come true. It seems like for me, I’ve just been lucky or some shit because look where I am now. I thought I was gonna be in that trailer until I died, which was gonna be really soon. But I made it. I made it here. I knew I was gonna make it, too. And now I’m buying this house.”

To this, Handy responds: “Awesome.”

“Yeah, there’s a guest house up there,” Dando says. “You can’t tell but this is my fucked up area right here, which is nice to have. What else?” 

They talk about music, musicians. Bands with names like the Warthogs and the Goofballs. Also, Owen Manure.

“I got a tape of them, too…somewhere. Yeah, the Goofballs are a little weird, right?” Dando asks.

Since the start of the conversation, Dando has been looking down so that all we see is the profile of his head, then a close-up of his ear. He’s transfixed on something, yet we don’t know what.

“Do you go in the pool every day?” McNamara asks. 

Dando says he does.

“Nice. Do you do laps? Or do you kind of horse around?” McNamara asks. 

“I laugh and splash around,” Dando says. “No, mainly, I mean…I can do it right now. I wonder. No, probably the signal’s not a smart thing to test…”

“I just needed to know because a man with a pool…” McNamara starts. 

“It’s really shallow,” Dando continues. “But yeah, it’s just like a nice pool to dunk in. You gotta go four hours to the really good beach, but it’s an hour or so to the beach from here.” 

As he’s talking, Dando isn’t just wandering around, he seems to have a destination in mind. Where he’s going, we don’t know. We lose him mid-conversation as he starts walking outside, his face frozen on screen.

“Can you hear us?” Handy asks. 

“I distracted you with the pool. I’m sorry.” McNamara says.

Dando’s frozen image suddenly disappears as he loses his signal. We assume he lost his signal, he might have hung up on us. We don’t know. McNamara and Handy are confident he will return. 

And then he does with a nonchalant: “I’m back.”

Dando, who was gone for a full minute, appears onscreen again, but his hair is wet and he’s wearing a different T-shirt…a white Lemonheads shirt. 

“I went in,” Dando says.

“You went in?” McNamara asks, then excitedly. “Yes, king! Yeah, that’s awesome!” And then, to Handy. “Should we show him our little pool area here?”

McNamara and Handy take their laptop and show Dando the pool they have at their Airbnb, which is small and sad and behind a black, wrought-iron gate.

After some further issues with his cell signal, Dando talks about his new record. “I can’t believe how good it is coming out. I just can’t believe it. It’s just crazy because the times I feel most spiritual, if you must know, is when you meet people. It’s like, you can almost believe in higher powers…because I met this guy, Apollo Nove, at a premiere. My wife’s uncle, it was Ton Jobim and Ton Jobim’s manager, and also the girl Elis Regina. And he brought them to L.A. And so he filmed all this stuff and we went to the premiere.” 

Dando recalls one particular, drug-infused moment during one of his many visits to SXSW. “I remember I got a bunch of drugs and I had to sign like 5,000 copies of It’s a Shame About Ray. And it was awful. And so that’s really fiddly, you know, and I just like, I did it all. It was horrible. And then I just got okay in time for our show and it was cool. We played outside at Emo’s.”

“Was that when the record came out or something?” McNamara asks.

No, no, it was the first reissue on Rhino,” Dando says.

“Oh, cool, cool,” says McNamara.

“Yeah, Rhino’s cool,” Dando says.

Now seated, Dando is rolling what appears to be a joint, hovering over the corner of a brown table, giggling and joking with Handy and McNamara, sometimes distracted by something beyond the view of his cellphone camera.

For the past few years, news about a memoir Dando had been working on has been making the rounds online; his attempt to set the record straight about his life and career. Now, it seems, the long-delayed project, Rumours of My Demise, will be coming out in November of this year.

Since Dando moved to Brazil, the only time he’s been back to the U.S. was during his solo tour last year. 

“Are you coming back to the U.S. anytime soon?” Handy asks.

“I don’t want to go to the States right now,” Dando says, explaining that he’s “watching too much TV” and is feeling scared. “It seems hairy to me,” he says. “I love to tour there and stuff. And we’ll be touring there in November.”

“You’ve done your time here, you know,” Handy says. 

“I sure have. And I loved every minute of it,” Dando says. 

Dando turns his attention back to the Taxidermists and their music. “I find that you guys are really into what you’re doing,” Dando says. “You’re proud of being a musician. You’re not afraid. I like that about you guys. Like Cooper, in some of your songs, you’re very positive about the whole thing. You’re like, Well, just deal with it. You know? I like your attitude. And you take it seriously in the right way, I think.”

“There’s a lot of popular moping and I don’t wanna be part of that,” Handy says.

Dando agrees. “I mean, you can go either way you want to. But I can just see you like what you’re doing and that it’s good. Why bother if you don’t like it, man?”

“Yeah, then it’s like, do something else. Do something you like,” says Handy.

“I love it. It makes all the difference for me to get to express myself,” Dando says.

“Totally,” says Handy.

“I missed the free-form part. What did you just…?” Dando seems confused.

McNamara and Handy look at each other.

And then Dando says: “Totally, totally, totally. That’s so profound. Dude, you totally took the words out of my mouth.”

They all laugh.

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