Evan Dando, singer, songwriter
The first time we toured Australia, I liked it so much that I asked my agent to get me back there as soon as possible. I returned to a solo tour, opening for Fugazi. It was a great time. During this trip, I met Tom Morgan, who was a singer in a band called Smudge. We went through all the music we liked, like Lou Reed and the Stooges. We just figured it out right away.
There was a whole culture there at the time of all those children who were on benefits and just taking drugs, writing and playing rock’n’roll. I fainted from envy, and the next time I was in Sydney, I reconnected with Tom. I hadn’t slept in 10 days, but I was young and well. That caught up with me later.
We came across a newspaper story about a child named Ray, who was constantly expelled from every school he went to. The article quoted a priest as saying “Shame on Ray,” which became the title of the first song we wrote together. I already had the progression of the chords and the rest happened quickly, as the best songs often do. We made the text in 20 or 30 minutes.
This was the era of Tom Fogan’s “Foo, We Have Another Ready.”
I was trying to create the music I loved to listen to – a little Byrds, a little psychedelic. Lyrically the song is very mysterious. This makes you guess, but for me, the line “his name is still engraved in the stone above the dust” suggests that Ray is dead. It’s a song that can mean a lot of things or nothing, but it was fun to sing.
When I returned to Los Angeles, I decided that I wanted to take care of things myself, so I fired my management. I wanted to take the band, train for an hour a day for a month and then make an album, exactly what we did. The song It’s a Shame About Ray was recorded very quickly, with Juliana Hatfield on bass and David Ryan playing drums. This was the era of, “Ugh, we have another one ready.”
Winona Ryder was a fan of Lemonheads and recorded our songs for Johnny Depp. He liked things and told us, “Come and live in my house.” We didn’t go to live right in his house, but we made the video there, with Johnny in it. This was our first song in the UK charts. I was under a lot of pressure to make hits then, but I still like the song. We’ve never beaten the drums together or worked on the arrangement, but sometimes the least thought out songs are the best.
Tom Morgan, songwriter
Smudge had just released our first single when we supported Evan at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney. I had met him briefly before on a Lemonheads tour, but then during his acoustic tour we both got up and performed a few of his songs with [subsequent Lemonheads bassist] Nick Dalton on drums. Evan stayed in Sydney for a while and we just started hanging out.
Being awake for 10 days sounds like something they do to torture someone. Evan may have been that long, but it was two days for me. We were at my friend Nicole’s house, hurrying, playing music, and walking. The Sunday papers had just come out, so they were in a package on the street corner: we grabbed one and put it back in the house. We laughed at the last line of the article: “It’s a shame for Ray.”
We returned to my sister’s house, really early in the morning. Evan wrote Rockin ‘Stroll and Confetti, and then we started writing together. The opening line comes from something I said earlier – “I’ve never been too good with names” – then when we got to the chorus, he said, “I know…” It’s a shame for Ray! “The line fit perfectly. After we finished Bit Part, he returned to the United States, and six months later, Nick and Evan played It’s a Shame About Ray on David Letterman’s show.
It’s weird to be proud of something you did 30 years ago with drugs, but I’m glad the song made things happen for Evan, and I’m glad I was able to help him with Bit Part and a bunch of other songs. I am very glad that in 30 years we are still great friends.
Add Comment