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The Lemonheads
 Reclaiming your past can be an interesting exercise for creative types. What may feel like an inherently natural thing to do - reform a band, or play songs from a previous era - can sometimes be regarded in lesser terms by the outside world.
Not so, it seems for Evan Dando, who last year gave rebirth to The Lemonheads, almost a decade after he laid them to rest. In that time he toured on his lonesome and released an excellent solo LP, 'Baby, I'm Bored' but realising that for all intents and purposes, he is The Lemonheads, Dando set about putting the entity back together.
"A good reason to get the band back together again was because there was no reason not to," a chipper Dando says down the line from his Manhattan home.
"I am the band - me and whoever is keen to hang out at the time. I didn't feel any kind of guilt about getting the band back together. It's my band."
With that said Dando recruited Descendents rhythm section Bill Stevenson and Karl Alvarez as The Lemonheads and recorded a self-titled album, which subsequently met with good words across the board. BBC reporter Marc West seemed to sum up the feeling when he stated, 'It's not often an artist who's provided a soundtrack to so many pasts can come back sounding like they might be capable of doing the same in the future'.
"That's pretty nice," Dando says, upon learning of the comment. "Even though it looked like it was an overnight thing for me it was actually gradual. I've been plugging at it since '86. I was glad that it was slow.
"It'd be interesting to sell ten million records and see what happens but I'm not hell-bent on that. But I do want to do better and better music. That's basically my thing. I think that 'Baby I'm Bored' is really close to a pretty perfect record and I like this one a lot too."
The Lemonheads have toured through Europe and the US since the release of the self-titled album last October. A new live line-up of the band has evolved, featuring bassist Vess Ruhtenberg (Zero Boys) and drummer Devon Ahsley (ex-The Pieces).
"The whole plan was to make a record and go on tour with Bill and Karl," Dando says.
"Bill didn't think it would get finished as quick as it did, because it was lagging but all of a sudden I got my shit together and finished everything. Then, sure enough he had to do some record for Puddle Of Mudd or some weird band like that, so he was out. Karl had joined this band called Gogol Bordello, so I was like 'fuck!'.
"I wasn't going to tour this record unless Vess and Devon could do it, 'cause they were the only people I wanted. And they could do it."
Dando is also quick to assure me that there is one song you definitely won't be hearing during the band's visit down under.
"We never play Mrs Robinson live," he say of the band's 1992 cover of the Simon And Garfunkel hit, which featured on the soundtrack of the 1967 film 'The Graduate'.
"We maybe did it ten times with a gun to our head from the label. We dropped it right away. It was a big serendipitous, strange occurrence. I'm not a fan, but I love that movie.
"These people acquired the rights to the 25th anniversary video release and they wanted to include some young band doing it to get the kids into the movie. So we did it and then the label said 'it's the next single'.
"We were like, 'oh fuck'. We couldn't deny that it sounded commercial and it might open some doors, so we recorded and mixed the song in two and a half hours. It had a freshness to it that people liked, we sort of trashed the song. At least we achieved one thing - we got Paul Simon angry."
Having done plenty of solo touring in recent years, Dando's happy to be back on the road in a band sense. Even so, he'll play to his various strengths.
"It's fun 'cause I can do both and it's more powerful," he says. "I can play 17 songs with the band and do five to twelve by myself. So I'll come back and do four and it's a good night."
The Lemonheads play at the Governor Hindmarsh on Wed 4 April
'The Lemonheads' is out now through Warner
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