Books of the Year 2025: #4

From the clubs, the drugs, and the ringing ears, to the fun, the fame, and the fall, Rumours of My Demise is a heady, candid trip into the grunge-filled 90s from the Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando.

“Did you hear Evan Dando died last night?”

After Kurt Cobain’s passing in 1994, everyone expected Evan Dando to be next. Rising to fame in the 90s as frontman of the Lemonheads, he was infamous for his decadent lifestyle, from his extensive drug-taking and partying with Keith Richards and Kate Moss to sleeping on floors in his punk days. But despite the rumours that are constantly circulating about him, he has lived to tell the tales.

Following decades of the press wanting to label him and fit him in a box, Rumours of My Demise sees Dando tell his own story. Reclaiming the innocence and exuberance of his early days and encapsulating the spirit of the era, this candid autobiography presents a portrait of an artist who lives wholly for his music, and one that makes no apologies for doing so.