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The musician pushes back a sleeve and points to a line of small dents along his forearm, subtle traces from decades of opioid use. “It takes so long to develop decent track marks,” he says. “You inject for a long time and you believe: I can’t stop yet. Perhaps my complexion is particularly tough, but you can hardly see it now. What was it all for, eh?” He grins and emits a hoarse chuckle. “Just kidding!”

Dando, former indie pin-up and leading light of 90s alt-rock band the Lemonheads, appears in reasonable nick for a man who has used numerous substances going from the age of 14. The musician behind such exalted tracks as It’s a Shame About Ray, Dando is also known as the music industry's famous casualty, a celebrity who apparently achieved success and squandered it. He is warm, goofily charismatic and entirely unfiltered. Our interview takes place at lunchtime at a publishing company in central London, where he questions if we should move the conversation to a bar. In the end, he orders for two pints of apple drink, which he then forgets to consume. Often losing his train of thought, he is apt to veer into wild tangents. No wonder he has stopped owning a mobile device: “I can’t deal with the internet, man. My mind is extremely all over the place. I just want to absorb everything at once.”

Together with his spouse Antonia Teixeira, whom he wed recently, have flown in from their home in South America, where they reside and where he now has a grown-up blended family. “I’m trying to be the backbone of this new family. I avoided domestic life often in my existence, but I’m ready to try. I’m doing pretty good so far.” Now 58, he says he has quit hard drugs, though this turns out to be a flexible definition: “I’ll take LSD occasionally, maybe mushrooms and I consume pot.”

Sober to him means avoiding opiates, which he has abstained from in nearly a few years. He concluded it was the moment to give up after a catastrophic gig at a Los Angeles venue in recent years where he could barely play a note. “I thought: ‘This is unacceptable. My reputation will not bear this type of behaviour.’” He credits Teixeira for helping him to cease, though he has no regrets about using. “I think certain individuals were meant to take drugs and one of them was me.”

One advantage of his comparative sobriety is that it has rendered him productive. “During addiction to heroin, you’re all: ‘Oh fuck that, and this, and the other,’” he explains. But now he is about to release Love Chant, his first album of new band material in nearly 20 years, which contains flashes of the songwriting and catchy tunes that elevated them to the mainstream success. “I’ve never truly heard of this sort of hiatus between albums,” he says. “It's a lengthy sleep situation. I maintain integrity about my releases. I didn't feel prepared to do anything new before the time was right, and now I am.”

The artist is also publishing his initial autobiography, titled stories about his death; the title is a nod to the rumors that fitfully circulated in the 90s about his early passing. It’s a ironic, heady, occasionally eye-watering account of his adventures as a musician and user. “I wrote the first four chapters. It's my story,” he declares. For the remaining part, he collaborated with ghostwriter Jim Ruland, whom one can assume had his work cut out considering Dando’s haphazard conversational style. The composition, he says, was “difficult, but I was psyched to get a good company. And it positions me out there as someone who has written a book, and that is all I wanted to do from childhood. In education I was obsessed with Dylan Thomas and Flaubert.”

Dando – the last-born of an lawyer and a ex- fashion model – speaks warmly about his education, perhaps because it symbolizes a period prior to life got difficult by substances and celebrity. He attended the city's prestigious private academy, a liberal establishment that, he says now, “stood out. There were few restrictions aside from no rollerskating in the hallways. Essentially, don’t be an asshole.” At that place, in bible class, that he met Jesse Peretz and Jesse Peretz and started a group in the mid-80s. The Lemonheads began life as a punk outfit, in awe to Dead Kennedys and Ramones; they signed to the Boston label their first contract, with whom they released three albums. After Deily and Peretz left, the group effectively became a solo project, he recruiting and dismissing bandmates at his whim.

During the 90s, the band signed to a major label, a prominent firm, and dialled down the noise in favour of a increasingly languid and accessible country-rock style. This change occurred “since the band's Nevermind came out in ’91 and they perfected the sound”, he says. “Upon hearing to our initial albums – a track like Mad, which was laid down the day after we finished school – you can detect we were attempting to do their approach but my voice wasn't suitable. But I realized my singing could cut through softer arrangements.” The shift, waggishly described by reviewers as “a hybrid genre”, would propel the band into the popularity. In 1992 they released the album their breakthrough record, an flawless demonstration for Dando’s writing and his melancholic croon. The name was taken from a news story in which a priest lamented a young man named the subject who had strayed from the path.

The subject was not the only one. By this point, Dando was using heroin and had developed a liking for crack, as well. Financially secure, he eagerly threw himself into the celebrity lifestyle, becoming friends with Johnny Depp, filming a music clip with Angelina Jolie and dating supermodels and film personalities. People magazine declared him among the 50 most attractive individuals alive. Dando good-naturedly dismisses the idea that My Drug Buddy, in which he voiced “I'm overly self-involved, I desire to become someone else”, was a plea for help. He was enjoying a great deal of enjoyment.

Nonetheless, the substance abuse became excessive. In the book, he delivers a blow-by-blow description of the fateful festival no-show in the mid-90s when he failed to appear for the Lemonheads’ scheduled performance after acquaintances suggested he accompany them to their hotel. When he finally showing up, he delivered an unplanned acoustic set to a unfriendly crowd who booed and hurled bottles. But this was small beer compared to what happened in the country soon after. The visit was intended as a respite from {drugs|substances