Evan Dando on Courtney Love telling Kurt Cobain they were having an affair: “We could have been friends and it’s a bummer”

Evan Dando has looked back at Courtney Love claiming to Kurt Cobain that they were having an affair, and said it was “a bummer” because they “could have been friends”.

The Lemonheads frontman opened up about the incident during a new interview with NME as part of the ‘Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!’ series. In the discussion, the singer was quizzed about various memorable moments from across his career, and put to the test about how many details he could correctly remember.

At one point in the interview, Dando was asked which song by The Lemonheads he was performing when Love joined him on stage at the Roundhouse in London.

The tour was the ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ 30th anniversary dates that took place in 2022, and in response to the question, Dando correctly answered ‘Into Your Arms’.

Asked if he knew whether or not the Hole frontwoman had read his new autobiography Rumours Of My Demise, he replied: “Fuck, I hope not! I think I might not be alive [if she had].”

He was also asked about how he alleged that Love told her husband, late Nirvana legend Cobain, that the two of them had an affair in a bid to make him jealous.

“My first spiritual experience was when Kurt died [in 1994], because I felt that he knew the truth – because he went to his death not knowing,” Dando told NME. “Pat Smear told me Kurt really thought I was having an affair with Courtney.

“I hope I’m balanced in the book about her, but I couldn’t help saying that the first thing she said to me when grunge broke and everybody had money was: ‘Evan, this is great! We can put hits out on people now!’”

He continued: “I felt that Kurt knew the truth a lot after he died. ‘Cause me and him had this weird barrier. We were doppelgängers in a way. People who worked with us both said they couldn’t even tell who was on stage.

“We listened to a lot of the same music and even his singing – I think that early on, he heard our early stuff. There’s something about his voice.”

Dando concluded: “This sounds like a podcast and it’s so boring and who-gives-a-shit, but we could have been friends and it’s a bummer. And I think we are friends now ‘cause he knows the truth. One thing Courtney always used to say was that he said his prayers every night.”

Check out the full interview here, where Dando also opened up about his unreleased song ‘Purple Parallelogram’ that he wrote with Noel Gallagher.

The memoir he mentioned is Rumours Of My Demise, which was published in May last year, having been first announced in 2020.

​​As for The Lemonheads, the band released their latest album ‘Love Chant’ recently, and announced that they are going on tour around the UK later this year.

Dates kick off in Sheffield at the end of September, and include further stops in Newcastle, London, Glasgow, Manchester and more cities. Visit here for tickets.