Creativity Quote by Evan Dando

There is a whole late-90s indie ethos compressed into that shrug of a sentence: affection offered at arm's length, sincerity immediately undercut, reverence disguised as casualness. Evan Dando is praising Sneaky Pete Kleinow, a bona fide country-rock innovator, but he does it the Lemonheads way: sideways. "Was great" lands like a throwaway, yet it carries the weight of someone clocking real musical authority. Then comes the nervous comedy: "I didn't bug him about Gram. Not too much, anyway". The first clause tries to present maturity and restraint; the second admits the opposite with a half-grin.

The subtext is fan behavior caught in real time. Gram Parsons isn't just a reference point; he's a sacred text for a certain kind of musician, the patron saint of beautiful wreckage and genre cross-pollination. Dando's name-check signals lineage and insecurity at once: if you care about Gram, you want proximity to Gram-adjacent people, but you also don't want to be the guy who turns every human interaction into a museum tour.

It works because it's socially accurate. Admiration is messy, especially when the admired person is in the room and your credibility is on the line. Dando frames himself as trying to be cool while failing just enough to be honest. The joke isn't at Kleinow's expense; it's on the speaker, and that self-deprecation doubles as a sincere tribute: Sneaky Pete is so "great" that even the attempt at restraint becomes its own confession.