by: Mitch Potter

Natalie Merchant saw it coming, the backlash against bands like hers - pop musicians who feel compelled to think politically and make music at the same time.

Given that she and her 10,000 Maniacs simply could not, and would not, exist without the luxury of leaving a message along the way, Merchant is just happy nobody's been gunning for her.

"So far, so good," the golden-voiced singer and lyricist said carefully during a recent interview, a visit designed to circulate word of the folk-pop group's third Elektra album, Blind Man's Zoo.

"I'd hate for us to be thought of as another boring, didactic political band.

"It's funny, but we've been spared. John Parales devoted an entire column in the New York Times to complain about how bored he was by all the 'cause bands' he'd been hearing.

"Right after that he came to interview us in Jamestown and he was really, really nice. Maybe he's confused - we definitely have a message to our songs. I'd quit music before I'd ever write something frivolous."

Merchant, who brings her Maniacs to Toronto for a June 16 appearance at Yonge St.'s Concert Hall, said she is as suspicious as the rest of us when it comes to sizing up the motives of a pop culture obsessed with redemption through social bandwagoneering. But she spares herself the grief of wondering by not listening at all.

"I just don't pay attention any more, mostly because I'm frightened of being influenced by other bands. But to my way of thinking, the measure of whether a band with lyrical content is valid is a combination of craft and sincerity.

Song is good

"If the song is good and the message is there, you can just tell whether it's sincere. The last song I heard that really did that for me is Elvis Costello's Veronica."

And Merchant herself does nothing if not forward her deeply emotional prose in Blind Man's Zoo.

The follow-up to 1987's In My Tribe, an album that topped critic's polls and even registered a modest hit in a faithful reworking of Cat Steven's Peace Train, the new release waxes eloquently on topics like the U.S. foreign policy (Please Forgive Us), animal rights (Hateful Hate), poverty (Dust Bowl), and, most timely, pollution of the seas (Poison In The Well).

"I wrote that (Poison) two years before the Exxon Valdez spill, but every time I read about the disaster, I cry.

"You have to imagine just how much love the people of Valdez have for their coastline. That's their life, their livelihood. Not only will it take centuries to realize the full extent of the damage, but it raises a more serious question about corporate morality.

"It's sad that corporate morals are based upon culpability, upon taking the blame and absolving themselves of blame. It doesn't seem to stem from any actual concern for the problem."

Hateful Hate, Merchant explained, stemmed from photographer Peter Beard's disturbingly graphic book The End Of The Game, which depicts scenes of vanishing wildlife.

"That's one of the most powerful songs we've ever done, but the topic is just as grave. It's about slaughter for money, for ivory, and the slaughter is as much the fault of people on Fifth Ave. who buy the ivory as it is the hunters themselves."

Ironically, she admitted, a Steinway used during the sessions was fitted with its original ivory keys. And it's a wonder, given her zealousness on the subject, that she didn't demand the keys be replaced with plastics.

"That would be absurd. We believe in what we believe in and we're not afraid to speak about it, but that's going too far."

Concern over animal rights, in fact, has prompted the band to donate enough money to feed an elephant for one year at a London zoo. A plaque on the pen reportedly reads "Fed By 10,000 Maniacs".

The band, spawned through informal jamming, began writing songs, which led to the recording of a five-song release, 1983's Human Conflict No. Five.

One year later the band released the low-budget LP Secrets Of The I Ching, which registered enough alternative interest in North America and the U.K. to prompt the Elektra signing in 1985.

Bankrolled by a major label, 10,000 Maniacs promptly sallied forth to London's Livingstone Studios to record its Elektra debut, The Wishing Chair, with producer Joe Boyd, a folk legend who counted Fairport Convention and R.E.M. on his resume.

"I hate to say it, but Joe Boyd basically read the paper a lot in the studio," laughed Merchant, dropping her intensely serious tone for a brief moment.

A lot different

"Things are a lot different now. In fact, the attitude that surrounded the making of Blind Man's Zoo was much, much easier. For one thing, we were more confident to be working in upstate New York - close to home - and with Peter Asher (Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor) producing.

"This time, we were really adamant about making a record the way we play live. I was pleased with In My Tribe, but it's hardly what you'd call a live record. So we went into a large, old wooden church, avoided the new technology as much as possible, and went ahead with it."

Although they inch nearer to mainstream popularity with each record, Merchant and her Maniacs - guitarist Robert Buck, keyboardist Dennis Drew, bassist Steven Gustafson and drummer Jerome Augustyniak - hold tenaciously to a do-it-yourself mandate. When your stock in trade is sincerity, she explains, you pay close attention to such details as videos and album covers.

"We took a lot of advice from R.E.M. on that front. There are just too many opportunities to give up control of the music and look of the band. Sometimes photographers or video directors will find it jarring, but we always keep our hand in the process, right down to the album covers."

Indeed, Merchant in particular has found a kindred spirit in R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, with whom she recorded a song for Stay Awake, a 1988 compilation of themes from Disney films.