An interview with Dennis Drew of 10,000 Maniacs. Say Something! (It Even Works)
by: Anne Ferguson-Rohrer (page 26-27)
"10,000 Maniacs" is not a particularly accurate name for this more-or-less mild-mannered five person band who, after eight, years together, have become one of the fastest-rising groups around. It's not a bad description, though, for the crowd at a typical 10,000 Maniacs show. Or, maybe "10,000 Believers" would fit better.
At a recent show at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., for instance, the crowd seemed to be totally engrossed in every word, note, and movement that the band made, and cheered them on to encore after encore. To a 10,000 Maniacs fan, the music Matters with a capital "M". One fan was even overheard saying that he had just finished memorizing all of the words - that's all of the words - from the band's In My Tribe album.
The band's new album, Blind Man's Zoo, which is currently zooming up the album charts, and their current tour, which takes them to Radio City Music Hall in New York this week, for two already-sold-out shows have made them, to use dreaded Rolling Stone terminology a "hot" band. This is encouraging stuff for do-it-yourselfers of all kinds, since 10,000 Maniacs' path to success has been as unconventional as their name.
Their uniqueness arose, partly, from necessity. Formed in northwest New York state, in the town of Jamestown, 10,000 Maniacs were never surrounded by a huge musical community, although, through several band members' work on college radio, they were aware of a wide range of music.
The band's biography says they originally specialized in covers of material by post-punk British bands like Joy Divison and Gang Of Four, and of reggae tunes by Bob Marley and the Mighty Diamonds. Their early influences are said to have included Caribbean music, country, folk and bluegrass. The band released two albums in their first three years together (on their own Christian Burial label), building a small following. In 1985 they signed to Elektra Records and released their major label debut, The Wishing Chair, which was buoyed by swirling folk-rock arrangements, an unusual sense of melody, and an eternally intriguing set of lyrics.
Although well-received critically, The Wishing Chair didn't sell very well. The band's next Elektra album, In My Tribe, featured a somewhat more accessible approach with producer Peter Asher, known for his work with Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor, contributing his formidable commercial instincts. A cover of Cat Stevens' Peace Train (a song which vocalist Natalie Merchant says she will never sing again due to Stevens' support of Ayatollah Khomeini's call for author Salman Rushdie's death) caught many people's attention, and Like The Weather was a minor hit. Gaining exposure by appearances on national television shows like The Tonight Show, Late Night With David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, and by their constant touring, the Maniacs were clearly on the verge of a breakthrough.
Blind Man's Zoo, recorded again with Asher, is a strange breakthrough album. It's uncompromisingly, topical, with an overriding tone of disgust with the shape of the world. Still, Merchant's swelling vocals and brilliant melody lines, the band's tasteful playing and the unquestionable sincerity behind it all are still intact.
The day after the Poughkeepsie show, keyboardist/songwriter Drew took time out to talk about the band and their new-found "hotness" and various other subjects.
E.C. Rocker: I was really impressed with the way your fans seemed to hang on every word and note, and every little thing
Drew: Cool. Yeah, they know the words and they're very aware of what's going on in the songs. They're there for the songs. It makes you feel good, when you know people are paying attention like that. Sometimes it's unnerving, because they can be so quiet and so reserved, but they're really paying attention. You have to remember that.
There's really no greater feeling than to hear all these people singing along together. They love to sing together in Europe. When we were in Belfast from the word go they sang at the top of their lungs - every song - right along with us. It's beautiful to hear that; It's like going to church or something.
Do you have many opportunities to communicate directly with your fan?
Oh sure. l meet a lot of people. We usually have people down for drinks or something after the show, although it usually ends up being record company people and weirdos like that.
We try to (meet fans), but now there's getting to be too many of them. But I'm a fan too, so I can relate to it.
Does it get as frustrating as things move to a bigger scale?
No, not yet. Not too frustrating. I mean, it's finally starting to get comfortable. We're finally getting some good food on the road. We don't have to search around for a McDonald's to eat in. You get to this level and you can begin to concentrate more on playing than on all the extraneous things. So that's a pleasure.
There's a certain tendency to see 10,000 Maniacs as 'The Natalie Merchant Show,' because she is the frontperson and she writes all the words. How do you counteract that?
Well, she does write the words, and she certainly is the frontperson. The band has always been pretty democratic: All the music comes first - we write the songs before she writes lyrics to 'em. So that's a pretty equal distribution there.
We're pretty comfortable with it; it doesn't bother us. We're happy being the backbone, and workmanlike. I mean, the drummer is really the key to any rock band. You can't have a fucking rock band without a drummer. But a lot of people ignore the drummer and they're looking at the lead guitar player. But if the drummer doesn't play right, then nobody can play right.
We understand that people are going to perceive Natalie as 'the star', so to speak. But that's fine with us. We practically planned it that way. Somebody has to take up that burden, take up that mantle, and it's not going to be the rest of us! And we all get along very well, probably better than ever. So we don't have a problem with it.
I've always been impressed by the sparseness of the band's sound - how well everything fits together, and how everything is there for a reason.
Yeah. Thank you. We try not to play too much. One of the things you've got to learn when you start out is keeping it simple. The simpler the better - we really live by that. And we try to do everything with a purpose. That's why the songs all have to have a meaning to 'em, to be about something. If you're gonna open your mouth, you have to say something. We try not to just be gratuitous in the way we play. We're very conscious of that, and we work hard at being simple and concise.
I think the sparseness can help in the bigger venues. You can communicate better because there's not too much going on.
I think so. The less instruments, the bigger each one is. That's one of the secrets to being able to handle a big room, I think.
It's a credit to a band like U2 - l mean, they're incredibly simple, they hardly do anything at all, but it works perfectly in a big venue. So that's cool. I can appreciate that.
I'm sure you've answered this question a million times before, but how did you come up with 10,000 Maniacs as the name of the band?
We had a list, mostly movie titles. There was a movie called 2,000 Maniacs and that was on the list.
So how did you get to 10,000?
We figured that 10,000 sounded better. It was more fun, and more ridiculous. We wanted to scare people a little bit. We wanted them to know that we were a punk band or something, that weren't going to be playing Freebird.
Was there anything in particular in that movie that you related to?
None of us have ever seen that movie. We really didn't name it after the movie; we were just picking out cool names in a book. We weren't trying to describe ourselves. We were just looking for something that people would remember.
And someone came across the name of the movie...
Yeah, a friend of ours did. It was either 10,000 Maniacs or Dick Turpin's Ride To York, which was another movie. We just liked that one because it was so funny.
When people hear 10,000 Maniacs, they might think you're a hardcore band. Does that get frustrating?
Well, I use to think that. Now most people know who we are.
Did you ever consider changing it because of that?
I never did. People mentioned it as we went along, and I just told them to forget it. To me, the name is a gold mine. Nobody can forget it. Even waitresses... they love it. They laugh. If you can order a cup of coffee, and get people laughing, just with the name of your band - man, that's a gold mine.
It's easy as hell for a journalist to construct a lead around a name like that.
Yeah, it's perfect and it's great for David Letterman - (mimicking goofy Letterman voice) '10,000 Maniacs tomorrow!' It was like it was made up by a publicist. We couldn't have picked a better name. We just wanted something memorable, something fun. We knew the music was going to be pretty serious, so we had to do something to cut the edge.
Was the music serious, even in the band's earliest days?
Oh, yeah. I mean, maybe we'd do a few covers now and then, but it's always been about being concerned. That's why we're in a band.
That's a different reason from why a lot of people are in bands.
Well, if I wasn't doing this, I'd probably be a journalist or maybe I'd try to be a filmmaker or something.
Or an environmental activist?
No, I think I'd still be working in the media - because it's so powerful - or be a politician trying to get things done.
You've got to work for the common (good). There's really no other reason to hang around, unless you're going to do something. That's the whole point. You might as well pull your plug if you're not going to work to help make things better.
That puts you at odds with a great deal of the rock 'n' roll world.
Good.
... and the rock 'n' roll industry too.
Yeah, but I'm glad to see that it's changing. I don't care what anybody says: The public really likes people who are concerned. I think the success of Springsteen and U2, Tracy Chapman, Jackson Browne... there is room for all that stuff. Even some of speed metal, they maybe a little more angry than we are, but at least they're trying to say something.
As a long-time member of the alternative/college radio world, how do you see the state of today's alternative scene?
Um, I've lost touch with it a bit in the last year or so. I know that there's increasing pressure on them to become the minor leagues for records companies and for other radio stations, and the state of radio in general is terrible in this country. But it's only college radio that is saving things, so it's still the champion of all things bright and true. But there's immense pressure on them to change, and I hope they can continue to resist it.
We wouldn't be here and I don't think any of the so-called 'new music in America' would be here, without college radio. It's the greatest radio in the whole world, there's nothing that compares with it at all. They don't even have that kind of stuff in England, and in Europe.
Like in LA., they have five or six noncommercial radio stations, and they're just incredible, (German composer Karlheinz) Stockhausen followed by Black Flag, or anything. You really have to love it. But we can't get any college radio in Jamestown so I'm losing touch.
Are you starting to get played on album-rock radio, those kind of stations?
Yeah, we're doing pretty well, I guess. We get airplay, kind of across the board, from adult contemporary to college radio. We hit a little bit, everywhere, though we're not big in any one format. But the record's doing very well, so somebody must be playing it somewhere.
10,000 Maniacs has always seemed to me to be a group where there's been this tremendous underground word of mouth, that's constantly been growing over the years. It's really encouraging to see a band succeed like that.
It's hard work. We just spent a lot of time touring in a very small way, in a van. And it pays off. It really does.
We have a really good live draw, that keeps us going. That's one of the reasons the records started selling, I think, because some of the radio stations started looking at the shows we were playing. It was the same way with R.E.M. - R.E.M. would come in and sell out all of these big venues, and no one was playing their records. So they finally had to start playing their records.
Nobody plays Metallica's records, and they're fucking huge. The whole Metallica thing is kind of like the Grateful Dead. They just have their people, and that's it.
Is the songwriting flowing as well these days as it always did?
Um, yeah. I don't particularly sit around and write a song everyday, or anything, but when we got done touring last year, we wrote the record, and then when we get done touring we'll write another one. I don't really worry about it too much.
I guess I asked because, with some groups, it does get to be a problem when they start to get big, and have all these other commitments, and they find it hard to devote a lot of time to songwriting.
Well, all of us write. I think it's tough for some people, because there's only one writer, and that fucker has got to write 12 songs in, like, a month or something. But we're all working on it, so it relieves the pressure.
And I don't have too many commitments, besides the band, and my lawn (laughs). I mow the lawn, and write a song. Jeez, what a bitch (laughs).