by: Steve Pick (section: Calendar page: 3C)
"It's been great to find out that people really enjoy our music," said Natalie Merchant, the lead singer of the rock band 10,000 Maniacs, in a recent telephone interview. "It's made us much more confident. It's very good to get recognition for what you do."
You could call it recognition to have your second album for a major label sell well over 500,000 copies after your first had failed to sell 50,000. Then again, you could refer to it as a major success.
The probability is that 10,000 Maniacs will become even more popular. After all, the group's new album, Blind Man's Zoo, has already reached Billboard's Top 20.
The Jamestown, N.Y., band, which will appear at the Kiel Opera House July 16, still has five of its six original members. Merchant's colleagues are Jerome Augustyniak on drums, Robert Buck on guitars, Dennis Drew on keyboards and Steven Gustafson on bass.
Along with second guitarist John Lombardo, the group released an independent EP, Human Conflict No. Five, and an LP, Secrets of the I Ching, before their first major label album, The Wishing Chair, came out on Elektra Records in 1985.
"Those first two records were made by a very young band," Merchant said. "I wrote some of the lyrics when I was 16 or 17. I don't think any artist wants people to know what they did when they were that young."
Still, Merchant acknowledged that there was a kernel of the band's mature sound in those records, and she said that eventually they will be re-released. The demand for the early recordings was made possible by the success of In My Tribe, the group's second LP for Elektra, which came out in July 1987, after Lombardo had left the band. The album was on the record racks for eight months before the right combination of radio play, video exposure, and high-profile touring positions as the opening act for R.E.M. helped it to take off.
"We had spent years playing in awful night clubs, and sleeping on people's floors," Merchant said. "We had had enough bad experiences to make us humble when the success started to come."
Blind Man's Zoo picks up artistically where In My Tribe left off, with further refinements of the group's pseudo-folk/rock sound built around Merchant's sing-song melodies and the tight arrangements of the rest of the band. Merchant has chosen some particularly interesting subjects for her lyrics this time, and has done an even better job of exploring them than she has in the past.
For instance, Eat for Two, the album's opening cut, offers some keen insights into the mind of a woman pregnant against her wishes.
"That song, I suppose, shows some of the influence of growing up in a small town, surrounded by ignorance and indifference," Merchant said. "I saw many teen-age girls who were pregnant who didn't plan the situation, and I was responding to that.
"But, I've talked to many women who have children, who wanted children, and they said that they could understand the character in the song. Many women have moments of panic when they become pregnant. They realize that this will mean a big change in their lives, even in their bodies. It's very frightening."
Merchant was careful to point out that Jubilee, a song that examines racial and religious intolerance, was not inspired by her home town experiences.
"My songs don't usually come from specific events," she said. "In Jamestown, there were lots of interracial marriages. But, everybody comes into contact with racism, and religious fanaticism. All you have to do is walk down the wrong streets and you realize there are lines not usually crossed."
Please Forgive Us, a heartfelt plea sent to the people of Central and South America affected by American policy in the region, was based on Merchant's frustration at not being able to change what this country does.
"I don't want people to put too much weight on the political side of that song," she said. "Mostly it's just a way to communicate to people down there that there are people here who don't agree with what our government does.
"I wanted them to know that there are people here who are not responsible for it. I know that no matter how much money I give to send medical aid, I can't bring back people who have died or been hurt by these actions. I think it's an injury to our national pride. It offends me that Oliver North got off with such a light sentence. To me, he burned the American flag, or the spirit of it, more than anybody who actually burned the cloth, which could always be replaced."
With such strong political views, Merchant was naturally upset by the statements made by Cat Stevens, whose song Peace Train was included on In My Tribe. During the uproar over publication of Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses", Stevens, who is now a Moslem, said that he agreed that Rushdie should be put to death for blasphemy.
"I just couldn't believe that he could be so confused," Merchant said. "I couldn't find a parallel for it. The Pope didn't condemn Madonna to death for her so-called blasphemy."
10,000 Maniacs has taken the unusual move of asking its record company to delete the song Peace Train from all future copies of In My Tribe. The process is still in negotiation, but Merchant feels confident that eventually it will happen.