by: Patrick MacDonald (section: Tempo page: 9)

Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs, the band playing next Wednesday night at the Paramount, is one of the most intriguing figures in pop music. She has an exotic look, like the sensual native women in Gauguin's South Seas paintings, and a warm, deep, almost breathless voice that draws you into her sometimes complex but always fascinating songs.

On stage, her trademark movement is to whirl in time to the music, letting her long, Amish-influenced dresses billow around her. She also might do a jig, reflecting the influence of English folk music in her songs, or don a pair of eyeglasses to sing a new song out of her thick notebook. She's small, dark and intense, and you can't take your eyes off her when she's on stage.

Merchant's songs often deal with serious issues, such as the environment, militarism, child abuse, teen-age pregnancy and poverty, but they're never preachy. The lyrics are almost always from the point of view of an individual coping with a problem - character sketches with a message. While the lyrics may be serious, the music is light and airy, with touches of country music, reggae and English and American folk music.

That's not a style that's supposed to be commercial, but 10,000 Maniacs has defied the conventional wisdom of the record industry and become a popular recording act. Its current album, Blind Man's Zoo, is in the Top 20, and its latest single, Trouble Me, is being played on pop radio and on MTV.

The video of Trouble Me reflects Merchant's touching, caring style. The song is about friendship ("Let me know where the hurt is, and how to heal") and the captivating clip shows her at what looks like a Victorian retirement home, dancing and caressing and laughing with white-haired old ladies - not the kind of women you usually see in rock videos. The images are full of life. They make you smile.

Sharing the stage with such a charismatic figure as Merchant is OK by the band, according to guitarist Robert Buck. "It takes a lot of the pressure off the rest of us," he said in a phone interview from his home in Albany, N.Y. He described Merchant as "a regular person" who likes to read, take pictures and write.

Buck was at the party in 1981 in Jamestown, N.Y., where Merchant first sang with 10,000 Maniacs, just for fun. She was only 16 but was hanging out with students from Jamestown Community College, which several of the band members attended. She had a show on the college's radio station.

"You could tell right away she was something special," Buck said, recalling the party. Not only did she have a good singing voice, he said; she made up songs on the spot.

Buck said he has been playing guitar since he was 5 years old. He started performing in church, a Swedish congregation, when he was 6. "My grandmother took me," he explained. "I hated it at first. I despised it for years and years."

But eventually he started enjoying it. "It made me fearless about performing." he said. "I'm still the only one in the group who takes solos, or wants to."

Buck, like the the others in the band, wasn't sure he could make a living as a musician until 10,000 Maniacs took off. He earned a degree in archaeology from the University of Cincinnati and held a variety of jobs, including selling hot dogs at baseball games, pumping gas and making jail cells at a metal factory. "I've had a million jobs - you name it, I've done it," he said. "But this is the best." He recently bought a new car - he traded in his 1971 Nova for a 1984 Dodge Diplomat. "It's cool," he said. "It looks just like a police car."

The other 10,000 Maniacs are Dennis Drew on keyboards, Steve Gustafson on bass and Jerry Augustyniak on drums.

Opening the show is Tim Finn, a singer-songwriter formerly of the New Zealand group Split Enz.

Copyright 1989 Seattle Times Company