By: Peter Smith, page: 1L
The hard part of being in a band called 10,000 Maniacs, says bassist Steve Gustafson, is getting people not to be afraid of the band. "People think we foam at the mouth or something, but it's not like that."
The name 10,000 Maniacs suggests a wholly different style of music than the intimate tone of the band's records. "It's a very gentle music," Gustafson says. "We have a few songs that (here he pauses for a laugh) rock, but no matter what we play, it sounds like us.
"I was reading a review of the show, and the writer was talking about the seriousness of the lyrics, and having to think so hard about what we were talking about, and suddenly he found himself dancing."
Gustafson says that's the kind of response the band wants. 10,000 Maniacs will play Thursday at the Sunrise Theatre with post-punkers Camper Van Beethoven.
"The words are important, the thoughts are important," Gustafson says. "But we're a whole thing, not just lyrics."
That "whole thing" consists of the topical poetics of lead singer and lyricist Natalie Merchant and the brooding modal music of Gustafson, drummer Jerome Augustyniak, keyboardist Dennis Drew and guitarist Robert Buck. It has put their third Elektra album, Blind Man's Zoo, into Billboard's Top 20 and Rolling Stone's Top 3. The first single from the album, Trouble Me, has been on Billboard's Top 100 for 10 weeks.
The lyric concerns on Blind Man's Zoo are largely political, rather than personal. Vietnam, pollution, economics, all are written about, though, with a personalized compassion. Merchant's lyrics take the viewpoints of those affected by the pain of the world, turning their plain speaking into a rough poetry.
"The main thing about our success is, and this sounds a little silly, but we eat better food. We stay in better accommodations on the road, we eat better, we're more rested when it's time to play, so we can really deliver. The trade-off is that we have to generate an intimacy with an audience that is 15 feet away and, because of the lights, we can't see. We have a big stage (on tour), 30 feet by 60 feet, and sometimes it's a little lonely up there."
That such a studiously non-commercial music and attitude should result in this kind of success is still surprising to the band. Their first two independent label releases (in their hometown of Jamestown, N.Y., on their own Christian Burial records) were called Human Conflict Number Five and Secrets of the I Ching. Their first two major label records (The Wishing Chair and In My Tribe) established them as a cult band and critics' darlings, but the surprising breakout of a cover of Cat Stevens' Peace Train was an adult-contemporary and video hit, setting the stage for the success of Blind Man's Zoo.
"Peace Train . . . we had played it at gigs sort of halfheartedly, just for fun, and we were fooling around with it in the studio, and Peter (producer Peter Asher) was saying 'Wow! Do that!' and the record company said 'Yeah, do that!'
"So we recorded it, and Elektra wanted it to be the first single off Tribe. We didn't. So of course, it was, and all of a sudden we're on a raft on a river in the middle of Connecticut, looking at a camera lip-synching 'Ride on the peace train . . .' " Gustafson pauses to laugh again. "And then all this other stuff happened."
The "other stuff" took place during the recent uproar over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. Cat Stevens, now a follower of Islam, publicly declared his desire to see Rushdie dead for blaspheming Allah in the text of his comic novel. The band is trying to get Elektra Records to take Peace Train off In My Tribe as a statement of solidarity with Rushdie.
"There's money, a lot of money involved in changing the master plates for the record, reprinting record jackets, all that stuff," Gustafson says. "We're still negotiating with Elektra over who's going to pay. The idea of recording it was to get radio programmers past our name; a lot of adult-contemporary stations would play the record and not say who we were. And now all this other stuff sort of makes this wart on our nose look a little bit bigger."
Lead singer Merchant told the Canadian magazine Music Express that "We'll never play the song again. I tell everyone it's a good excuse for never playing it, because I never liked doing it."
Gustafson and the rest of the band are protective of Merchant, who spent two months in bed recuperating from their last tour. "She's the focus, which sets us free to concentrate on the groove, the feeling of the music. She's brilliant at that presentation, a genius at holding an audience, making them care about things she cares about.
"We all like justifying the name 10,000 Maniacs. I grew up hearing that you can't judge a book by the cover, that you shouldn't prejudge by outward appearances. The name is intended ironically; we know it suggests uncomfortable music to a lot of people, but we think of it as a surprise, not a mistake."