by: Rob Rioux (section: Lagniappe page: L6)

These Maniacs like to keep people informed.

But they don't like to preach.

"We're not championing certain issues," explained keyboard player Dennis Drew of the band 10,000 Maniacs by telephone recently. "The overall feeling of the band is that we just want people to think. We're not trying to tell people what to think, we just want to keep the information coming in order to keep the people aware."

Take, for example, Poison in the Well, a song that appears on the group's new album. Drew penned the music and vocalist Natalie Merchant wrote the lyrics three years ago. Orginally written about the Love Canal pollution problem, the song became more meaningful recently in veiw of the Alaskan oil spill.

"It's a frightening concept, that it (the song) can be topical. Every year somebody else is going to screw up by dumping poison into our environment," Drew said.

The band's songs usually focus on real situations with which most of America has had to deal. Merchant's trip to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. inspired the song Please Forgive Us, and her research into the plight of certain species of animals in Africa inspired Hateful Hate.

Drew says that one of the main focal points for the band's music is youth. "We're worried about teenage pregnancy and kids growing up not knowing how to read," said Drew, citing as examples of such concerns the songs Eat for Two and Cherry Tree.

The 10,000 Maniacs story began in the small New York town of Jamestown. There, Drew and bass player Steve Gustafson ran a small college radio station.

"Natalie just showed up one day with a handful of records and started doing a DJ shift," recalls Drew. Guitar player Robert Buck struck up a friendship with Drew and Gustafson. When Buck's band disbanded, he joined forces with the two men, added Merchant and drummer Jerome Augustinyak, and 10,000 Maniacs was born.

In 1987, the band made it into the bigtime, with an apperarance on "The Tonight Show" with host Jay Leno, followed several months later by a slot as the musical guests on "Saturday Night Live." Several "Late Night With David Letterman" appearances also helped record sales to "take off," says Drew.

The band takes the stage at McAlister Auditorium Tuesday night. Opening the show is Camper Van Beethoven, touring in support of its upcoming album Key Lime Pie. The first single from that record is to be called Pictures of Matchstick Men, and sees the band return to its traditional jangly, psychedelic-tinged sound.

Copyright (c) 1989, The Times-Picayune Pub. Corp.