The lead singer and songwriter for 10,000 Maniacs shows her artistic temperment
by: Christina Kelly (page 59)
Natalie Merchant is onstage at L.A.'s Greek Theater, wearing that vintage blue-and-white polka dress you see her in a lot. She has her long brown hair tied back with a white chiffon scarf. Sometime during the show's first song, What's the Matter Here? the 25-year-old singer for 10,000 Maniacs pulls the scarf out of her hair. To wild, knee-jerk applause from the audience. "It's a very curious thing," Natalie says with a hint of sarcasm, after the song is over. "When you sit down at your desk to work, people don't applaud you. And when you take the ribbon out of your hair, people don't applaud. It's not something really deserving of applause."
Later, she pulls up a stool and sits down. People in the audience are randomly screaming. "It's a beautiful night," she says. "And it's a full moon." The screaming builds. You can tell Natalie is not pleased. "This is a very quiet song," she says impatiently. "And if you don't stop screaming, you'll drown us out."
It's the encore. For no apparent reason, Natalie starts singing this heinous Joe Walsh song ("My Maserati does 185/I lost my license now I don't drive."), and the audience claps along. Then she talks about her childhood, an isolated memory of this roller-skating rink her (divorced) father would dump the four Merchant kids at on weekends. "I was about 10 and I was terrified of the tough girls that smoked," she reminisces. Her fans are still clapping in time. "You can stop that now, " she says irritably. She's trying to tell a story, and the audience is into this annoying participation thing. So they let her finish her story. The music starts again, and she goes into that spastic/graceful whirling dance she's famous for.
Few performers can get away with this sort of cranky behavior. But somehow Natalie does. It doesn't really matter that I can't decide whether she's incredibly egotistic or humble. Her impatience with the ridiculous conventions of rock concerts, while not very polite, is admirable for its originality; most stars revel in mindless adoration, but Natalie seems to reject it. Maybe because she harbors a desire to be a social worker or something, and never really intended to become a pop singer.
"I'd been singing since I was a kid for recreation, but there was really no plan for me to be in a pop group," Natalie told me in a pre-concert interview in her hotel room. Wearing a checked shirt buttoned all the way up and a pair of baggy shorts, her only makeup a bit of lipstick, and with a copy of Gabriel Garcia Morquez's Love in the Time of Cholera on her coffee table, Natalie looked more like an arty, aspiring something-or-other than a pop star. Yet she's been singing with 10,000 Maniacs for nine years, since she was 16. "When I came to this party where I first sang with them, I didn't intend on singing," she explained. "And even the first couple of years I toured with the group, it didn't feel like a profession, it just felt like a really exciting way to get away from home. I was at an age when I really needed to do that." Now she lives partly in Jamestown, New York, partly in New York City, but mostly on the road.
Jamestown, where Natalie grew up, is a rural town in western New York, the kind of place one can imagine wanting to get away from as a kid. "I went to a school called Westfield Academy and Central School," Natalie said, in her distracted yet intense way of speaking. "My graduating class was a lot of farm kids mixed in with old money kids. I hung around with both outcasts and also kids who were going to go to Columbia University. I was in plays, and editor of the yearbook and head of the school newspaper and played on the tennis team. And I knew there was a lot to be learned, but it was hard because by the time I was 11 I wanted to be treated like an adult. Things like having to get a lavatory pass just really frustrated me. So when I was 16, the principal of my high school said he would grant me a diploma if I maintained a certain level of grades at college."
It was at Jamestown Community College that she ended up singing with 10,000 Maniacs, which soon after began driving around the country in a painted school bus, playing a bizarre mix of punk, folk and reggae covers in small clubs and bars. "Doing that in the beginning, when we started writing our own music, it was natural for us to maintain some kind of eclecticism," she said. The result - what we know as the songs on their three albums, The Wishing Chair, In My Tribe and Blind Man's Zoo - are mostly serious subjects (everything from teenage pregnancy to European imperialism in Africa) put to pretty melodies and sung in Natalie's beautiful, unique voice. It's pop music, really; intelligent pop music, but pop music nonetheless - a classification that gets Natalie a little defensive. "Music has always been a powerful art form to me," she told me. "Even pop music. I feel belittled sometimes when I think, Oh, I'm just a pop musician. If I'd stayed involved with the piano and I'd studied, I could have been a composer. But that's so exclusive. How many people are listening to contemporary composers? People listen to pop music. Why should it be any less important?" Of course, Natalie herself prefers gospel, big band, R&B or Eastern European music, but clearly there are millions of fans who would rather listen to 10,000 Maniacs.
Despite her sometimes cold stage manner, Natalie doesn't mind talking to the fans, "It's just that there are many people who are very troubled," she explained. "I think because I've written about something that they've experienced - which I think is great, that I can communicate that well with people - but they take it to heart and think I'll understand them. All I can try to do is be sympathetic." Natalie plans to continue making records with 10,000 Maniacs "as long as there are people that are interested and as long as it's productive." She's also written a children's book, which she plans to publish on a small scale. "It's about these angels and winged things that are up there protecting and terrorizing the world but, you know, it's not a superhero kind of story," she said, laughing for the first time since I'd met her. "lt's supposed to give children the sense that they're responsible for the planet and what happens to it."
The phone rang; it was Natalie's manager telling her it was time to go to the Greek Theater for the sound check. As she packed up her stuff, she showed me a black velvet cape from the turn of the century that a fan gave her. "I don't own anything from that period," she said appreciatively. "That's what I get out of being a pop singer - people give me vintage clothing."
The Griffith Observatory is this touristy, school-trip kind of science museum right near the Greek Theater. Before 10,000 Maniacs' show that night, I have some time to kill, so I decide to check it out. I'm looking at this exhibit that supposedly proves that the Earth spins on its axis when I spot Natalie, staring at the thing intently. "Hi," I say. "Hi," she says, looking down, seemingly not in the mood to talk to a fan. Then she looks up and sees me. "Oh, hi," she says, smiling, then darts into the next room. I guess she doesn't feel like talking to a reporter either. Maybe she's just cranky. Or maybe she needs some personal space, a little time to be alone, you know?