"Before we were kind of groping for our audience," says Natalie Merchant, the lead singer and lyricist for 10,000 Maniacs. "A lot of people had been misled by the name, and that's one of the main obstacles that we overcame. People started to hear the music and the name became irrelevant." While ten months of touring earned the band a wider audience, the grueling schedule took its toll on Merchant's health: she was bedridden for two months.

Merchant is back in form now, and the Maniacs will release a new album in May (Peter Asher, who produced the band's last album, is at the helm again). One song, Please Forgive Us, is about the Iran-contra scandal. "It's the most political song I've ever written," says Merchant.