by: Richard Harrington (section: Weekend page: 13)

"Ouch! Hey, I don't want you and your big sharp claws on my lap!"

That's Natalie Merchant and, no, she's not brushing off an inquisitive reporter. A kitten so new he doesn't yet have a name "hasn't had his quota of attention today," says Merchant from her home in the Catskills, somewhere near Woodstock, N.Y. "We've been rehearsing day and night for the last week and he's pissed." That's all Merchant needs in her future -- another maniac.

Actually, there are 10,000 Maniacs, but they're in the past now: In 1992, Merchant gave two years notice to the folk-pop band she had fronted since 1981, a move that left her with one foot in the past, one in the future and enough time to figure out which way she wanted to head.

"I didn't think about what I was going to do after the band," Merchant insists. "I didn't even have any serious plans about having a solo career. I just knew the situation I was in was making me unhappy, and I was leaving because I felt I'd learned everything I could from it.

"It really felt more like waiting for graduation day or something like that because I knew there was a specific day that I would stop," she adds. "I think the Maniacs did some of their best touring after I announced that I was leaving and Our Time in Eden and Unplugged are my two favorite Maniac records (both went double platinum). I think people appreciated the good of what we had because it was about to end."

One of the major issues with the Maniacs was identity and control: The group operated by committee and, judging from the singular vision on Merchant's solo debut, Tigerlily, one senses some potential conflicts that could only be resolved by artistic independence. The album's 11 songs, all written after the split was official, "are pretty varied in their tone," says Merchant, "but they're all recorded in the same atmosphere and by the same people," including guitarist Jennifer Turner and drummer Peter Yanowitz. Merchant herself produced the album -- another first.

"I set out to rebel against the big-budget, high-pressure, major-label recording techniques. I did all the pre-production in my home, had everybody living here for months. Then we went to Bearsville, which is one of the best recording studios in the world, but I used the studio mostly for basic tracks and a couple of overdubs. Then, on the final overdubs, I went to a friend who has a new studio with a Neeve board and a tracking room in an old barn."

The Club House studio uses vintage recording equipment wherever possible and, says Merchant, "the vocal booth is right next to the boiler, so when I was singing, the heat had to be turned off. The heating broke down one night and the pipes froze and we couldn't use the bathroom for three days... had to pump water in from a neighbor's house."

It's unlikely, of course, that Merchant's pipes would freeze, imbued as they are with a supple and seemingly eternal warmth while gracing such beautiful songs as Wonder and Beloved Wife, a long-married man's lament after the death of his wife. Inspired by the close-proximity deaths of her elderly grandparents, the song was also shaped by Merchant's interest in reading gravestones. "It's an archaic endearment and one that is so unused," she says, "and I wondered if it was ever used or if it's more of a poetic description. If I were married to someone, I'd love to be referred to as someone's beloved wife."

Lest anyone think Merchant's moping in the mountains, she's quick to point out the principle of creative lyric writing. "I don't think people should be deceived," says Merchant. "Just because I use the first person pronoun doesn't mean the song is about myself. 'Me me me me me' would be really boring," she says, and in any case, it's already a well-known vocal exercise.

"I don't have that much to say about myself," says Merchant, who zealously guards her private life and tends to shield her professional one at times. "The natural part of the progression was discovering that I felt most successful when I told people's stories and disguised people's situations. That's the kind of record that I wanted to make this time. I started moving in that direction with Our Time in Eden."

Tigerlily which just turned platinum, is clearly moving in a different direction than efforts by some of Merchant's gender peers -- PJ Harvey, Alanis Morrisette and Courtney Love, to name three. "I think a lot of people have become accustomed to women artists being less sensitive, a bit more harsh, a bit more confrontational," Merchant says, "This record is a bit sensitive so maybe it seems outmoded, but I think what is being discovered is that a lot of people really still desire that in their music."

After a short European tour and a few Earth Day concerts, Merchant has just embarked on her first solo tour (which stops at the Warner Theatre Monday and Tuesday). "I'm looking forward to touring and I used to not look forward to touring," she says. "I did in the beginning but then it became kind of a grind."

The new musicians bring new energies and flavors, says Merchant, "and I'm able to hear something different than the expected. Jennifer's a pretty unpredictable player -- she never plays the same thing twice, so she's always pretty fascinating to listen to. And I think Peter's a really soulful drummer, really great to dance to."

Yes, Natalie Merchant is still dancing, though her styles have progressed beyond the familiar twirl of the Maniac days. At last January's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction dinner in New York, Merchant showed during Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' Dancing in the Streets that she has a fall-back career as a go-go dancer.

"I always have had fun dancing," she says, adding with a laugh that "if you're not having fun dancing, there's a problem. I've been going out to clubs lately, which I've never really done, but Jennifer's kind of dragged me out, I tried techno clubs and that doesn't work for me, but there's some clubs in New York that play a wide variety of world music and our percussionist told me about places to go dancing to Latin music and it's been great. I'd like to take some African dance classes, but I'm never in one place long enough to get involved in that. Or if I'm in one place long enough, I'm too busy."

Merchant has the same problem with writing: On the road she'll often sit and dawdle on the piano, but hasn't "had time to organize the chord progressions into songs." That will have to wait until tour's end, which could well coincide with winter's end.