by: Michelle F. Solomon (page: D1)

Call it the maturing of Natalie Merchant. For the doe-eyed singer/songwriter, breaking away from the 10,000 Maniacs has meant the road to freedom and a chance for control.

"There was too much comfort after a time with the band. There was laziness. I figured I had learned quite a bit, and it was time to kick myself out of the nest and do something that was more my own," Merchant said in an interview from a hotel in Nashville, a stop on her Tigerlily tour.

She performs Wednesday night at Siena College.

More than a decade ago, Merchant became a savior for the disillusioned. Her grandma's attic, dime-store duds and waify looks spoke to a generation who were tired of Madonna's vogueish gloss. The Maniacs cashed in on Merchant, and the masses looking for a more down-to-earth role model bought it.

Surrounded with male bandmates from her hometown of Jamestown, N.Y., who were all six to 12 years her senior, Merchant felt lost among the exclusive boys club. She joined the band when she was 17.

"Sometimes I felt like I was the last woman on Earth," said Merchant, now 32. "When you're touring, there really aren't that many outsiders. Most times, I would be the only woman, and sometimes that felt lonely."

At last, Merchant is in the driver's seat.

"I like the balance I've achieved in my band, in my life," she said.

One of the most important changes she's made in her life has been the people she's surrounded herself with, especially in her business. This, she says, also has been her biggest challenge.

Merchant has incorporated as many women as she can in her new organization. "Management people, A&R people, my lawyer's a woman, I have a female tour manager, I have a female sound engineer." And then she mentions Jennifer Turner, the most important addition to her all-female regime.

"The interplay between the lead guitar and the voice is one of the most important. I've only worked with male guitar players. The thing is that there is a lot of communication a lead guitarist is non-verbal. I was thinking how much better I communicate with female friends than with my male friends. I don't know how to explain it."

So maybe Merchant has read "Women Who Run With the Wolves" too many times. Be that as it may, it's this yin side of her yin-yang psyche that is propelling her music.

"The Maniacs were danceable, angular pop. I think the new sound is more curvacious. With Jennifer on guitar, I think it's a more sensuous sound."

Others in the band include Fima Ephron on bass, Jason Yates on keyboards, Adrian Lopez on percussion and Peter Yanowitz on drums. Merchant, too, plays keyboards.

To many in the industry and fans, it came as a shock when Merchant announced her departure from the 10,000 Maniacs two years ago. The group was at the height of its musical fame, having just released MTV Unplugged, which yielded the band's biggest hit, a remake of Bruce Springsteen's Because the Night, also performed by Patti Smith.

"The Unplugged program generated an album of a live performance that wasn't caught up in the dependence of the studio and insistence on perfection. That becomes a hollow pursuit after a while. You either feel it or you don't."

As for the choice of Because the Night, a cover tune being performed by a band who played a repertoire of their own music for the most part, Merchant said:

"It was such a rock anthem, and to do it totally acoustic, well, it didn't lose its power."

She continued: "The Maniacs were able to walk the fine line between being a college alternative band and being accepted by the mainstream. Kinda like Springsteen and (Patti) Smith."

So who would she select to be partnered with, in the same vein as Springsteen/Smith?

"I guess (Pearl Jam's) Eddie Vedder," Merchant said. But she says there are no plans for that teaming.

When Merchant announced her departure from the Maniacs, many questioned what would become of the singer. Maniacs fans will tell you it was guitarist Rob Buck who was the driving force behind the Maniacs. The 10,000 Maniacs are still alive with a female singer, Mary Ramsey, but today it's Merchant who is getting the notice.

Yet, Merchant has her fans and naysayers.

"I know that there are women who feel that I'm not powerful enough or aggressive enough," Merchant told the Los Angeles Times in September.

In Albany, WQBK-FM's music director Nickie Neal agrees. She puts today's women in rock 'n' roll in two camps: Alanis Morrisette and Courtney Love on one side "the cool side" and Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow and Natalie Merchant on the other "the uncool side."

The station is playing two cuts from Tigerlily Carnival and Wonder but Neal said it just isn't her kind of music.

Under the same roof in the QBK studios is Ken Allen, who thinks Merchant will make a go of her solo effort "with no problem. She has the voice of an angel and knows how to smooth 'em."

Allen, a DJ on the 2 to 7 p.m. shift, says he gets plenty of requests for Merchant's tunes, both new and from her Maniacs days.

Merchant meets all of this head on: "I was looking to succeeding and failing on my own terms. I feel like I succeeded when I wrote the songs and then got them to sound the way I wanted to."

Merchant remains private about her personal life and offers little insight into her world outside of the music business. She says she lives in upstate New York, "close to the City."

She recorded her latest album in Bearsville Studios near Woodstock, and last year slipped into the Bearsville Theatre to showcase her new band and sound.

While with the 10,000 Maniacs, she played many a gig at the now-defunct 288 Lark and Duck Soup.

"I remember (288 Lark). A local radio station had a contest, and the guy had been let out of prison that day. He won tickets to the show and a pass to come backstage, and he was grabbing every woman back there and drinking all the beer."

She's played Union College, the Palace, J.B.'s Theatre and, the area's largest venue, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

She's never played The Egg but remembered it "looking like a toilet bowl" in the middle of Albany.

As Tigerlily climbs the charts it's moved from No. 19 to No. 18 on this week's Billboard Merchant pauses when told the numbers.