Mark Taylor talks to former 10,000 Maniacs lead singer Natalie Merchant on the Mafia, English guys and people-watching
by: Mark Taylor
SINCE leaving cult American group 10,000 Maniacs, singer Natalie Merchant has undergone something of a transformation.
Now enjoying her fifth year of solo success with the acclaimed album Ophelia, Natalie has shed her moody, plain-Jane image and appears more confident. During our conversation, she appeared relaxed, cheerful and even revealed what makes her really laugh!
"Woody Allen is the only person who reduces me to hysterical laughter because as a New Yorker, I recognise the humour. But Robin Williams also makes me laugh, but it depends on the film," she laughs.
Natalie certainly has a lot to laugh about these days. Not only did her debut solo album, Tigerlily, sell four million copies in America, but Ophelia has sold almost two million in the first two months. [webmaster's note: Ophelia has not sold two million copies in the year-and-a-half since it was released, let alone in the first two months. It was certified platinum (signifying sales of 1 million copies) in September 1998. How many copies it has sold since then is anyone's guess. But it has yet to be certified double-platinum.]
Despite this huge success, Natalie still thinks she has something of a cult following in Britain: "I still have this cultish stature over here even though I don't get played on shows like John Peel."
Ophelia has picked up some incredible reviews since its release. The Sunday Times critic described it as "the masterpiece that Merchant always threatened to make".
Part of the album's appeal is the heavily-orchestrated sound, and the use of 30 musicians. Natalie says that although it was sometimes difficult to maintain the intimacy on the recent Lilith Fair tour across America, it's been easier to recreate the atmosphere in the smaller venues on her current British tour.
"In the States we played some wild shows. In New Mexico, we played in an open field in the desert, and in Minneapolis we played a racing stadium."
The bigger, heavier sound of the album is something which Natalie admits was a dream come true. She said: "It was always a dream of mine, but I was too frightened to do it on the first album because it seemed the typical thing to do after leaving the band.
"But it was always something I wanted to do. I always wanted to do a record which contained a lot of collaborations."
The album is also accompanied by a promotional film in which Natalie plays several characters. "I had always wanted to come up with a more creative way of promoting my record than just making the four-minute pop video.
"It was fun because I wanted to play along with the whole idea of playing other people who might mirror or symbolise different aspects of my personality without having to reveal myself."
But it was a point which her record company obviously missed: "The record company now say 'O.K, you've done the film, but now we want the real you and that was exactly what I was trying to avoid.
"My favourite character to play in the film was the Mafioso whose husband owns a casino and who sings cabaret. Her husband has lots of friends in the music business and he assures her that her record will do very well. My family is Sicilian so I didn't have to dig too deep for that character," she laughs.
As for other characters in her songs, Natalie says she draws them from watching people: "I tend to keep my mouth shut when I'm out in the world and do more listening and watching. I don't necessarily have to experience it first hand because an article in a paper might be enough to get me going.
"A lot of things are personal experiences disguised as other people's experiences. I can't remove the autobiographical slant from the things I write. You always bring yourself into what you're writing."
However, Natalie says that she would be reluctant to write an autobiography: "My life's too dull anyway, but there are things I would tell my best friend that I would never tell my mother, and there are things that I wouldn't even want to admit to myself."
Although she no longer has the time to write a diary, Natalie says she keeps a journal, but most of her energies go into songwriting.
"I do find that most of my prolific writing was done when I was a very shy teenager, and in my early 20s. I didn't know how to talk to people so I wrote everything down. I used to feel that if I didn't write about my life, then it wasn't valid.
"Nowadays, weeks go by and I don't write anything. I have to be alone to write, and the problem is that I'm rarely alone these days, so I have to arrange time to be on my own."
Natalie says that she often gets inspired when touring, and Britain has always been fuel for her songwriting.
"Britain was the first place I ever travelled outside the United States so when I arrived in London at the age of 19, everything was exciting - the sense of history and all these cute guys with British accents.
"It was overwhelming. I fell in love, I started giving flowers and ended up with a lover, so yeah, it was a great time and very inspiring."
After her time with 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie is feeling alot more confident and feels a sense of freedom, too.
"I love the freedom and if I decided next week, that I wasn't really into doing this, I could cancel everything.
"But my inclination is to want to extend the tour rather than cut it short because this is my favourite band I've ever worked with."
NATALIE MERCHANT plays the Bristol University Anson Rooms tomorrow night (6th), 8pm, 11 advance.