by: Michael Norman
There is a fun-loving practical joker lurking somewhere beneath Natalie Merchant's grim, media-generated exterior.
She emerges quite often, actually. At last year's Lilith Fair, she materialized in the form of show-stopping prankster, drenching overheated fellow performers and sun-baked audiences with a semi-automatic water gun. A few weeks ago, she found her way to "Sesame Street," where she teamed up with Muppet Prairie Dawn on a goofy cover of the Carpenters' kitschy '70s pop hit Sing.
Is this the same Merchant whose political crusading and superserious, topical songwriting has led some critics to brand her a modern-day suffragette?
"I think that getting into a one-woman campaign to convince the media that I have a sense of humor would be a big failure," says Merchant with a laugh in a telephone interview from her base in New York City. "The people who come to my concerts know that they will receive a range of emotions. I can be extremely lighthearted and I can also be serious. I can be angry. I can be joyful.
"That's what my life is about. Hopefully, that is what everybody's life is about - experiencing the full range of human emotions."
Merchant, the former lead singer of the 10,000 Maniacs, released her second solo album, Ophelia, last year. She is nearing the end of a yearlong tour that included a prime spot on last summer's Lilith Fair. She performs tonight in Cleveland as the opening act of Bob Dylan's show at the Cleveland State University Convocation Center.
Merchant, 35, was still in high school when she joined the Maniacs in their hometown of Jamestown, N.Y. She stayed with the otherwise all-male group for 12 years, collaborating on a string of successful albums, including In My Tribe, Our Time in Eden and 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged.
The band was at the peak of its popularity in the early 1990s when Merchant quit to pursue her own vision. She has never looked back. Her 1995 debut album, Tigerlily, has sold more than 3 million copies since its release. Ophelia has sold 1 million copies during the past year and remains on the Billboard 200 album chart.
"I'm very happy with where I'm at now," Merchant says. "I'm very comfortable now being a solo artist. It took me a awhile. I never really had any formal training as a musician. Basically, I just learned from doing. And I had to learn to be a songwriter for myself. I had to learn how to put together my own band and produce a record. I think I've learned very well."
On Tigerlily, Merchant scaled back, dropped the post-modern flower-girl pose that marked her work with the Maniacs and created a sparse, deeply personal (and to the surprise of some) sensual record. Ophelia is a more sophisticated album both lyrically and musically. Merchant sings against a lush backdrop of orchestral arrangements, boosted by the contributions of more than 30 musicians.
"Ophelia is a step above Tigerlily," she says. "I like Tigerlily. I think it's a very sweet album. But on Ophelia, the songwriting is a little more sophisticated. The arrangements are definitely more complex because of all the musicians who contributed their talents to the record. And my producing is much more relaxed. The whole record feels more developed."
Working as a solo artist can be a lonely occupation, especially for someone who literally grew up in a band. But Merchant feels she has the best of both worlds now.
"I create that collaborative feeling with the people I work with," she says. "It's a better thing because I'm not suffocated by the notion that if something doesn't work out, that I'm stuck with the situation. I have the final say."
Merchant plans to tour until May, then take some time off to travel for fun before heading back home to write and record a new album.
"I have no idea at this point what it's going to sound like," she says. "I really don't. I've got so many directions I want to go, I wish I could make five records for my next record."
For now, she is concentrating on enjoying the road, especially her opening slot for Dylan.
"I love 'His Bobness,' she said. "I was on the same bill with him once when we did the opening concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But this is my first double bill with him. It's very exciting. I am in no way jaded."