By Kerry Gold
Natalie Merchant has, quite literally, grown up in the glare of the music business -- and her indie roots are showing. Merchant has spent more than half her life evolving under the watchful eye of music fans and media, who've seen her develop from unsure 17-year-old singer of college-radio favourites 10,000 Maniacs to sombre-faced solo artist with two successful records to her name.
The Maniacs were initially harbingers of an era when alternative music still thrived and major record companies had little to do with it. The Maniacs, from Jamestown, N.Y., never scored a top 10 hit yet cultivated a massive loyal audience through college and alternative radio.
Merchant left the band in 1993 to pursue a multiplatinum solo career and greater artistic control. Her first album, Tigerlily, released in 1995, debuted at No. 13. Her latest album, Ophelia, entered the Billboard charts at No. 8 last year. The only optimistic song off that elegantly staid album became a hit single, Kind and Generous.
It's routine for critics to both fawn and groan over Merchant's dark and luxurious artistic stylings -- she's a strange, hard-to-peg dilettante they'll never understand and never quite love, either. Fans, however, are far more forgiving, embracing Merchant as a former indie queen who's transformed herself into a poster girl for environmental and social justice.
"The Maniacs were very independent in their thinking, but I was still a member of a group," she says, on the phone from a tour date in Hawaii. "We were pretty uncompromising, and did things the way we wanted to, quietly and steadfastly. We never really had huge success. It was a steady accumulation of a following, a base of fans, and I think I took a lot of those fans with me when I went out on my own, and that was a good feeling."
Merchant has paid a small price for her unwavering devotion to independence and artistic licence. When she slipped out from the security of the band, she may not have counted on the glare getting hotter. Merchant became a ready-made personality, subject to personal and professional scrutiny more than ever before.
Merchant doesn't goof around, get giddy or make public appearances dressed in designer gowns. Instead, she presents a serious countenance to the world, drops phrases like "the human condition" and, in performance, seems to get lost in her own sleepy trance, pirouetting across the stage rather than entertaining her audiences with Hello Cleveland-style banter. At a press conference for the kickoff of Lilith Fair in Portland, Ore., last year, there was an awkward and confused silence as Merchant tried to engage reporters in a discussion of the ethnic makeup of Oregon. In a one-of-a-kind marketing move, she released a companion film with her last album in which she plays seven different roles, including Mob moll and suffragette, speaking in seven different languages. One U.S. critic sniped that the film was borderline deranged.
"It's sometimes frustrating, because I would like to be perceived as a person who has more than one dimension," says Merchant. "But if that's the dimension, then that's fine with me, because I'd rather be taken seriously than never be taken seriously.
"I don't take myself half as seriously as most people in the press do," she adds.
On the phone, Merchant, 35, seems more mellow than no-fun do-gooder. Her voice croaks sleepily, she hesitates frequently and she's homey enough to take a break from the interview to check on her four-curry dinner for guests that night. Merchant is one of those rare performers who's managed to cultivate an image of sex appeal without the cleavage or glossy parted-lip shots. On-stage, her sensuous earth-mother moves, hips swaying in long skirts like a belly dancer on Halcion, inspired a male fan at the Portland show to swoon: "She's the only woman I'd leave my wife for."
Busy with her own tour, Merchant has opted out of Lilith Fair this year, citing the fact that she'd already performed the full 57 dates for last year's Lilith. "We're talking about doing a few of the dates at the end, just because it's Sarah's last Lilith Fair for awhile. They'll be putting it on hold for a few years."
Her ease of performance hasn't come easily. If Merchant appears stony-faced in public, it could be more symptomatic of residual stage fright than an austere personality. Appearances on TV, such as Late Night with David Letterman, initially terrified the singer, although after 13 appearances on that show alone she says she's learned to be composed.
As well, playing in soft-seat theatres rattled her, since she'd evolved before college crowds who'd aimlessly packed wet-walled auditoriums. Merchant performs Saturday at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre before wrapping up her year-long tour in June. "I used to let that throw me off, thinking that people aren't enjoying it if they sat," she says. "But I guess I've become more comfortable with performing, and I can deal with people sitting now."
She is hard on herself: "I find that touring is only as good as the last show I did. I have a really short memory for how great it felt when I had a great show. If I have a bad show, I want to go home the next day."
She is an exacting and diligent songwriter, having already written several new songs during breaks on her tour. Merchant's last project was a somber, reflective album that was morose lyrically and musically. A deliberate songwriter, she crafts albums at her piano, not singles, although she recognizes that hits are a required part of the job.
"They have stereo systems that have pre-programmed reverb, that sort of thing," she laments. "You can make it sound like the song is played in a jazz club or a stadium. It's funny, you spend months trying to get something perfect, and someone can press a button and mess with your work."
There is a dose of the drama queen about Merchant, who tends to worship at the altar of the art god rather than the rock god. Her 23-minute, one-woman Ophelia art film was shown at a dozen album launch parties, as well as two film festivals. In explaining why she chose to do the film, Merchant lets slip some egalitarian ideals. She is, contrary to her media image, capable of laughing at her own idealism.
"Um, well, I realized that ... uh. ... my work demands that I know about the various visual areas, and I've always designed my own record company." She laughs at her slip of the tongue. "I wish I could [do that]. Everyone would have to fly coach," she says, laughing again. "And all bands would get full medical insurance.
"I meant I've always designed my record covers, and posters, and you know, I always pick my own directors for videos and all that. So I just take it to the next level.
"I just wanted to take more control over that image-making machine and do something more creative," she adds, more succinctly.
Merchant would like to explore the visual realm further, in the form of acting. Although she's read numerous scripts, she has yet to find one suitable to her social conscience. She is impressed by the time-capsule quality of a gospel singer like Mahalia Jackson appearing in 1940s films. She would like to do a small walk-on part, such as Tom Waits did so brilliantly in The Fisher King. "I have been reading scripts and meeting with directors, but I've been doing that for years," she says. "I'm very picky. It has to be a film that says something about the human condition or spirit, and something that I want said, or I can't do it. I know how I feel when I walk away from a film, and it has to be really clever for me to be entertained."
Such a statement is precisely the kind of mild arrogance that has earned her barbs in the press. If she's too proud, too defensive, it may be that she's simply a young musician who's matured in a business that's unforgiving, no matter where you're at in your professional and personal development. Merchant seems aware that both her flaws and successes are up for critique, and it's up to her to defend them. "The only thing that hurts sometimes is this impression that I'm extremely didactic or prudish," she says.
"I feel I'm a musician, not a rock musician, and that gives me more latitude, longititude, and hopefully I can grow and change, and not have people lament how things were when I was young and rebellious and raunchy or whatever.
"On some of those early records, I do have my moments of embarrassment, but I'd like to see your journals from 17."