by: Jim Morrison (section: preview page: o5)

Not that he much cared for it, but 10,000 Maniacs drummer Jerry Augustyniak got a new perspective on his longtime band the other month.

Just as the group was preparing to head out on tour, Augustyniak fell off his bike and broke his collarbone. So Max Weinberg, late of the E Street Band, replaced him for some early tour dates while Augustyniak watched from the wings.

"It was kind of interesting to see us from that standpoint. It was such an emotional thing," Augustyniak said last week from New York. "I just thought the band sounded really good. I was impressed more than anything else."

So much so that he couldn't wait to get back. The day after the interview was his first chance - an appearance with the band on "Saturday Night Live" to play These Are Days, the fast-charting first single from the new album Our Time in Eden, and Candy Everybody Wants, a horn-fueled departure from the Maniacs' shimmering folk-rock style.

Not a bad place to return. It was, after all, an appearance on SNL back in 1988 that propelled the Maniacs into the big leagues of pop. The song was Like the Weather from the album In My Tribe, an unlikely million seller.

But it has been three years since their last disc, 1989's Blind Man's Zoo, an often-dark look at everything from racism and poverty to political irresponsibility and environmental destruction.

In that time, Augustyniak said the quintet took a sabbatical.

"'We took a year off and tried to establish ourselves as adults in the sense that some of us got married, some of us bought houses," he says. "Initially buying a house was scary. And initially the thought of getting married was a little scary, but . . . ."

His wife, Dena, interrupts in the background to call getting married "a lot scary."

"But now," he said, "it's great."

Taking that time was good, too, for the band's personal and artistic health. "We had a lot more fun making this record than Blind Man's Zoo," Augustyniak said. "It's hard to describe the tension in the air during Blind Man's Zoo. Personal tension. And we were having a hard time coming up with material.

With Natalie Merchant again supplying the bulk of the songs - she gets sole credit for seven of the disc's 13 tunes - they took about a year, even writing together as a band for the first time.

As a result, the songs shift in focus and style as much as any on previous Maniacs' discs. There's the dark, hushed story of an innocent man headed for execution in I'm Not the Man. The James Brown Horns lend a kick to the personal agony o Few and Far Between. And there's the exuberant, more familiar folk base of These Are Days.

"It took such a large span of time," Augustyniak says of Eden. "I think some of the songs reflected the first sunny days of spring. Some of the songs reflected being in snow up to your knees with the wind blowing around."

Helping to keep the writing from extending over several more seasons was producer Paul Fox, working with the band for the first time. After two albums with legendary producer Peter Asher, the group decided to try somebody new.

Fox, who has produced XTC, Robyn Hitchcock and the Sugarcubes, brought a broader sonic palette and an adventuresome attitude.

Paul was real down to earth," Augustyniak said. "He seemed to be willing to do more, to take more chances."

Our Time in Eden looks likely to become the biggest 10,000 Maniacs album yet, something Augustyniak credits to the band's hard road work and solid planning.

On tour, the band will play a mixture of tunes going back to 1985's The Wishing Chair, its first Elektra album. Among its highlights was the rerelease of My Mother the War, a song that famed British DJ John Peel championed on the BBC back in 1984.

Eleven years after forming as a punk and reggae cover band, 10,000 Maniacs finds itself with a healthy career as pop stars, something Augustyniak finds a little amusing.