by: Michael Zabrodsky; Tempo section pages 2, 8-9

Many artists go through times when they take a break, collect their thoughts and search for new ideas.

A time for a "rethink."

The 10,000 Maniacs did that when they took nearly a year off from touring, from the day-to-day grind of the music business. Some members got married and started families; Others got reacquainted with their families.

The time off was not, as some fans might assume, spent away from music. It's evident from Our Time in Eden, the new release on Elektra Records, 10,000 Maniacs, used the time to get to get up close to what's important: their music.

"I think we are still an alternative band," said keyboardist Dennis Drew. "That's an honorable position to be in. It gives a chance at real longevity - as long as we can manage to stay on our toes and keep taking chances. We really haven't hit the mainstream like other bands. I'm proud to be on the cutting edge. We have a big following."

Drew said the band took a step to the beat of still another different drummer for Our Time In Eden. "I think it's a great album. ... I think we took a lot of chances on this record. It's our most diverse record as far as dynamics and musical style."

But Drew says it wasn't all work and no play.

"We had a lot of fun when we did the songs with the horns. We played for the sake of playing. It was a much more relaxed attitude than we have ever had before. We put the horns on, and we had fun with some simple pop songs."

Making an appearance on Our Time in Eden was the James Brown Horns - Maceo Parker, alto saxophone; Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, tenor saxophone; and Fred Wesley, trombone.

"I think we learned a lot about production and had more control over it than we ever did before. It has a bigger, wider sound. I think we matured as a band," Drew said.

10,000 Maniacs' 1985 Elektra debut, The Wishing Chair, was hailed by critics. Because of the band's strenuous touring schedule, original member John Lombardo left the band.

10,000 Maniacs' breakthrough came in 1987 when In My Tribe was released. The band supported the platinum-selling disc with a European tour with X and The Call and extensive touring in the United States including a support slot with R.E.M. The band performed on Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, and Late Night With David Letterman, all which fueled the fire for more national attention.

Blind Man's Zoo, the follow-up album released in 1989, presented a scathing catalogue of the world's ills - povertv, racism and the destruction of the environment.

During the 1990 hiatus, Hope Chest was released. It included cuts from the 1982 Human Conflict No. 5 and Secrets of the I Ching, in 1983. Both of those albums were recorded at the State College of Fredonia and re-mixed in 1990 for the re-release.

Members wanted time to conjure up fresh ideas, and they sought help to translate those ideas from a new producer, Paul Fox. Previously, 10,000 Maniacs worked with Peter Asher on Blind Man's Zoo and In My Tribe, but felt it was time for a change.

"We made up a list of criteria of what we wanted in a producer. A musician in his own right, but not a celebrity, someone who was near to our ages, who'd grown up listening to similar music, and might have produced other who artists we liked," vocalist and lyricist Natalie Merchant said.

Of Fox, she said, "He's a talented producer, diplomatic and open to experimentation. There was a real collaborative air in the studio." Fox has worked with bands such as the Sugarcubes, XTC, Robyn Hitchcock and The Wallflowers.

"When we were looking for a producer, one of our qualifications was we wanted to work with a producer and engineer that could get good sounds and evoke good feel. We wanted to be loose and confident and that's why we worked so hard writing those songs for a year and playing them for a year. One of the reasons we set everything up like that was to be confident when we went into the studio. Paul Fox, our producer, was into ideas, helped us quite a bit to find ways of making that happen," said bassist Steven Gustafson.

From February 1991 to January 1992, the band was writing songs in a studio in the Gokey Center. "Paul Fox came to Jamestown. We met him, we liked him, and we decided to take a few weeks off," Gustafson added.

At the end of March, the band traveled to Bearsville Studios in Bearsville, N.Y. and did two weeks of pre-production work for Our Time in Eden. "We ironed out the arrangements. I had a few bass parts I wasn't really sure about on some of these songs. I just had some simple ideas," he said. "We all sat down and looked at it to see what we could do about it."

After the pre-production, the band did two-weeks of shows in the Northeast practicing the songs. The band took some more time off and headed back to Bearsville with confidence.

"Paul Fox sort of let the reins and said Go ahead, tear it up. Don't worry about making mistakes; we'll just play it until it feels right," the bassist said.

From the first few jamming sessions of what was to be Our Time in Eden, the band worked together in a different way. "From the very beginning, it was different," Gustafson said. "Three tracks were written by all of us. We tried an approach to writing songs. Natalie had purchased a stack of flash cards that had all of the major and minor keys on them. We picked a card and announced that was going to be the key. Jerry (Augustyniak) would give us a count and lay down a drum groove, and we would just jam. It wasn't just jamming on a 1-4-5 standard rock thing (chord progression). Everyone was just playing. It sounded like nonsense. What was very difficult was listening back to like 50 hours of that stuff trying to find a song in there. Eventually someone would find their way through, and what we did was just listen to each other.

"We played off of each other. We have a lot of songs like this that we didn't put on the album. ... Suddenly it was all jelling without any verbal communication. It was all musical communication," Gustafson said.

"Some people call it jamming," Drew said of the flash cards. "We always had a starting point. We started with key signatures and progression number, just to take the weight off at the beginning."

The bassist said the band played in almost every key.

In the rehearsals the members worked on verbal communication.

"We had spent eight years together, almost continuous, and then we took the long break. Then we reacquainted ourselves with each other and renewed our friendships. We hashed out any personal problems we had with each other and sort of cleared the air and started fresh," Gustafson said.

"Instead of writing in isolation and then bringing the songs to the group we worked together. Three songs on the album, Stockton Gala Days, Circle Dream, and the title track Eden were written in this mode," Ms. Merchant said.

Gustafson said this album sounds different from past albums, and he is happy with the result.

"Sonically this album sounds incredible. A lot of that credit goes to Paul Fox and Ed Thacker and Dennis Drew. Dennis was really adamant when we got the first mixes back. He wanted it to sound more open and deeper. We experimented with sounds."

When recording Augustyniak's bass drum, the engineer put a field bass drum in front of the drumset bass drum and let the sympathetic vibration from the kit bass drum move the field drum. The mike in front of the field drum picked up the result.

"It was a slightly different tone and about a second late, so it's like a natural delay. As far as drums, we used just the room ambiance," Gustafson said.

The band had just come off of a mini-tour promoting Our Time in Eden at the end of the summer. A week before the tour, drummer Jerome Augustyniak broke his collarbone when he was struck by a car while riding his bicycle. Max Weinberg, who has played with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, filled in for the injured Augustyniak.

"Max did fine. He's a professional. He charted out every song and played them close to how Jerry plays them. Somehow Max Weinberg heard about it. His wife liked us and he heard about the gig, and he liked us, so he called our office, and we, said, 'Great!'," Gustafson said.

Weinberg then came to Jamestown and did some rehearsals at the Reg Lenna Civic Center. On Oct. 20, the band was at the Reg Lenna Center rehearsing with Augustyniak, resuming his duties. "The time now is to get Jerry back in shape. ... Max Weinberg filled in for him and did an admirable job. It's great to have Jerry back," Drew said.

The band was also using the time to practice B-sides on soon to be released singles. A few possible choices are Jolene by Dolly Parton; Sallyann by the Horse Flies; Don't Go Back to Rockville by R.E.M. and To Sir With Love by Lulu.

If you get a chance to see the band perform this year, you may see another face on stage. Amanda Kramer is touring with the band, playing Ms. Merchant's piano parts, and also playing acoustic guitar. She was also in Jamestown rehearsing at the Civic Center.

"I feel great playing with them on tour. It's a great experience. I had met Natalie in New York City last year. After they recorded the album, she called me to play her piano parts on the record. That's what I am doing - live," she said.

Ms. Merchant described what actually drew her to music and what effect it has on her: "One of the things that drew me to playing music was its transcendent quality. It has ability to move me into another space, change my mood. I realized that some of the music I've loved most was inspirational, uplifting. We've never fully explored that aspect in our music.

"We as a band think about everything," she added. "We think things to death. I had held the belief that pop wasn't pure somehow. This was a big admission because I had been condescending. But some of my most transcendent moments came from pop records."

She also shed light on how she approaches songwriting.

"I don't assemble or approach songwriting in terms of theme. It seems too methodical. But I have noticed that many songs on this album are our most optimistic. In the past, there would be a topic that I was consumed with at the moment. And I knew I would discuss it in the song to the point where I would almost victimize the song. This time, I just wanted to write beautiful words that would accompany beautiful music. Every single lyric was inspired by the music."

Gustafson is excited about this new album. He said the songs get tighter everytime the band plays.

"Most of the songs on this album are slower. If you listen to our albums in a chronological order, if you average the speeds of each song on each album, I think it generally gets slower. Pop music on the radio is all around 100 beats per minute," he added. "We have gotten slower. Part of that is maybe because of age; we are getting older. We made a point when we started this album. We were talking about which way we wanted to go, and we really wanted to be more groove oriented, " he explained.

While the band was idle, the members spent time honing their skills, both as musicians and as a band. All of the members agree, the band has come of age and its sound has matured and gained a refinement.

"It's been three years since we had new music out. We took pretty much all of 1990 off except for a couple months when we did the Hope Chest tour. All of 1991 we spent in Jamestown at Dave Cusimano's Studio (Music Unlimited) in the Gokey Center, writing songs for this album. We started in February 1991. We took 1990 off to get away from the whole scene and get away from each other and relax and do our own things for a while. As far as our relationships we felt it was necessary to take a break. Although we haven't had anything new in three years, I think it was a very smart thing to do. I am very excited about having a new album out. I think our sound has matured," Gustafson added.

Our Time in Eden reflects a new direction. The songs are different, the style of music is different, and the sounds are different. These musicians were committed to achieving something different, something new. The album is a result of a full year of steady work, and "the songs seem to reflect the seasons during which they were written. The promise of spring, the freedom of summer, the introspection of fall, the isolation of winter," Ms. Merchant said.

A check with local record stores revealed that Our Time in Eden is selling. Radio stations WRLP Rock 103 in Russell and WWSE SE93 in Jamestown currently have the new single These Are Days in heavy rotation.

"I like listening to These Are Days," Gustafson said. "I think that is very moving. It has beautiful lyrics."

Proposed tour dates are as follows: