by: George Kalogerakis (page 7)
10,000 Maniacs has come a long way from Jamestown. What's been best, worst and most surprising about success?
The best thing is the fact that we've become professional, that I can do this for a living. I always wanted to be an artist - dreams come true. I can't think of anything bad. We're not really at the level where privacy is an issue, or we have to decide whether or not to play to 30,000 people in an arena. What was the third part? Most surprising? I think the fact that a lot of our fans seem to be people I'd like, people who could be friends.
The new album Our Tune in Eden, has seven songs credited solely to you. Are you writing more these days?
I'm writing the same amount, but I think I'm a little more bold in my presentations to the band. [laughs] I used to hoard songs away. I have this feeling that everything I do needs to be sheltered because I'm still in a period of growth and learning. I even play piano on, I think, eight of the songs on the record. I guess it's because I've been practicing a lot ... in my isolation. [laughs]
It was reported a while back that you might do a solo album.
People have been saying that since I was 12 years old. I would love to record some different songs. I've written with other people and I'd like to do that some more, so that's a possibility. But I really don't know. I did just record a song that I wrote with R.E.M. It's going on a benefit record for the National Abortion Rights Action League.
Is there a 10,000 Maniacs tour in the works?
Our drummer [Jerry Augustyniak] was just hit by a car while riding his bicycle. It's hard to play a drum with a broken clavicle. So we're at this point sort of scrambling to play the first month or so with a different drummer. We're just all trying to deal with Jerry's injury. He's so disappointed and sad and in pain, and we've got the record coming out and we feel obligated to at least go out and play the major cities and let people know we're still alive.
Any song on 0ur Time in Eden you're especially fond of?
Noah's Dove. It's very lush and beautiful, which was sort of my intention for most of the album. I just said it over and over, 'lush and beautiful, lush and beautiful.' [laughs] And I love the song How You've Grown. People cry when they hear it. I definitely cry when I listen to music - and I laugh and I dance. I respond to music faster than to any other form. Cinema is too specific. That's why I hate videos so much.
Did you base I'm Not the Man, in which they hang the wrong guy, on a specific incident?
Yes, I did, but I don't really want to mention it. Because it's happening in so many states in this country on such a regular basis that I don't really want to concentrate on one. When it does happen, I'm just reminded of what a barbaric practice it is. There was some discussion among band members that the songs Tolerance and I'm Not the Man were just too dark for the album. But I believe in balance. I just feel that beauty and tragedy exist everywhere, and that to make an album that is only concentrating on positive and beautiful subject matter - it's not honest. It's not the way that I see the world.
Many of your songs are imbued with a sense of time gone by. Where does Gold Rush Brides come from?
Diaries of frontier women. There were entries where they would just casually mention that they'd given birth that morning and a few months later mention that the baby had died. I wanted this album to be very visceral - with very visceral descriptions. A lot of references to sensation.
What about Stockton Gala Days?
I had this revelation years ago that in so many of our songs the lyrics were in total opposition to the music. So I've been making an attempt to try to come up with music and lyrics that are more in harmony: 'What experience does this music seem to accompany?' And with Stockton Gala Days, whenever we played that song, all I thought of was being a young girl and having the true friendships that we have when we're young. I had a rural upbringing and I feel very close to - I don't want to sound like a hippie girl, but I spent a lot of time in grape vineyards and cornfields and the forest, and that song just brought to mind how happy I was when I was younger, and that feeling of summer and this great expanse of time that summer was, and how I spent it, and who I spent it with. But then there was a haunting bridge that kept returning, this D-minor that I had to make sense of. [laughs] So I had to make it almost nostalgic. That's the thing about writing. I'll have a lyric in place and suddenly this minor chord will come from nowhere and change the entire tone and direction of the song. So, anyway, it was going to be a cheerful song set in the present, but then that D-minor spoiled everything.