by: Sandy Adzgery (section: features page: E1)

"We tried to make it different, and I think we did," Dennis Drew says of 10,000 Maniacs' latest album, Our Time In Eden. It's the group's first release in three years, and Drew says the time off inspired them to change the way they wrote and recorded their music.

"We had a lot of time to relax and get back in touch with ourselves," he explained. "Then, when we came together again to work, we wanted to break out of the mold and do something different. We tried to be creative. We've already done folk/rock ditties, so we wanted to try something new. The great thing was that everyone was on the same page; everyone wanted the same thing."

And while the group has long been seen as lead singer Natalie Merchant's band, Drew and Jerome Augustyniak, Robert Buck and Steven Gustafson all took a greater role in the writing and recording process this time.

"We all wanted something that was more inclusive - more contributions from everyone," Drew said. "It's not that we had a problem with our old material, it was just time for a change."

The new and improved 10,000 Maniacs will appear at UH's Cullen auditorium Sunday, and Drew said the changes in the band's sound should stand out from the material from their other albums.

"We approached Our Time In Eden differently," he said. "We approached it in more of a workshop way - trying to break down the form of songwriting that we'd used for so long. We tried to get away from the usual toe-tapping, folk/rock ditties, and we tried to create something with a little more mystery and a little more music involved."

Drew admitted the change was a direct result of their vacation.

"We didn't want it to be a factory where we kept cranking out the old stuff over and over again, but that was what it was turning into. We'd just been doing the same thing over and over - tour, write songs, record, tour again. It just went over and over. We finished our tour for In My Tribe in May of '88 and we wrote all the songs for Blind Man's Zoo that summer. We were back in the studio that fall and back out on tour the following spring. It was just a chance for us to catch our breath and put a little distance between ourselves and our music, so we could see what we were doing and where we wanted to go next."

With millions of records sold and two appearences on Saturday Night Live, 10,000 Maniacs have become the folk/rock darlings of alternative and rock radio. But Drew knows they were dangerously close to being typecast as gloom and doom sayers with the heavy subject matter of many of their songs. The charge had been made, more than once, that here was a band who took itself way too seriously.

"I think the last album, Blind Man's Zoo, gave people that idea," he said. "That was mostly because of Natalie's lyrics, because they are very serious. But the music is on a different level. To be honest, yes, we were a little concerned that we did have that reputation of being a very serious, brooding band that dealt with big issues, and it was something that we wanted to try and change.

"So with the new album, there was a conscious effort to lighten things up a little bit," he said.

Although all the words are Natalie Merchant's, Drew said band members don't have a problem that she's speaking for all of them.

"That's not really an issue, because the music is what we're about too. The music of the drums, guitars and keyboards - that's the vehicle that the words ride on. On the radio - or first or second listens - people can't even understand the lyrics, anyway. So the first feeling anyone gets is from the music. That is representative of all of us. The second layer - the deeper layer - is Natalie's lyrics. A lot of bands can't function on two levels, but it works really well for us."

10,000 Maniacs, like R.E.M., are the college bands that made good. Hip listeners always seemed to think they were the only ones in on the secret, and meanwhile, the groups quietly racked up millions of record sales. Drew said he and the other members of the group used to joke about what they felt would be their limited appeal.

"We always thought we would appeal to people who could read and write, and in America, that number is continually getting smaller and smaller."

Therefore, is he surprised by their success?

"I don't know," he answered. "Sometimes it's hard to see the old forest for the old trees. When you're in it, you just keep expecting more and more people to like what you do. We don't have any type of mega-success - that's a complete misnomer. I don't make as much money as a doctor or a dentist or anything like that, and I can't afford to buy a foreign car. It's not like we're wildly successful. Three of us still live in Jamestown, N.Y., in little houses. We have a nice living, and that's all it is. We are in a sense more famous than we are wealthy.

"But I'm really comfortable with the level of success that we've reached, because it hasn't changed my life terribly," he added. "It seems very natural to me. I get to make records and go on tour, but I don't really have to handle all the trappings of success that I read about in magazines. For me, it's a perfect world."