How did the 10,000 Maniacs projects come about?
Howard Thompson, A&R Man at Elektra, had the idea, which I think was brave of him. It was brave of him, and brave of them. Because it clearly left them open to the criticism of "this hip young band is hiring this old-fart producer because they want to get themselves a hit." Because that's certainly a perception that could have been applied to it. Howard asked if I would like to do 10,000 Maniacs, but I hadn't heard of them. He sent me their existing albums. I really loved them, and I thought Natalie Merchant's voice was extraordinary. I really loved the songs. I met Natalie and liked her a lot. She is very direct, very intelligent. We talked about almost nothing to do with music. She asked if I smoked. I told her that I never had. She said, "Oh, good!" And that was it. I did not know how the meeting had gone. Howard called me back and said that they had liked me, and everything was fine. I was really very happy to do that because I hadn't done a band for a long, long time.
Natalie Merchant is another person who is thought of as strong-willed ....
The band as a whole wasn't the easiest thing in the world, because they don't get on with each other terribly well all the time. But I don't think any bands do. If you stick any four or five people on a bus together for a few months on the road, they probably end up with a number of aspects of each other that would be less than fun. But, no, I did not find Natalie difficult. Whatever difficulties that arose in the course of either of those records, and there were no major ones, were mostly due to the simple fact that the members of the band were not necessarily the best of friends all the time. Now, as far as I understand it, they are getting on very well.