by: Michele Kirsch (page 26)

"It's the most boring thing in the world to talk about yourself", sighs Natalie Merchant, singer with 10,000 Maniacs. That she is advised to do the most boring thing in the world five times today to people she's never met, and will repeat the experience again tomorrow speaks volumes for her triumph of good business sense over flakey, artistic temperament: which quashes exaggerated rumours of her eccentricity immediately.

"10,000 Maniacs is a band," says Merchant, in the way that Debbie Harry used to say that Blondie was a group. As the only singer, the main lyricist and the only female of the band, not to mention the only one who can do pirouettes to a non-ballet beat without throwing up - Merchant is the focal point.

Our Time in Eden, the band's fourth album, marks no great departure from the swirling, circular guitar sound and breezily laid back singing that made the Maniacs so big on the American College radio circuit. The album has more references to the Good Book than the rainforests chopped down to reproduce it; so, has Merchant eliminated the middleman of obligatory drug addiction en route to Born Again Credibility, or has she just been holed in too many motel rooms with nothing else to read?

"I don't read the Bible regularly," admits Merchant, who nonetheless seems to have grasped the basic plot and even attempts to draw upon spirituality versus feminism by suggesting that God and Jesus were on power trips. Though instantly making amends to be terminally politically correct: "I wouldn't dream of judging a culture that happened 2000 years ago. I come from a country that has such a long history of cultural imperialism, of disrupting the lives of indigenous people."

Merchant, it would seem, enjoys addressing the big issues in life, thinking nothing of discussing child abuse to toxic waste problems. And if she ever felt guilt by association, she must have secured a place in clear-conscience land not only through her extra curricular activities (including a stint as a worker in a children's hostel), but through articulate and informative discussions about her songs with the media. If it were not for her joyful, twirling performances and uplifting melodies, she could have been an Oxfam-wardrobed version of Tanita Tikaram.

The eco-friendly love of nature vibe apparent on this record and all the others has early roots. "I love being in the forest. We used to go camping a lot as kids, and we were always playing outdoors, partly because we weren't allowed to watch television", confesses Merchant. "It happened when pay TV came to our town. We were all watching Lenny and my parents walked in to find us listening to this stream of obscenities. My mother took the TV away. Of course, now I can see the sense in it and thank her for it."

Merchant grew up in Jamestown, New York - a town she likened to the surreal one in Blue Velvet. Though she hasn't mined the weird, small town Americans theme for all its songworthiness, she's captured it in the track Stockton Gala Days - a lovely, sepia tinged photo montage of a song. "Ha! Stockton isn't exactly a small town. It's more like a place where two main roads meet. Every year they have this festival."

That scene of timelessness and tradition is preserved in Gold Rush Brides: "I was reading a book about the women who were brought out West during the Gold Rush. They were incredibly brave and strong, but a lot of them just didn't want to go." The reluctant heroine is a role not lost on Merchant; her band is approached by every case (and its sister movement) to play benefits, four out of five which they have to turn down. "It's very hard to say no. There are so many people and places that need aid, but I think it's more effective to devote yourself to one issue that you really know about. I've been asked to speak at environmental rallies because I'm in this band and have this profile, and I know they have activists and scientists who know so much more about it than I do - and would be better speakers."

With the world on her manager's phone, if not her doorstep, it's a wonder Merchant didn't consider launching her own career as a miserablist singer-songwriter. On the contrary, her outlook is disarmingly positive, if somewhat sober.

Asked to expand on her idea of Eden, she pauses and repeats, "Eden?"

Yeah. As in Our Time In, Garden of, Adam and Eve, Paradise and all that.

She thinks for a minute and replies, "Tolerance of others."