OK, that's Natalie Merchant. But the band 10,000 Maniacs also includes Rob Buck, guitar, Dennis Drew, keyboards, Jerome Augustyniak, drums, and Steven Gustafson, bass. To the public and much of the media, they seem lost in Natalie Merchant's shadow, but all are accomplished musicians who have helped make the Maniacs among the hottest acts in contemporary music with the album Our Time in Eden.
The irony is that despite Merchant's dominating presence, the album is the most collaborative Maniacs effort in years.
"The real story of this band is that we're getting along better than ever before," Dennis Drew said. "Right now, I think the band is more comfortable and tolerant of each other, and better able to work together."
The results have been staggering:
Our Time in Eden, released last fall, started slowly but has turned into a smash. It has sold close to 900,000 copies, earned a gold record and is expected soon to go platinum (over 1 million in sales).
The band's last single, These Are Days, was adopted by the new Fox television series "Class of '96," and has become a favorite of teens and college students around the country. The group's current single, Candy Everybody Wants, is one of the most popular songs on commercial radio and could become the biggest hit single of the band's career, which spans more than a decade.
The Maniacs appeared at the MTV Inaugural Ball for President Clinton. During that gig they performed These Are Days, and also played a couple of songs with alternative superstars R.E.M.
10,000 Maniacs will perform on MTV's prestigious "Unplugged" show in April. The band will return home for two Western New York performances this summer, at Artpark and the Chautauqua Institution.
Merchant is featured on the cover of the current Rolling Stone, and a profile of the band is inside rock's most prestigious magazine. Merchant finished fourth in a recent Rolling Stone poll that asked readers to name their favorite female singer.
This surge of popularity is immensely satisfying for a band that had been written off by many critics three years ago after sales slumped for its album Blind Man's Zoo. The new album also was panned by critics, but that hasn't stopped the Maniacs from soaring on the record charts.
"What's happened has been very gratifying," Drew said. "A lot of critics wrote us off as being just another soft-rock band, and that ticked us off. We changed our music and tried some new things on this album. We took some chances and it paid off. Young people have been buying our record, but we still get a lot of people in their 30s and some in their 40s at our shows."
Merchant, in her late 20s, remains the epicenter of the Maniacs. She has a dynamic stage presence to go with a haunting voice and enigmatic personality. On stage, Merchant seems to change personalities at a moment's notice. One second she's calm and understated, the next she's spinning, whirling and shouting. She'll stop a concert at any moment to lecture an audience or hold a discussion.
Such actions are in tune with Merchant's unpredictable nature. She loves the unexpected. At the Inauguration Ball, she combined with her close friend Michael Stipe, lead singer for R.E.M., for a duet on the old '60s ballad To Sir With Love.
Those kinds of antics have earned Merchant a reputation as rock's weird chick, but that attitude may be male backlash. In a rock music universe dominated by men and sexist attitudes, Merchant not only fronts but also leads an all-male band, writes songs and usually is the only band member to appear in its videos.
"I think it was a natural process that the older I got the more I demanded attention and power," Merchant told Rolling Stone, adding that it wasn't meant "in a negative sense."
Merchant is a strict vegetarian who uses her role as a pop star to speak out on issues such as abortion rights and the environment.
When asked to comment about Merchant, Dennis Drew says: "I'm kind of sick about being questioned about Natalie. I mean, what can I say? She's good to work with and brilliant at what she does, but it's the music that matters most with this band. It's the music that keeps us together. The idea of a band being some sort of perfect democracy is fiction. Natalie writes the lyrics and we tend to be a vehicle for her lyrics. I mean, we'd all like to be on the cover of Rolling Stone, too, but it's obvious to us that's not going to happen."
Rolling Stone stuck to the stereotypical 10,000 Maniacs story line. "You know, eccentric Natalie and the regular guys from Jamestown," Drew said. "There's nothing new there. Journalists have been writing that for years. I thought the Rolling Stone story was incredibly superficial. I mean, we've all grown up, and it gets tiresome reading the same thing."
The group's roots stretch back to 1980, when Gustafson and Drew were students at Jamestown Community College. They met Merchant, who was 16, and also John Lombardo, who became a founding member and dominant force in the band. They played their first gig in 1981, as Buck joined the group and, later, Augustyniak came along. In 1984 the 10,000 Maniacs were signed by Elektra Records.
During the band's formative years, Merchant's presence was far less dominating. "There was real kinetic energy in the group because of its musical range," Lombardo said. "Rob Buck is a great guitar player. There was a terrific interplay between Natalie's voice and Rob's guitar. It was very avant-garde. Now, I think, the band is marketed as Natalie as the lead singer with the guys playing fairly anonymous roles on stage."
In 1985, the band released The Wishing Chair, a critically acclaimed album that received little support from the record company or commercial radio. Lombardo then left the band just before the Maniacs hit it big with their next album, In My Tribe, which sold more than a million copies.
Lombardo wanted to go in a different musical direction, but still gets along with the band members and understands the group's current success. "In a day and age when female singers are taking their clothes off, Natalie has become a cultural icon for her anti-establishment views," Lombardo said. "It's a good thing, in a sense, because she has politicized a lot of young people. You look at most of the bands on MTV, and compared to them, the Maniacs are a breath of fresh air."
Lombardo adds, however, that Merchant is "a very complex person."
"Natalie has a certain look and acts a little strange at times, but I think her eccentricity has now became accepted as normality," said Scottpatrik Sellitto, who promotes new and alternative music in Buffalo. "It's like R.E.M. For a long time they were alternative, but now they're a huge mainstream success. I think it's the same with the Maniacs."
One reason is hard work. The Maniacs have been touring and recording for a decade. In the early days the band featured an eclectic, folky sound. The Maniacs, like R.E.M. and other bands in the early alternative movement, took on political issues.
The group became a college favorite and now, 10 years later, are attracting an even younger audience.
"This is a band that's paid its dues and then some," said Mike Faley, a Buffalo native who is now president of Metal Blade Records in Los Angeles. "People tend to forget how talented the guys are because so much attention is focused on Natalie."
The band has had internal differences. "The toughest time was between when John Lombardo left and now," Drew said. "It was a very contentious period. We had conflicts, but music was the one thing that kept us together."
The music changed with the new album, and so did Merchant and the band. On Our Time in Eden, the Maniacs lightened up and took a soulful, more contemporary turn. These Are Days is a bouncy, optimistic song about living and enjoying life in the present. Few and Far Between is an up-tempo soul number that harks back to Motown.
Instead of writing by herself, Merchant sat with the band and responded to their music. She even played keyboards on several cuts, including Noah's Dove, which features a keyboard line to start the record.
Merchant had been hesitant to play an instrument with the band. "I always had the little sister syndrome -- you know, you can't play football with us, you're not big enough," Merchant told Billboard. "Whether the band ever said that or not, I always felt that's the way it was."
The Maniacs sensed a special unity on the new album. "We got together and finished the first song in two weeks," Drew said. "It just seemed we felt good and confident with each other."
Merchant also recognized the change in the creative process.
"With previous records I'd always have something I wanted to write about and I didn't give a damn what the music was, and I had to live with the contradiction between the music and the lyrics," Merchant told the Chicago Tribune.
The band also changed producers, using Paul Fox instead of longtime Maniacs producer Peter Asher. Fox had made a name for himself in alternative music, producing bands such as XTC and the Sugarcubes. As an outsider, he sensed the need to integrate Merchant with the band.
"He wanted to emphasize the band," Merchant told Billboard. "He wanted to make the band more powerful so that my voice could just find its place on top of that."
Fox also added power to the sound and mix of the record. The James Brown Horns contribute to the funky Candy Everybody Wants, which includes the lyrics: "If lust and hate is the candy, if blood and love taste so sweet, then give them what they want." Said Merchant: "They're not typical pop lyrics, and it's very subversive."
That suits the band just fine. "We wanted to be mysterious and break away from some of the things we've been doing, so people couldn't point their fingers and say it was just another Maniacs record," Drew said. "It felt good. It was a much more open process than the last album."
The old social activism and concern does creep into parts of the album. The final song, I'm Not the Man, is about a Death Row inmate wrongly accused of murder.
"No matter how pleasant my life is, and has become over the years . . . it's important not to escape the fact that so many other people are experiencing pain in their own lives," Merchant told the Chicago Tribune. "Part of my role as an artist is to act as a voice for people who are voiceless."
The rest of Maniacs also have matured. They are in their mid-30s and, except for Augustyniak, still live near Jamestown. The current album's success has reinforced the group's popularity and given it a sense of contentment.
"This is a band that has no need to climb the ladder anymore," Drew said. "I mean, we feel fulfilled. We don't have to take the next step to being bigger rock stars. I'm happy because we're doing what we like and what we want -- making music. The thing most people don't realize is that when you get to this level, it's really hard work. People think we're making tons of money, but we spend a huge amount for production and on recording costs."
The grind takes a toll. "It took us three years to make this record, and after our tour ends this summer, that's going to be it for a long time," Drew said. "I don't know if we'll do a record for another three years."
And what about Natalie Merchant?
"She has most of the power in the band. That's the image, and it'll always be that way," Drew said. "We had to go along with the things that made her comfortable or we knew she might not show up. We feel comfortable doing that, because the music makes it worthwhile."