by: Lori Buttars

Ask guitarist Rob Buck what it is like to be a Maniac and he chuckles.

He's heard that one before.

But what is it like to be part of 10,000 Maniacs, one of the politically and socially trendy bands of the '90s? After all, he and the other instrument-playing Maniacs seem more than willing to let their singing frontwoman, Natalie Merchant, have the spotlight. And, thanks to a stint at one of Bill Clinton's inaugural balls, the group's message-laden pop tunes are catching on with the mainstream record-buying public.

"Our whole thing has always been to juxtapose the serious lyrics with the pop melodies," Mr. Buck said in a telephone call from Memphis, Tenn. "And as for being political, it's just that now there is an administration that is more aligned with our thinking."

The Maniacs' "whole thing" got its start in Jamestown, N.Y., in 1981. Mr. Buck and one-time radio workers Dennis Drew and Steven Gustafson played together in a bar band called Still Life when they met Ms. Merchant. After hearing her sing at a party, they invited the shy 17-year-old to join the band.

Rhythm guitarist John Lombardo left the group to team with Mary Ramsey. Band members then recruited Jerome Augustyniak and renamed themselves 10,000 Maniacs, a play on an old horror film, Two Thousand Maniacs. [webmaster's note: there is much that is wrong in this paragraph. First, John did not leave the band to work with Mary. He left the band in 1986 and didn't meet Mary until 1989. Second, Jerry did not join the band after John left. He joined the band in 1983. Third, the band did not rename themselves after John left. They chose the name 10,000 Maniacs in 1981.]

Shortly thereafter, things started clicking for the group as Ms. Merchant had a penchant for writing socially topical lyrics that complemented the band's toe-tapping music.

"We'd say, 'Oh, this is so great that this song is so pretty and these lyrics are so depressing, this is genius,' " Mr. Buck said. "It was exactly what we had wanted for the group. We want people to enjoy our music, lure them in and then balance that with lyrics that give them something to think about."

The group members aren't snobs when it comes to qualifying their work, though. The term "pop" does not disturb them.

"Pop is a diverse genre," he said. "It's a conglomeration of all types of music and there's room for everybody."

Utah will get its first chance to sample the group's work live, when the 10,000 Maniacs play the Triad Amphitheatre in Salt Lake City on Tuesday.

The Maniacs made a mild wave on the pop scene in the mid-'80s with the song Like the Weather from their second album, In My Tribe, and then had a disappointing follow-up with Blind Man's Zoo. Mr. Buck attributes the Maniacs' recent recovery, with their third album, Our Time in Eden, to the members' choice to allow Ms. Merchant to steal the show.

The four-man, one woman formula of the band wasn't a conscious decision on the part of the group members, he said. But the extra attention that the media seemed to give it was welcome.

"We actually sat down and made the decision a few years back to make Natalie the focus of the band," he said, dismissing the notion that the group's name should really be Natalie Merchant and the 10,000 Maniacs.

On Our Time in Eden, the group members incorporated all sorts of instruments -- from bassoons to the electric sitar -- to ensure that the band's sound stayed fresh. The James Brown Horns, with their 20-plus years of rhythm-and-blues experience, also were brought onto the project.

The group will recapture the brass sound with a horn section that is traveling with 10,000 Maniacs on this tour.

"This tour might be a little bigger than the past," Mr. Buck said. "It has a more theatrical stage set and we have extra musicians who play with us.

Still, nothing much has changed for the band members, who Mr. Buck said like living on the road.