by: Dean Goodman

In 1980, 16-year-old Natalie Merchant was attending a party where she wandered over to a microphone on a lark, joined the band for a song, and reluctantly gave birth to 10,000 Maniacs. Now, thirteen years later, Merchant and her band are enjoying their first extended period in the glare of the mainstream due to the artistic and commercial success of their fourth album, Our Time In Eden.

In the intervening years, she acquired an image as an ever-so-serious young thing carrying the problems of the world on her shoulder. Now, seemingly accepting fate, Merchant flaunts a wry sense of humor and is not above the occasional self-deprecation.

Once, she was averse to sharing the same breathing space as smokers, meat-eaters, capitalists or other politically incorrect specimens. Now she's just mellowed a bit; yes, Merchant is embodying the "kinder, gentler" credo of her former arch-nemesis George Bush, to whom, ironically, she probably owes a big favor. If Bush hadn't lost the election, she wouldn't have been able to perform To Sir With Love with chum Michael Stipe at the MTV Ball during Bill Clinton's Inaugural celebration. That event was soon trumped when Merchant made the cover of Rolling Stone, becoming a pin-up girl as well as politically-correct role model.

"I was hoping that [Rolling Stone] photograph didn't look anything like me, and that I could walk unmolested along the streets," Merchant laughs. "People think that there's some big event happening that involves 10,000 Maniacs right now because we've been on television a lot, too. It's been good timing, but we couldn't have strategized this." It does help, though, to be promoting a record that's an artistic and commercial success. Our Time In Eden with Merchant's subtle lyrics and ethereal voice caressing charming melodies - definitely qualifies.

Formed in Jamestown, NY, 10,000 Maniacs signed to Elektra in 1984 and spent most of their career on the periphery of stardom. A rather shy and unyielding person at the best of times, Merchant seems to recognize that her cherished anonymity is drawing to a close. Nonetheless, all the publicity does boost one of her claims - that 10,000 Maniacs is not the exclusive property of pointyhead-types among the "twentysomething" crowd.

"The people who like our music range from elementary school all the way up to people in their 50s," she says, and sidetracks into one of her pet peeves - what's wrong with being an intellectual anyway? "There's this weird notion that you should behave as if you don't know as much as you do - or actually degrade people who know more than you - that's swept this nation in the last couple of decades. There was a time when people wanted to excel here, and now it seems like that's frowned upon."

Point made, she gets back on course. "I haven't aggressively pursued projecting an image that would be appealing to someone. I don't know what people want. I'm amazed when I look at the charts [quickly noting that this is very rarely] that out of the Top 100, I'll probably recognize the names of twelve artists, and actually have listened to five of them."

Her feeling that much of today's music is soulless and lacking in substantial lyrics is an invitation to shine the spotlight on her band's own material. "Writing is never effortless for me because I want every single word to fit perfectly - I trim off the excess and keep it as bare and essential as possible. Writing is also very difficult for us as a group, because we're not good collaborators. I think we're much better working independently than together."

There's an uncomfortably long silence when she's asked to describe her relationship with the band, which consists of bassist Steve Gustafson, keyboardist Dennis Drew, guitarist Rob Buck and drummer Jerome Augustyniak, four seemingly good-natured men with definite non-rock star looks and attitudes. "It has a very strong family aspect to it because we all grew up in the same town and we've known each other for so long - we've been together for almost thirteen years - and we've settled into ways of behaving with each other, some of them good and some of them not good, some healthy and some unhealthy. But that's what families are. We try to have moments when we transcend all that when we play music, but I would say our relationship is very, very complicated."

Well, we can't choose our families, but surely we can deep-six our bands? "I don't know if I would call myself a solo artist, but I definitely see myself collaborating with some other people. I have a couple of collaborations that are in the works right now - one is with an extremely talented but touchy person who I have a lot of respect for, and I don't think he'd appreciate me talking about it before it was done."

However, Merchant does admit that it's "a very different, more serious" style than the Maniacs' music. If nothing else, she could always choose an alternative career if she grows too uncomfortable with either band politics or her newfound fame.